120 Dr Barry's Ascent to the Summit of' Mont Blanc. 



.month, or those made at these places on the 17th might liave 

 been added to the above ; perhaps, however, Geneva is too dis- 

 tant a station,* as long ago foreseen by Sir George Shuckburgh. 



Martin Barry. 



Heidelberg, \st of Wth Month, {Nov.) 1834. 



P. S. — Since the above^ I understand that Count Tilly, an 

 Austrian, has ascended Mont Blanc. He is reported to have 

 reached the summit "on the 9th October," i.e. twenty-two days 

 later ; but, I lament to say, it is rumoured that his feet were 

 frozen in coming down. 



the eye, and shaded from the sun as already mentioned. It is a subject for 

 regret, that the suddenness of my journey up the mountain, — tempted as I 

 was, at its base, by the fineness of the season, — precluded me from obtaining 

 additional instruments, with which the data might have been completed, for 

 repeating the calculations of preceding travellers as to the height of ]Mont 

 Elanc. 



" It is a remarkable fact, that the average differences between the mercu- 

 rial column at the Hospice of the Great St Bernard, and that at Geneva, are 

 far from uniform from time to time, although these averages are deduced 

 from observations of twelve months, — a period sufficiently long, one may 

 suppose, to compensate the eflFect of any possible error. I am informed by 

 a relative of mine, that the comparative heights of the mercury at these two 

 stations, for ten years, as given in the Bibliotheque Universelle for 1833, 

 tome i. pp. 27 and 32, if both be reduced to the decimal fractions of a 

 " ligne," appear to be as follows ; their diflTerences, it wlU be seen, inserted 

 n the last column, are not a uniform quantity. 



