OBSERVATIONS AT THE SUMMIT OF MONT BLANC. 241 



The campaign of 1893 was to be employed in linishing the transpor- 

 tation of materials to the summit and to the building. 



An accident such as often happens on Mont Blanc came near com- 

 promising the whole thing. A large deposit of materials placed at the 

 Grand Eocher Eouge at the beginning of winter was nowhere to be 

 found in the sprin-g. After hunting everywhere it was discovered 

 buried beneath some 8 or meters of snow, and it was a great labor to 

 get it out. 



To facilitate the transportation of the heavier pieces I had invented 

 and caused to be consti^ucted a number of very light winches or wind- 

 lasses, formed of a simi)le frame inclosing the drum and gearing and 

 furnished with rings which allowed them to be solidly fixed in the 

 snow by the aid of ice axes or stakes. 



These windlasses, placed from stretch to stretch on the great slopes, 

 served to tug the sledges bearing materials. 



Thus the workmen were much relieved, and they could mount the 

 greatest slopes, the ascent of which is so laborious and even danger- 

 ous for heavily loaded porters. 



It was a novel thing, and curious, too, to see the great glacier of 

 Mont Blanc, whose successive ^projections looked like the steps of some 

 gigantic staircase, marked with the line of laborers working these 

 machines, which slowly but surely dragged along the heavy loads 

 toward the summit. It was a new kind of undertaking, whose object 

 was not search for material wealth, but the conquest of a station which 

 was to endow science with new truths. 



Meantime materials were accumulating ou the top, and the critical 

 moment was api^roaching when the final eflbrt was to crown all these 

 labors 5 I mean the moment of building. 



Then a gang of the strongest men was chosen — the most habituated 

 to these high elevations. To them were joined the very carijenters 

 who had put the house together at Meudon, and the summit was 

 attacked. 



We were much afraid of the gales and the hurricanes that are so 

 frequent on Mont Blanc; but by an unhoped-for piece of good luck, 

 like a favor accorded to such iierseverance and such efforts, there was 

 a whole fortnight perfectly calm with a temperature relatively mild. 



So the work went on with astonishing celerity, and on the 8th of 

 September the observatory was built, walled in, floored, and its stair- 

 case up. A part of the terrace alone remained in abeyance. It was 

 necessary to go back to finish it. 



Meantime, impatient to see our observatory in i^lace and to make 

 observations there, I organized my ascent. In this second journey to 

 the top we employed windlasses for hoisting the travelers' sleigh. 

 The line being attached to the sleigh, the guides carrying the windlass 

 stretched out the rope and fixed the windlass at a good distance. The 

 windlass, put m place on pickets and solidly bound to ice axes deeply 

 SM 91 16 



