MONTE ROSA 271 



pertinacious in his questioning of the wonderful invaders of his 

 remote bye -corner that de Saussure lost all patience and sought 

 hospitality farther on. 



Of the head of Val Sesia we are told little ; the travellers' 

 attention was concentrated on the local copper-mines . They seem 

 to have gone as far as Alagna and the base of the Tagliaferro, but 

 de Saussure fails to notice the splendid aspect of Monte Rosa. 

 On the top of the Col de Val Dobbia (8134 feet) they were surprised 

 to find a substantial shelter in which they could make their 

 observations. 



Their next halting-place, where they found good lodging, was 

 one of the hamlets of Gressoney, at the head of Val de Lys, the 

 stream of which flows into the lower Val d'Aosta. The upper 

 portion of the valley contrasts with Val Sesia and Val Anzasca in 

 its more open, pastoral in a word, Swiss character. Emigrants 

 from the northern slopes of the Alps found here a landscape that 

 might remind them of the region they had left. The Lyskamm, 

 which, as its name denotes, closes the view, shows as a snowy 

 hummock, with none of the imposing grandeur of the precipices of 

 Monte Rosa. Thence they proceeded to the chalets of Betta 

 in order to climb a summit one of the many Rothhorns (9834 

 feet) on the spur of Monte Rosa west of the Val de Lys, which 

 promised a good view of what de Saussure calls the outside of the 

 cirque of Monte Rosa. He was struck by the contrast between the 

 easy snow-slopes above the Lys Glacier and the cliffs of the eastern 

 face opposite the Pedriolo Alp. But his climbing ambition does 

 not seem to have been excited. He listened with critical interest 

 to the legend of the discovery of a lost valley which had reached 

 as far as Turin. A party of peasants had eleven years before (in 

 1778) claimed to have climbed to a point which is identified as the 

 Lysjoch, and seen beneath them an oasis of green pastures without 

 trees, houses, or cattle. They thus held for some years the record 

 of the highest ascent in the Alps (14,033 feet). On a second 

 occasion they failed hi an attempt to descend the glacier on the 

 north side. Had they done so they would undoubtedly have 

 reached the Riffel Alp. The lost valley was obviously the head 

 of the Vispthal. De Saussure, however, supposed it might be the 

 Pedriolo Alp ; a conjecture which a better knowledge of the details 

 of the crest of Monte Rosa would have shown him was improbable. 



