218 ANNUAL OP SCIENTIFIC DISCOVERT. 



the disaster, which resulted in the death of his guides, while attempt- 

 ino 1 the ascent of Mt. Blanc, will be read with interest. He says : 



^' When near the Rochers Rouges, my companion H and three 

 of the guides passed me, so that I was now the sixth in the line and 



the centre man. H was next before me, and as it was the first 



time we had been so circumstanced during the whole morning, he re- 

 marked it, and said we ought to have one guide at least between us in 

 case of accident. This I overruled by referring him to the absence of 

 all appearance of danger at that part of our march, to which he as- 

 sented. I did not then attempt to recover my place in front, though 

 the wish more than once crossed my mind, finding, perhaps, that my 

 present one was less laborious. To this apparently trivial circumstance 

 I owe my life. A few minutes after the above conversation, my veil 

 being still up, and my eyes at intervals turned toward the summit of 

 the mountain, which was on the right, as we were crossing obliquely the 

 long slope above described, which was to conduct us to the Mont Mau- 

 dit, the snow suddenly gave way beneath our feet, beginning at the 

 head of the line, and carried us all down the slope to our left. I was 

 instantly thrown off my feet, but was still on my knees and endeavor- 

 ing to regain my footing, when, in a few seconds, the snow on our 

 right, which was, of course, above us, rushed into the gap thus suddenly 

 made, and completed the catastrophe by burying us all at once in its 

 mass, and hurrying us downward toward two crevasses about a furlong 

 below us, and nearly parallel to the line of our march. The accumu- 

 lation of snow instantly threw me backwards, and I was carried down, 

 in spite of all my struggles. In less than a minute I emerged, partly 

 from my own exertions, and partly because the velocity of the falling 

 mass had subsided from its own friction. I was obliged to resign my 

 pole in the struggle, feeling it forced out of my hand. A short time 

 afterwards I found it on the very brink of the crevasse. This had hith- 

 erto escaped my notice, from its being so far below us, and it was not 

 until some time after the snow had settled that I perceived it. At the 

 moment of my emerging, I was so far from being alive to the danger of 

 our situation, that on seeing my two companions at some distance be- 

 low me, up to the waist in snow, and sitting motionless and silent, a 

 jest was rising to my lips, till a second glance showed me that, with the 

 exception of Mathicu Balmat, they were the only remnants of the 

 party visible. Two more, however, being those in the interval between 

 myself and the rear of the party, having quickly reappeared, I was 

 still inclined to treat the affair rather as a perplexing though ludicrous 

 delay, in having sent us down so many hundred feet lower, rather than 

 in the light of a serious accident, when Mathieu Balmat cried out that 

 some of the party were lost, and pointed to the crevasse, which had 

 hitherto escaped our notice, into which he said they had fallen. A 

 nearer view convinced us all of the sad truth. The three front guides, 

 Pierre Carrier, Pierre Balrnat and August Tairraz, beinsj where the 



* ^J * ^j 



slope was somewhat steeper, had been carried down with greater rapid- 

 ity, and to a greater distance, and had thus been hurried into the cre- 

 vasse, with an immense mass of snow on them, which rose nearly to the 

 brink. Mathieu Balmat, who was fourth in the line, being a man of 

 great musr-ular strength as well as presence of mind, had suddenly 

 thrust his pole into the firm snow beneath, which certainly checked the 



