CHAPTER IX 



THE COL DU GANT 



THE concluding sentences of de Saussure's Short Narrative indicate 

 that he was already planning a fresh Alpine adventure. As was 

 usual with him, his main object in the proposed expedition was 

 not exploration or cartography, but scientific and, in this instance, 

 more particularly meteorological research. His stay on the top 

 of Mont Blanc had been too short to enable him to carry out the 

 long list of observations and experiments he had tabulated on 

 his agenda, and until the gaps were filled up he could not rest 

 satisfied. An opportunity now presented itself. The summer of 

 1787 had been marked not only by three ascents of Mont Blanc, 1 

 but also by the opening of the legendary pass from Chamonix to 

 Courmayeur across the lofty ridge that fronts the traveller's 

 eyes from the head of the Val d'Aosta, and forms part of the 

 watershed at the head of the snowy recess known as the Tacul, 

 the source of the southern feeder of the Mer de Glace. 



The climb from the Italian side, though long and steep, offers 

 no serious difficulty, and the crest had doubtless been reached by 

 chamois and bouquetin hunters long before the visit of Patience, 2 

 the innkeeper and hunter of Courmayeur who had once served de 

 Saussure as guide in his excursion on the Miage Glacier. The 

 main obstacle to the passage of the chain at this point lay, as it 

 still does, in the broken icefall below the upper basin of the Glacier 

 du Tacul, known in after years as Les Seracs du Ge"ant. 



The authentic history of the pass begins in 1786. But, like 

 the Fiescher Joch in the Bernese Oberland, it has a legend. The 

 oldest document quoted in its support is an account written by a 



1 Those of (1) the three guides, (2) de Saussure, (3) Colonel Beaufoy. 



2 ' Patience ' was the nickname of Jean Laurent Jordanay. who died in 1825, 

 aged eighty-five. He was often employed by de Saussure, and in the Parish 

 Rogister of Courmayeur his death is entered with a note, ' Guide de M. de Saussure, 

 naturaliste, sur le Mont Blanc.' 



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