96 - THE

moncy for the familics of the victims." [n one of his ballads Schiller says, “The crevasse returns not its prcy ;" but scicence was to prove the falsity of this; for the celebrated geologist, Doctor Forbes, pre- dicted in 1828 that in about forty years from the time of the accident, the grcat glacier where the catastrophe had taken place would give up its dead, and this pre- diction was stnl\m()lx verthed.,

On August 13, 1861, it was the National fete, and the pcupk were leaving thce church where a solemn Mass had been held, when a Chamonix guide, breathless and dust-stained, arrived at the the Mayor, bearing on his shoulders a sack containing a number of human remains. He had found them at the tongue of the Grlacier de Bossous, which streams mto the valley from Mont Blanc. An in- quiry was at once opened, and a medical examination left not a shadow of doubt that the remains were those of the guides who had penshed ina crevasse of the olacier in 1520. The flesh had been so perfectly preserved by the ice that it was lifclike, and a leg of mutton which onc of the threce fltudu had carried, was, when st taken out of the ice, absolutcely sweet and fresh, but on exposurc to the air soon went bad. Somc of the survivors of the catastrophe identified their comrades without any difficulty. In addition to these human relics, their hats and clothes were recovered, also part of a tin lantern, and a wing of a pigeon. Doctor Hamel had taken a cagc of pigeons with him, with a view to liberat- ing them at vartous altitudes. When Doctor Hamel heard that the remains had been recovered, he cynically suggested they should be plctud ma muscum at Lhanmm\ and they would attract thousands of travel- lers to the place. It is ncedless to say this proposal was not carricd out, at any rate not altogether, for all the remains were buried, with the exception of a toot which was plau,d i the muscum at Annccy,

where 1t may still be scen under a glass case. In October, 1824, the mountain was

ascended by Count Henri De Tillv, who had formerly been an officer of dragoons. He had ascended IKtna, and was ambitious of doing Mont Blanc. Ilc succceded, but nanowlv cscaped coming to griel @ as it was, he and his guides sulfu ul very much, aml he had his feet frost-bitten. ISighteen years atter the cate Mmphp of 1820, @ Swiss lady, Mademoisclle D’ Angeville, LZ\})I'USSCLl

STRANLD

house of

AAGAZINE,

a desire to cmulate Marie Paradis’ feat, and rcach the summit of Mont Blanc, Unlike the hardy Marie, who had been

born and rcared am(most th(, mountains, Mademoiselle D' \ncfcwllp was a dclmata, Iragile voung woman, but of a romantic and exditab e temperament. Having re- solved to attempt the ascent she to Chamonix, and changing hecr feminine costume for that of a man started with lour guides, and after tremendous fatigue, whu,h she bmc welly she reached the sum— mit, and there she 111\1sud on her guides hoisting her on their shoulders in oulu that she mwht say she had been higher than Mont ]ng This lady died in 1872, at the age of 62,

At intervals between the date of Made-

motsclle d'Angeville’s ascent and 18z there were various ascents, though nonc very noteworthy. But in the latter year

Albert Smith gained the summit, and after- wards pupu]dnsul——lf he did not vulgarisc —Mont Blanc by his lectures. Three VECArs later - a third woman—an Iinglish lady named Hamilton—climbed the mountain - and two years after that event a Miss For- man ascended m company with her faiher and an 1837 Professor Tyndall added This Hlustrious name to the roll of successful climbers.

The next aceident that took place was that of 1864, when a young porter named Ambrotse Couttet lost his hife through his own stupidity. Refusing to be 10pcd he broke through a crust of snow that covered a profound crevasse, and was never scen again. A\ companion, in the hope of re- covering the body at least, insisted on being lowercd into the crevasse by means ol a rope attached to his waist. He went down for eighty feet, but as there were no signs of the bott()m, and as he was losing brcath, owing to the rarity of the air in the pmlnund clb\ ss of ice, hesienalled to be drawn up, and on mcu,hm() the surface he was oreatly exhausted. A bottle attached to a cord was noxt lowered for over two hundred feet, but without touching the bottom. When 1t was drawn up again it was thickly encased in ice, thercby proving that no hwman being cuuld long survive in that 1cy tomb.

In 1500 the Great Mountain again ex- acted s tribute of victims, but this acci- dent was also duce to foolhardiness. In that year Sir George Young and his two brothers, James and Albert, nsisted on making the ascent without guides. They