234 LIFE OF HORACE BENEDICT DE SAUSSURE 



of Mont Blanc [Mont Blanc de Tacul] ; it is not the highest of the 

 isolated chain there is another, reddish in colour, separated from it 

 by the snowfield and hah* buried. I search for lichens and find some, 

 also some moss, a gramen, and a pretty bunch of Silene acaulis. 



' The clouds assembled, or rather scattered, in the valleys and 

 on the mountains below us produce the most singular effect ; they 

 resemble towers, castles, giants, the strangest shapes in place of the 

 level slabs one sees from the plain. Above these clouds we see the Jura 

 bordered by a red ribbon made up of two bands, the lower the darker, 

 almost blood-colour, while from the upper springs a flame like an 

 aurora, irregular, clear, and mottled. From here the top of the 

 Reposoir (the Aiguille Percee) was just level with that of the Jura. 



' Next morning start at 6.15 for the final descent. Pass the cabin 

 built the previous year. Very frail bridge one of the guides who 

 quits our steps goes through with one leg. Slope of 50 to avoid 

 some crevasses that have opened. Then into the thick of the glacier, 

 difficulties in path-finding, wanderings to and fro, ladder frequently 

 in use. I note on the glacier some traces of red snow, but I saw not 

 the least vestige of it above the upper cabin ; the upper snows are of 

 the purest white, and though there is dust in places, it is the grey dust 

 detached by wind from the neighbouring rocks. 



' We saw no insects or flies or birds, the last living thing I noticed 

 was a little grey moth on the first plateau. However, one was seen 

 near the top of Mont Blanc. At last, very impatient of the long 

 march on the glacier, we touch land at half -past nine. Slip of one of 

 the guides, who nearly tumbles into a crevasse and loses one of the 

 sticks of my tent. A great icicle falls with a crash into a crevasse, 

 shakes the glacier, and frightens all my troop. I find M. Bourrit, 

 who hoped to make the ascent, but the guides refuse. Sunday mass 

 and weariness call them home. 



' I descend to Les Monts, where I meet the mules and ride in an 

 hour and twenty minutes to Le Prieure. Great emotion and tender 

 embraces with my wife, my sisters-in-law, and Madame Necker de 

 Germagny [his daughter's mother-in-law]. 



' I am not tired, only a little stiff, and the enormous descent of 

 to-day accounts for that ; my eyes are quite right, and I am but little 

 sunburnt, though the bad condition of the Glacier de la Cote forced me 

 to take off my veil in order to see to my footing.' l 



1 De Saussure paid his guides for the ascent, including J. Balraat, five louia 

 each. In previous years de Saussure in his journal notes that on ordinary 

 tours he paid his guides four livres de Pi&mont a day, withoiit food, which he 

 thought dear. 



