598 
find he has given a very full account of 
if, as occurring in Mont Breyen, and 
also on the great, St. Bernard. The 
powder or grains penetrate two or three 
inches into the snow, and are of a very 
lively red colour: it occurs chiefly 
where the suow lies in a concavity, it 
is deepest near the centre, and very faint 
pon the borders, as if it had been, car- 
ried down from the edges towards the 
lower parts, by a partial melting of the 
snow. On the return of Captain Ross, 
the residue of some of the red snow from 
Baflin’s Bay, a‘ter the water was evapo- 
rated, was examined, and the substance 
was said to be oily, and the product of 
some yegetable.. Saussure had come to 
the same conclusion in 1788, from a 
series of experiment on forty grains of 
this powder. See Voyages dans les Alpes, 
tom, li. p. 44. to 48. Saussure was in- 
clined to believe, that the red powder 
was the pollen of some alpine plant, but 
it is a subject still involved in obscurity, 
as there is no plant known in Switzer- 
land which yields such a powder. 
CHaMOUNY. 
As the valley of Chamouny is the only 
part of Savoy which is much frequented 
by the English, the two inns lire are 
more like English inns, than those in 
any other part of the duchy; the charges 
are also very reasonable, considering the 
distance from whence most of the articles 
of consumption are brought expressly 
for the use of the company; indeed, they 
are cheaper than in most of the other 
parts of Savoy or in Switzerland, where 
the accommodations are much inferior. 
As the winters commence early, and 
last till late in the spring, there is little 
employment for the men during that sea-" 
son; and the guides being accustomed to 
a wandering life in the summer, and toa 
certain degree of intellectual excitement, 
by associating with well-informed fo- 
reigners from every part of Europe, they 
would sink into a state of torpor, were it 
not for the daugerous resource of gam- 
bling, with which they are said chiefly 
to occupy themselves: in the winter 
months. It would be extremely difficult 
to remedy the evil here; in England the 
substitnte for gambling would be smok- 
ing and drinking, or politics; bat under 
the paternal government of his Sardinian 
Majesty, great care is taken, by the pro- 
hibition of books, that the peasants shall 
neither read, nor think, if it be possible 
to prevent them, The Chamouniards, 
however, from their summer intercourse 
with the world, are less under the influ- 
ence of the priests, and less superstitious 
Bakewell’s Travels in the Tarentaise, §c. 
than the peasants in other parts of Savoy- 
Weasked our guide whether they did not 
amuse themselves with disinal stories of 
ghosts in the winter evenings, to which 
he replied, as if a little piqued, “ Nous 
ne croyons pas aux revenans ict.”—We 
don’t believe in ghosts here. 
GENEVA. 
After leaving our passport at the gate, 
we proceeded along a gloomy street, to 
les Ballances, the principal hotel. The 
next morning I sallied forth to recon- 
noitre the streets in the vicinity; a 
quarter of an hour’s walk brought me to - 
la Place St. Antoine, which overlooks the 
Jake, when I was surprised to discover 
that Ihad made the circuit of more than 
half the city. Geneva had, from my 
earliest recollections, occupied a large 
space ‘in my imagination, as the metro- 
polis of Protestant Europe, placed in 
opposition to the mighty papal Rome : 
I was, therefore, rather disappointed to 
find that this celebrated city covered 
only a quarter of a square mile of the 
earth’s surface, or about four times the 
extent of Russell-square in London. 
Geneva, as a city, possesses few ob- 
jects to recommend it to the notice of 
those travellers who view only ‘ the sur- 
faces of things.” The public buildings 
are devoid of beauty, the streets are 
dull, iand the houses, though lofty, ap- 
pear massive and heavy; they are built 
of sandstone, and covered with dark tiles. 
There has been only one new house built 
in the city during the last forty years ; 
thelfurtifications prevent its extension on 
each side, : 
Many families live under the same 
roof, as at Paris, each family generally 
occupying one story, or what, in Edin~ 
burgh, is called a flat; but, among the 
poorer citizens, one room often serves for 
a whole family. 
The streets of Geneva generally feel 
cold, as from the height of the houses 
the sun’s rays rarely shine into them. 
The number of inhabitants in the city 
is about twenty-two thousand. Before 
the accession of territory, granted by the 
‘allied powers, in 1816, the population of 
the whole republic scarcely exceeded 
thirty thousand ; at present it amounts 
to forty-two thousand, and Geneva forms 
a canton of the Helvetic confederacy. 
Geneva may be compared to a bone 
placed before the mouths ofihree growl- 
ing mastifls, each one ready to seize it, 
but fearing an attack from the other 
two. 
The lower classes of citizens, at Ge-* 
neya, with their wives and children, 
are 
- 
