88 SPARKS FROM A GEOLOGIST'S HAMMER. 



brothers had slid 800 feet to the brink of a vertical 

 precipice of ice. Ov^er this they shot, and landed 50 feet 

 below upon a pile of snow and ice, which carried them 

 150 feet farther. All seemed dead for some instants, but 

 the oldest was only stunned; the second brother w^as both 

 stunned and oppressed by the stupor often experienced in 

 ascending high mountains ; the youngest, however, was 

 lifeless. 



All this was seen from Chamonix. In ten minutes a 

 caravan of eight persons was on its way to the rescue. 

 The next day news came from the Grands Mulets con- 

 firming all that had been apprehended., The tw^o surviv- 

 ins[ brothers had arrived there at nine o'clock in the 

 evening, the younger blind. A storm coming on, an- 

 other caravan set out to rescue the first, and, at a later 

 hour, still a third. The first rescuers had become envel- 

 oped in a blinding storm, and could not pick their way. 

 They had reached the region of imminent dangers, and 

 dared not advance. One of the following caravans found 

 them on the brink of that terrific precipice, 500 feet high, 

 which stretches from the Mont Maudit to the Rochers 

 Rouges, known to the guides as the Grand Pente. All 

 arrived safely at Chamonix after the storm, bearing the 

 body of the unfortunate youth, whose neck had been 

 broken in the terrible glissade.* 



From these narratives it appears that the great dan- 

 gers of the ascent lie between the Grand Plateau and 

 the summit, and that they consist of five classes: 1. Pro- 

 tracted snow-storms accompanied by severe cold. 2. The 



* For the particular? of this and other catastrophes occurring previous to 

 1869 1 am indebted to the admirable Guide Itineraire c(u Mont Blanc, by Ve- 

 nance Payot, naturalist, at Chamonix For particulars of later accidents I 

 have consulted Durier's Histoire da Mont Blanc. 



