166 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



after years we shall find that the Corner Glacier and the great 

 ring of peaks round Zermatt, the scenery of the Vispthal and of 

 Val d'Aosta call forth no expressions of enthusiasm. The Matter- 

 horn draws but one short descriptive sentence from its literary 

 discoverer. Either de Saussure had little eye for landscape, 

 except as a key to geological problems, or, as is more probable, he 

 deliberately abstained from interrupting his geological notes by 

 picturesque word-pictures. That he was capable of appreciating 

 the more romantic aspects of nature is shown by his description of 

 the sunsets seen on the Col du G6ant, and from the base of the Aiguille 

 du Grouter. But such indulgences to his readers were reserved for 

 rare occasions and granted only under extreme provocation. 



The Voyages, as I have indicated, record only a portion of de 

 Saussure 's Alpine experiences. There were other tours, and of one 

 of the most notable, that of 1777, de Saussure 's manuscript 

 journal has happily been preserved. It records at some length 

 his excursions in the Bernese Oberland, but is unfortunately 

 meagre as to the return through the Orisons. De Saussure 's first 

 object was apparently to investigate the reputed rival of Mont 

 Blanc the Schreckhorn. He accepted the popular derivation 

 and meaning of its name the Peak of Terror. 1 



In 1777 de Saussure commenced his tour of the Oberland at 

 Lauterbrunnen. In that village he could get no guide but a lad 

 too young even to act as porter, so he sent his servant with the 

 luggage round by road while he walked over the Wengern Alp. 



1 The occasion tempts me to insert a few lines on the mountain nomenclature 

 of the Bernese Oberland. It is obvious that at least in one group the names 

 attributed to the peaks show an imagination hardly found elsewhere in the Alps. 

 The peasant, as a rule, fixes on some obvious characteristic : colour the Red Horn 

 or the White Horn; or shape the Broad Horn, the Upright Needle (the Dru, 

 corrupted at an early date into Aiguille du Dru) ; or situation the Aiguille 

 d'Envers (the Needle at the Back), corrupted into Aiguille Verte. Bordier (p. 

 198) in 1773 wrote of ' le Dru.' This was probably the original local form. The 

 first instance of the substitution of Aiguille Verte for Aiguille d'Argentiere 

 that I have come across is in 1786, in the manuscript journal of an Englishman 

 named Brand. See Mr. Coolidge's paper on the peak names in the Mont Blanc 

 district in the Annuaire du Club Alpin Suisse, vol. 38. But in the range above 

 the Vale of Lauterbrunnen we find the Jungf rau (the Virgin) supported as in an 

 altar-piece by the Black and White Monks, while the Eiger stands in attendance 

 on them like a giant St. Christopher. These are the summits visible from Inter- 

 laken, and there can be little doubt that their names are due to the poetical 

 imagination of the inmates of the two religious houses long established there. 

 The remaining peaks of the Oberland bear names of the usual obvious character 

 the Wetterhorn (the Peak of Storms), round which the clouds gather, the Finster- 



