172 Mr F. Clissold’s successful Ascent of Mont Blanc. 
66 The sky was without clouds ; the sun, which had risen be- 
low our horizon, deluged with light the region from which it 
seemed to issue, and in the direction of which we could distin- 
guish nothing. Every where else we perceived a vast number 
of summits, some covered with shining ice, others more or less 
rent and threatening : others, again, of roundish forms, and co- 
vered with pasture. Jura bounded the horizon in the N.W. ; 
more to the north we saw the lake, but not Geneva. To the 
S.E. the eye penetrated beyond the Plains of Lombardy, as far as 
the Apennines, which bounded the horizon in the form of a blue 
line, or of the dense fog of a winter’s morning. The sun, both 
at setting the preceding evening, and at rising in the morning, 
seemed more or less enveloped in this vapour. I had brought 
no instrument with me but a thermometer. At sun-set the 
day before, near the Rocher Rouge , it was at 26° Fahrenheit. 
We forgot to observe it when we set out in the morning ; but 
Coutet, who is used to make observations at great heights, thinks 
that the cold exceeds 18° Fahrenheit. But on the summit at 
eight o’clock ; at the Grands Mulets , the[day before, at nine ; and 
the Grand Plateau , the same day, at three ; lastly, at the Grands 
Mulets next day (Tuesday, about three in the afternoon) ; — 
at all those stations the thermometer observed by Coutet, and one 
at four or five feet from the ground, stood at 70° Fahrenheit. 
“ During our stay on this singular belvedere , some of the 
guides picked up specimens of the highest rocks near the sum- 
mit, which I brought along with me. After stopping three 
hours on the summit, where I felt myself very comfortable, 
except that I had lost my appetite since leaving the Grands 
Mulets , though the guides had preserved theirs, we set out 
for the purpose of descending. It was half past eight o’clock. 
At eleven, we came to the Grand Plateau , and at half past 
one to the Grands Mulets. When we arrived there, we heard 
something like the rolling of thunder, which was nothing but 
the noise of an enormous avalanche, which was seen from the 
Col de Balme , to cover a part of the space which we had crossed 
in our descent. A few hours sooner, and we should have all 
been enveloped and destroyed. 
« We quitted the Grands Mulets at three o’clock, and at 
half past three were beyond the region of the ice. We arrived 
