ASCENT OP MONT BLANC. 69 



reaches the head of Glacier de Taconnay ; then, looking 

 up the mountain, scales the " Petites Monties," or Lesser 

 Ice-Cliffs, and reaches the Little Plateau ("Petit Plateau ''), 

 which is succeeded by the Middle Plateau (Plateau du 

 Milieu). From this, deflecting slightly to the left, he 

 proceeds to climb the Grandes Monties, or Greater Ice- 

 Cliffs, which brings him to the Grand Plateau. From 

 here are three routes. The old one leads directly toward 

 the dome of Mont Blanc; another turns to the right, to- 

 ^ard Dome du Gouter, and thence, by the Dromedary's 

 Hump, to the Summit. The third, and most frequented, 

 turns to the left, and, leading up the terrible ascent of 

 the " Grande Pente," brings him to the Corridor, thence 

 past the Rochers Rouges, the Petits Mulcts, the Mur de la 

 Cote and the North Calotte to the summit. 



The feelings which this scene inspires almost force our 

 attention from the relative positions of localities. It is 

 not alone as students of geography that we gaze upon 

 the vast panorama of mountain and glacier which spreads 

 before us like a map. If we have souls still blessed with 

 the power of communion with the soul of Nature, they 

 swell with the inspiration of the scene. It is not alone 

 the ragged outline of the precipice or the grandly sinu- 

 ous form of the stream of ice which occupies our atten- 

 tion, but even more than these, the spirit and meaning, 

 nay the divine revelation breathed by these gigantic forms, 

 which absorbs chiefly the attention of the beholder. One 

 inhales the spirit which moved Coleridge when he penned 

 the '* Hymn in the Vale of Chamonix.'' 



" Ye ice-falls ! ye that from the mountain's brow 

 Adown enormous ravines slope arnain. 

 Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty voice, 



