318 Ascent of the Jungfrau in 1841. 
was attempting to portray, when all at once the veil of clouds 
which concealed it from us rose, as if touched by our persever- 
ance, and the Jungfrau displayed itself to our admiring eyes 
in all the beauty of its mighty and majestic forms. I leave 
you to conceive the delight we experienced at this unexpected 
change! If I am not deceived, it somewhat resembles the 
history of human life. 
After ascending for some time in the same direction, we 
suddenly turned to the left, in order to reach a place where 
the naked rock was exposed, thus traversing the inclined sur- 
“face of a semi-cone, the breadth of which, even at this place, is 
many hundred feet. During this short passage the summit 
was concealed from us; and when we arrived at the rocky 
place, we saw, as if by enchantment, at a few paces from us, 
the summit of the mountain, which hitherto seemed to recede 
from us in proportion as we advanced. Of the thirteen who 
formed our party on leaving the cottages of Meeril, eight 
reached the summit. These were M. Agassiz, Mr Forbes, 
M. Du Chatelier, and myself,* aecompanied by four guides, 
* The notice of this ascent in the Parisian journals, cannot but make us 
feel the ignorance and superficiality of the French journalists in regard to 
every thing not comprised within the radius of Paris and its jurisdic- 
tion. The following is the account of it given in the Journal des Debats 
of llth September. “Six travellers, MM. Duchatelet, a young geologist 
of Nantes, Professor Agassiz of Zurich, Professor Forbes of Edinburgh, 
Professor Heath of Cambridge, Etienne Desoer of Liege, and Pury-Shod 
of Neuembourg, ascended, on the 27th of last month, the highest peak of 
the Jungfrau-horn, a glacier of the canton of Berne, the height of which 
is about 2872 French feet. After they had reached a height of about 800 
feet, they were obliged to cut, with a hatchet, steps in the ice to support their 
hands and feet. They were guided in this perilous ascent by six peasants of 
the neighbourhood, who were themselves directed in their march by an oc- 
togenarian shepherd (!) Jacques Leuthold. who had already ascended this 
celebrated mountain three times. On the summit of the Jungfrau-horn, the 
travellers made meteorological observations, and fixed a flag, on which their 
names, and the date of their ascent, are inscribed.” 
I do not know how far it may be permitted to those who believe themselves | 
to have a mission to enlighten the public, to suppose that there can exist in 
our latitudes a place where steps had to be cut in the ice at a height of eight 
hundred feet, and to be ignorant that the Jungfrau is one of the highest moun. 
tains in Europe, and consequently must be more than 2872 feet. (It is 
impossible to suppose this to be a typographical error, on account of the ice 
