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Sierra Club Bulletin 



mile of tunnel. One night a German patrol got inside the French 

 lines, threw a lot of gas-bombs down the ventilators of this tunnel, 

 and gassed 400 Cochin-Chinese troops who were coming in to re- 

 lieve the French troops. Of these 240 died. This was a ghastly 

 night's work. 



After leaving the Saddle, the line crossed the splendid canon of 

 the North Fork of the Fecht. The terrain here is very wild and 

 rugged and about half of it is timbered. A fine automobile road 

 from Munster winds up this canon to the Col de la Schlucht (Ra- 

 vine Pass), and thence down, past Lake Longemer, to Gerardmar 

 City and lake. This route is considered one of the most picturesque 

 of the Vosges. 



After crossing the North Fork of the Fecht our line continued on 

 generally north, through the friction-points of the Geisberg and Le 

 Linge, to the small stream flowing east from Le Lac Blanc. Here it 

 joined on to that of the French troops in the Bon Homme Pass sec- 

 tor. The country north of the North Fork of the Fecht is more open 

 and not as beautiful as the other parts of our sector. Here, too, a 

 long tunnel had been constructed to conceal the movements of our 

 troops to and from the front. Many acres of timber had been de- 

 stroyed in this neighborhood by shell-fire. In the vicinity of White 

 and Black lakes the country is very rugged, and these bodies of 

 water resemble some of those of our Sierra Nevada. I am not a good 

 enough geologist, however, to say that they are of glacial origin. 



The road leading down to these lakes from the pass in the main 

 ridge was bombarded daily by the Germans. My car, which was 

 a Winton-Six, painted black, once broke down on a slope of this 

 road visible from certain observation stations within the German 

 lines. It took my chauffeur about five minutes to get the engine 

 started again. To me it seemed much longer. Fortunately the Ger- 

 man observation was defective that morning and we got started be- 

 fore they opened fire. This road, torn by shell-fire and fringed here 

 and there with timber, dead or dying from the same cause, is one of 

 the few inhospitable and forbidding spots associated with my recol- 

 lections of the Vosges. 



As stated before, the advantageous terrain at certain friction- 

 points was held by the Germans, and we were forbidden to attempt 

 to dislodge them, as eventually this would have involved a major 

 operation, and General Foch did not want to have his plans of 



