CLOUDS AND RIVERS, ICE AND GLACIERS, 57 



142 e One object of our ascent would be now attained ; 

 for here at the head of the Grand Plateau, and at the 

 foot of the final slope of Mont Blanc, I should show you 

 a great crevasse, into which three guides were poured 

 by an avalanche in the year 1820. 



143. Is this language correct ? A crevasse hardly 



CREVASSE OX GRAND FLATEAU. 



to be distinguished from the present one undoubtedly 

 existed here in 1820. But was it the identical crevasse 

 now existing ? Is the ice riven here to-day the same 

 as that riven fifty-one years ago ? By no means. How 

 is this proved ? By the fact that more than forty years 

 after their interment, the remains of those three guides 



