232 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



cost me, caused me a kind of irritation. At the moment that I trod the 

 highest point of the snow that crowned the summit I trampled it with 

 a feeling of anger rather than of pleasure. Besides, my object was 

 not only to reach the highest point, I was bound to make the observa- 

 tions and experiments which alone gave value to my venture, and I 

 was very doubtful of being able to carry out more than a portion of 

 what I had planned. 



' Still the grand spectacle I had under my eyes gave me a lively 

 pleasure. A light haze suspended in the lower layers of the atmo- 

 sphere hid, it ie true, the more distant and low-lying objects, such as 

 the plains of France and Lombardy, 1 but I did not greatly regret this 

 loss ; that which I came to see, and now recognised with the greatest 

 clearness, was the order of the great ranges of which I had so long 

 desired to ascertain the grouping. I could hardly believe my eyes, 

 it seemed a dream, when I saw under my feet these majestic peaks, 

 these formidable Aiguilles du Midi, d'Argentiere [Aiguille Verte], 

 du Geant, of which I had found even the bases so difficult and dan- 

 gerous of approach. I seized their connections, their relation, their 

 structure, and a single glance cleared away doubts which years of 

 work had not sufficed to remove.' [Voyages, 1991.] 



It is noteworthy that de Saussure, bent as he was on a crowd 

 of scientific inquiries and hampered by physical discomforts, 

 was yet able to appreciate the splendour of the spectacle. For, 

 despite its frequent disparagement by more or less exhausted 

 tourists, Mont Blanc offers to those who have eyes to see a unique 

 panorama. On the east the great group of the Aiguille Verte and 

 Grandes Jorasses presents in the foreground a noble and imposing 

 sheaf of summits : beyond, the forested slopes and green alps of the 

 Valais separate the peaks of the Oberland from the Pennine snows ; 

 to the south the depths of Val d'Aosta, seamed with a thinnest 

 ribbon of straight white road, divide the Grand Combin and Monte 

 Rosa groups from the silver shield of the Ruitor and the sharp 

 spears of the Graians. Away to the south-west the golden cornfields 

 and green meadows of the Val d'Isere above Grenoble bask in 

 the midday sunshine, fenced by the distant crags of Dauphin^. 

 Turning towards the north-west the heights of the Jura lie like a 

 blue ribbon across the landscape, separating the Swiss lakes and 



1 No part of the plain of Lombardy or Piedmont is visible from Mont Blanc, 

 nor is Mont Blanc seen from the Piedmontese plain. The Grand Paradis is often 

 taken for it. The mountain is well seen from the railway near Macon. 



