2 MONT BLANC. 



1787, and it has been several times accomplished since, particularly by 

 Mr. Auldjo, very recently. 



Although it is scarcely six miles and three quarters in a straight line 

 from the priory of Chamouni to the top of Mont Blanc, it requires, 

 nevertheless, eighteen hours to gain the summit, owing to the bad roads, 

 the windings, and the great perpendicular height of the mountain. To 

 the priory the journey was free from danger, or even difficulty ; the road 

 being either rocky or covered with grass ; but thence, upwards, it was 

 wholly covered with snow, or consisted of the most slippery ice. The 

 ice valley on the side of the hill must be passed, in order to gain the 

 foot of that chain of rocks bordering on the perpetual snows which 

 cover Mont Blanc. The passage through this valley is extremely 

 dangerous, since it is intersected with numerous wide, deep, and 

 irregular chasms, which can only be crossed by means of bridges, 

 naturally formed of snow, and these, often very slender, extended as it 

 were over an abyss. The difficulties they had to encounter in this 

 valley, and the winding road they were obliged to take through it, 

 occasioned their being more than three hours in crossing it, although in 

 a straight line its breadth is not above three quarters of a mile. 



After having reached the rocks, they mounted in a serpentine direction 

 to a valley filled with snow, which runs from north to south to the foot 

 of the highest pinnacle. The surface of the snow in this valley has 

 numerous fissures, and when this is broken perpendicularly, affords 

 an opportunity of observing the successive horizontal layers of snow, 

 which are annually formed. 



The party passed the night at a height of 3,100 yards above the 

 priory of Chamouni, and 4,250 yards above the level of the sea, which 

 is 200 yards higher than the Peak of Teneriffe. They dug a deep hole 

 in the snow, sufficiently wide to contain the whole company, and covered 

 its top with the tent cloth. In making this encampment, they began to 

 experience the effects of the rarity of the atmosphere. Robust men, to 

 whom seven or eight hours' walking, or rather climbing, were an 

 absolute nothing, had scarcely raised five or six shovels full of snow, 

 before they were under the necessity of resting and relieving each other 

 almost incessantly. One of them had gone back a short distance to fill 

 a cask with some water which he had seen in one of the crevices of the 

 snow, but found himself so disordered in his way, that he returned 

 without the water, and passed the night in great pain. The principal 

 inconvenience which the thickness of the air produces, is an excessive 

 thirst. They had no means of procuring water but by melting the enow, 



