MONTE ROSA 277 



De Saussure had no difficulty in bringing forward facts to 

 prove the contrary. It is interesting to note how nearly he came 

 on this occasion to realising the power of the glacier as an agency 

 of transport. He appeals to the blocks brought down on the ice 

 from its source to the lower ground, and to the moraines which 

 let loose their missiles on the traveller's path, ' not, indeed, at 

 Tubingen, but beneath the Glaciers de Miage and des Pelerins. 

 There is not a single inhabitant of the Alps who disputes the 

 movement of glacier ice, and the ephemeral doubt raised by this 

 author will pass away as the ice melts when its advance brings 

 it to a temperate climate.' Here we see de Saussure on the 

 brink of a discovery which would have radically affected his 

 Theory. Wise after the event, we wonder how it came to pass that 

 his reason did not carry him on to inquire whether the erratic 

 blocks of the Jura and the moraines of Ivrea, features on a larger 

 scale, but bearing the same general aspect, might not be the result 

 of similar causes, and to recognise that there had been periods of 

 glacial extension in the history of our globe of which they were 

 the authentic and obvious monuments. In patience and accuracy 

 of observation, in honesty and deliberateness in drawing conclu- 

 sions, de Saussure was supreme. But in readiness to discard the 

 theories of his predecessors, in quickness in drawing novel but 

 legitimate inferences from the facts before his eyes, his intellect, it 

 must be admitted, lacked the illuminating flash we term genius. 



The travellers spent two hours in geologising on the rocks near 

 the top of the pass before they pursued the descent in the direction 

 of Val d'Ayas until they came to a spot where their mules could 

 find sufficient pasture. Here they made what de Saussure calls 

 a ' jolie halte.' The phrase may recall to readers of that delightful 

 work, Topffer's Voyages en Zigzag, a passage hi which the Genevese 

 schoolmaster dilates on the pleasures of roadside halts in pedestrian 

 tours ; of the interludes in which the traveller enjoys momentary 

 release from toil and mingles memories of past pleasures with anti- 

 cipation of those still to come. 



Val d'Ayas did not offer much of interest . At St . Jacques , where 

 they found lodging, they were entertained with tales of recent 

 robberies. The proprietor of a gold-mine which de Saussure had 

 hoped to examine declined to admit visitors. The prevalence of 

 goitres and cretinism among the inhabitants of the lower portion 



