240 MEMOIR OF DR. HARVEY. 



To the Same. 



Trinity College, October 21, 1852. 



I find the days and nights too little for my work at 

 present, having two folks pulling at me, and having to leave 

 home again in a 1 week, to give lectures in Clonmel, all which 

 cuts up my time for gossip to a minimum. 



I suppose you know we have been to Switzerland, and how 

 we attempted to climb Mont Blanc, but came back next day 

 from the Grand Mulets like drowned rats, beaten on every 

 tack. Wind and weather assailed us, and we had to retreat. 

 Our first misfortune occurred in crossing the glacier below the 

 Mulets. Here you know the ice is very much crevassed, and 

 the traject is made by many zigzags along narrow ridges of ice, 

 and by jumping ice-ditches, or crossing them on ladders. We 

 were well in the middle of this work, when we had a storm of 

 thunder, lightning, and hail, after which time fine moments 

 were the exception, stormy ones the rule. We continued, how- 

 ever, to advance to the Mulets (at 11,000 feet). These you 

 know are a rather steep ridge of tall black rocks standing in 

 the middle of the glacier. Here were our quarters for the 

 night, on a shelf just big enough to hold the four of us, with a 

 wet blanket to sit on, and an old tablecloth stretched over our 

 heads. Above was the cold sky, from which we were favoured 

 with rain, hail, snow, and vapour at various intervals during the 

 night. When morning rose, we found nothing but dense 

 clouds in every direction, and as we could not go on, we were 

 forced to go back. Hardly had we set out when the cloud 

 changed to heavy rain, unabated during the whole of our way 

 back to Chamounix. So much for all I shall probably ever see 

 of Mont Blanc. Our partv were Hooker, Thomson, J. P., and 

 W. H. H. 



Of course we left Chamounix next morning, route by Mar- 

 tigny, Vevey, Berne, Thun, to Interlacken, where we left the two 

 ladies, and set off for a fortnight of walking. From Lauter- 

 brunnen we crossed the Ischingel glacier to Kandersteg — a 

 glorious walk, but rather fatiguing, it being one of fourteen 

 hours, four of which were in heavy snow, and two others on a 

 moraine of loose sharp stones. But the scenery repaid the toil . 

 Then by the Gemini to Leuk, and so on to Zermatt at the foot 



