8 Account of ajourney to the 
freezing. Our faces pained us almost intolerably—our eyes 
were so inflamed that we could scarcely distinguish an ob- 
ject at the distance of a few feet—our fingers and toes were 
nearly benumbed—and the whole system disordered, not 
so much from fatigue as from a strange influence of tlieate 
mosphere. 
Early on the morning of the 13th we began the labor of 
ihe last day’s journey. Our path had been partly lost in 
an avalanche, and partly dissolved in the melting sun of 
yesterday—and we followed the track of the Chamois, that 
has never been known to err. With much difficulty could 
we discern our way, as we were nearly blind—the crape and 
gogeles we had worn the day before, were now of no avail. 
We happily quitted the ice soon after the sun shot its first rays 
on the mountain we had left—having been forty-five hours on 
the frozen surface. Happy were we all, when arriving again 
at the woody region, we heard the tinkling of the herd—we 
reposed a few minutes in the shepherd’s hut—and arrived 
at Chamouny at 10 o’clock. 
We went immediataly into a darkened room—and after 
washing in cream, went to bed, but not to rest. Our eye- 
lids were glued together, and our faces entirely blistered. 
When the sun was down, we rose for a few minutes—and 
again lay down. Our fatigue overcame our pain—and ex- 
hausted nature sunk to sleep :—we awoke in the morning 
much refreshed—so that on the 14th we came to Geneva in 
a darkened carriage. The skin has fallen from our faces, 
which are now, though raw, much better—the inflammation 
of the eyes is subsiding, but still troublesome and confines 
us to the house. 
The minute and accurate observations of Mons. de Saus- 
sure have left but little for future travellers. Huis genius for 
a time seemed to reside in the Alps, and it was his delight 
to stand in reality or in imagination on those elevated sum- 
mits from which the world seemed to lie below him. His 
daring spirit led him to climb the most difficult and danger- 
our points—and it was on one of these, the Col de Geant, 
that m 1788, he passed fifteen days in performing a series of 
physical and meteorological experiments of the most inter- 
esting nature—at the elevation of 10,578 feet above the sea. 
His researches on the different summits are of the same 
kind, and have been found accurate by the test of succeeding 
