00 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



the brink of a precipice, fortunately without breaking the instru- 

 ments it carried. The gloomy situation of "the huts of Chapieu 

 so much affected the Genevese servants who accompanied the 

 party that they laid a plot to force him to give up the Col de la 

 Seigne and go round by the Little St. Bernard. He admired the 

 splendid view through the pine stems of the precipices of Mont 

 Blanc as he passed the foot of the Brenva Glacier. At Courmayeur, 

 where he found a good inn and bathing guests, he would have 

 liked to spend more time, but his companions were impatient, 

 an incident which led him to reflect on the advantages for a 

 student of solitary travel. The party returned by the Great 

 St. Bernard to Martigny and the Lake of Geneva. 



Two months later, in October 1767, de Saussure's elder 

 son, Nicolas Theodore, destined to be his father's companion 

 and the sharer of his scientific tastes, was born. 



