ASCENT OF MONT BLANC. 21 



The traveller who lias only seen the Mer de Glace 

 can form no idea of the terrific beauty of the upper 

 part of the Glacier des Bossons. He remembers the 

 lower portions of the latter, which appears to rise 

 from the very corn-fields and orchards of Chamouni, 

 with its towers and ruins of the purest ice, like a 

 long fragment of quartz inconceivably magnified ; and 

 a few steps from the edge of Montanvert will show 

 him the icy chasms of the Mer. But they have little 

 in common with the wild and awful tract we were 

 now preparing to traverse. The Glacier des Bossons, 

 splitting away from that of Tacconay, is rent and 

 torn and tossed about by convulsions scarcely to 

 be comprehended; and the alternate action of the 

 nightly frost and the afternoon sun on this scene 

 of splendid desolation and horror, produces the most 

 extraordinary effects. Huge bergs rise up of a lovely 

 pale sea-green colour, perforated by arches decorated 

 every day with fresh icicles many feet in length ; 

 and through these arches one sees other fantastic 

 masses, some thrown like bridges across yawning 

 gulfs, and others planted like old castles on jutting 

 rocks commanding valleys and gorges, all of ice. 

 There is here no plain surface to walk upon; your 

 only standing-room is the top of the barrier that 

 divides two crevices ; and as this is broad or narrow, 

 terminating in another frightful gulf, or continuous 

 with another treacherous ice-wall, so can you be slow 

 or rapid. The breadth of the crevice varies with 



