T7ie Story

By J. L.

“ Nont Blanc is the Monarch of Mounuan: They crown'd him long ugo On a throne of rocks, in a robe of elouds, With a dindem of snow.” — Dy RoN,

“ Far, far above, piercing the infinite =k, Mont Blane appears—-still, snowy, and serene - Its subject mountains their une: wrthly forns Pile round it, ice and rock. — SHELLEY,

HICRIC are higher mountains, and ruggocder mountains, and mountains more ascent than Mont Dlanc : but there 13 never a mountain i the wide world with such a

story as that which will for all time

cling to the * Monarch "—a story that 1= at once grim, tragic, pathetic, and cven comi- cal ‘md ab.xuul - story, too, m which love

and heroism play a strange part ; and 1

the annals of science no mountain occupies

such a distinguished place. Mont Blanc falls far short of other mountains as regards height—~CGaurizankar,

strange

of ]

Muenbock, |

ditlicult of

in the Himalavas, for

[ont Ilaic. CR.GLS.

Mont Blane 15 known. At what period thiz name was first bestowed upon it 1= not very clears Certamly 1t was not so called i the fifteenth and ixteenth centuries. In an atles by Mcercator, published i 1393, there = mention of the village of Chamo- nix, but Mont Dlanc and 1ts satellites are ~stmply referred to under the general term of v Glacters.” One grows dumb as he thinks of the thousands of and tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands,

and perhaps millions of years that the miehty dome of eternal snow has dominated the valley where Chamonix now stands. How small and paltry seem the affairs of man when compared with such an enduring monument of God’s handiwork ! As far hack as the tenth century we read that a Priory stood at the toot of Mont Blanc,

CHAMONIX.

istance, being 29,000 ft. But, i this, it has been aptly styled Llu Monarceh of I\Tmmtams, and 1t well deserves the proud distinction, for it is unique, and proudly soars to the sky-—

“In the wild pomp of mountain majesiv.”

Men and women from all parts of the world have come to pay it homage, and

wherever there 1s civilisation the name ol

1ospite of

The valley at that time was wellnigh in- accesxible, and tor hundreds of vears the Priors holy brothers were undisturbed by the roar of the outer world, which reached not their solitude where the mighty mountain reigned supreme and changed not, though generation after generation of men came hom the dust, ]1\(,d ther and then went down mto the dust again, and 1 oa little while were te mcmhuul no