50 



PEOF. E. HULL^ ON GENEVA AND CHAMOUNIX 



Discussion. 



The Chairman, in expressing the pleasure with which he and all 

 those present had had in listening to Professor Hull's interesting 

 paper, said that his recollections went back a great deal further even 

 than those of the reader of the paper. In his opinion the modern 

 traveller by railway sustained an enormous loss in missing the view 

 obtained by the old traveller by diligence from the crest of the Jura 

 at such a place as the Col de la Faucile. 



Mr. W. H. HuDLESTON, F.E.S., said that the paper was extremely 

 interesting to him, not only because it was in accordance with his 

 own views, but also because it served to remind him of his 

 •experiences in Switzerland, which coincided to the very year with 

 these of the author. 



Now it so happened that he (the speaker) towards the end of 

 •January, 1852, arrived at Geneva in the banquette of a diligence 

 {siimmd dilifjenfid, as they used to say in those days), but clouds and 

 darkness had prevented him from enjoying that famous view. 

 Nevertheless, as he was spending the remainder of the winter at 

 Geneva, there were plenty of opportunities, and he chose one bright 

 frosty day for the ascent of the Col de la Faucile. Surely there is 

 no grander view in Europe. From the snowy foreground of the 

 Jura you look down upon the broad vale of Switzerland with its 

 cities and villages, and above all, its glorious lake, the whole bounded 

 on the opposite side by the still more snowy ranges of the Alps, ever 

 increasing in height until they culminate in the chain of Mont 

 Blanc. Professor Hull had estimated the extent of this view at 

 50 miles, hnt he (the speaker) thought that it might possibly be 

 even longer. The only view which could compare with this one is 

 the view from the heights above Baramula, looking across the Vale 

 ■of Kashmer, with the Wular lake in the middle towards the chain 

 of the centi'al Himalayas. There is considerable analogy between 

 these two celebrated views, and he thought that the Alpine one 

 would lose nothing by comparison with the Himalayan. 



He was much interested in the contrast drawn by Professor Hull 

 between the Geneva of to-day and the Geneva of fifty or sixty years 

 ago. From an Aesthetic point of view the change was by no means 

 an advantage. In the early fifties Geneva was a very picturesque 

 old town, symmetrical, and for the most part within its fortifications. 



