The Third American Ascent of Mont Blanc

(George W. Heard, Jr.—1855)

The manuscript which follows is the earliest hitherto unpublished account of an American ascent of Mont Blanc. Its author (1837-1905) was, in 1855, the youngest man ever to have attained the summit, and the first American to repeat the feat (1857). (For portrait, certificate and other details see A. A. J., ii, 365 ff. ; A. J., 48, 142.) Heard was an amateur artist of some ability, and, from the time of his student days at Geneva, made a practice of sketching above the snowline, a series of his drawings being in the possession of the American Alpine Club, one of them being used to illustrate the present narrative. His sketch of the Matterhorn, dated 1856, is almost photographic in accuracy, in this respect antedating Whymper by several years.

We are also fortunate in being able to present a photograph of the climbers in Chamonix at the time of the 1857 ascent, an extremely early date for a paper print, and interesting in showing the equipment used at that period, including the ancient type of ice-axe, with halberd blade, carried by the leading guide. The narrative of the 1857 ascent will be published in a subsequent issue of the Journal.—Ed.

My dear parents—Geneva. August 30th, 1855.

As it is a rainy day & I can't go out, I think I may not do better than employ my time in giving you a history of my last week's tour which may interest you to read, & it will moreover do me good by refreshing my recollection of things & places.

On Monday Aug. 13th I left Geneva en route for Chamouni, with Chapman a young Englishman of 17 yrs just from Eton, fearless & always ready to attempt difficult things & therefore a good companion for a dangerous excursion like the ascent of Mt. Blanc. As I have been over this road before & have described it in a former letter, I will simply add that we arrived at 6 o’clk. & took a double room at the Hotel Royale. The next day we had designed to go to the Jardin (about which hereafter) but the weather being extremely clear & fine, we determined to ascend the Brevent, a mountain of 8500 ft. high, lying directly behind Chamouni, & in ascending which good weather is all important. This mountain commands a view of the entire chain of Mt. Blanc from one end to the other, & being directly before the “monarch” himself, you can see everything on it with great distinctness. When you are at Chamouni the summit of Mt. Blanc is so distant that you cannot realise the immense height of it; but when you are on top of the Brevent & see the village far down below you, & then look up at Calotte of Mt. Blanc, almost 8000 ft. perpendicularly higher than the spot whereon you stand, you begin to get some idea of the tremendous size of these mountains: the proximity of the Brevent to the mass of Mt. Blanc is so great that every peak & glacier can be distinguished with the utmost clearness, & also every pasture & chalet (chalets are the cottages & cabins of the mountain peasants & shepherds) on the mountain side, which lies between the dark pine forests below, & the eternal snow above. After enjoying the view here for some time, we descended about a third of the way and then crossed over to a place called Flegere, a spot on the same mountain noted for its fine views. It is 4 or 5 miles from the place where we left the regular path ; the way we took was not the usual track, & we were obliged to pick our way over loose stones, through bushes & over little torrents that come rushing down from the heights above, occasioned by the melting of the snow & ice on the summit. At last we arrived there & dined. From no point near Chamouni are the remarkable groups of Aiguilles so well seen as from this, while at the same time you have a better view of the Mer de Glace for 6 miles or more up the valley in the mountains ; but such is the vast size of the objects around that the distance is very desceptive & you always underestimate it.

From the Flegere we descended to the road & ascended on the Mt. Blanc side to the Chapeau, as it is called, a spot visited simply for the sake of seeing the Mer de Glace where it becomes the Glacier du Bois, which suddenly descends to the plain, from which cause the glacier breaks up into pyramids & obelisks of the most fantastic appearance.

Some of these obelisks are eighty or ninety feet high, clear and of a deep blue color. Here you frequently see avalanches & the ice crags, no longer able to support their vast weight, being undermined & worn away by the streams which underdrain the glacier, fall over with a frightful crash. Leaving the chapeau, we continued up the side of the Mer de Glace over the confused debris of rocks & stones brought down by the glacier from the surrounding mountains. We walked here about 3 miles & then crossed the Mer de Glace without accident & arrived at Montenvert which I described in the letter I wrote you immediately after returning from my trip with Mons. Briquet.1 Here we slept during the night. Now this days work is not inferior, I think, to any we did. It was our first days walk, & I had had a complaint which sometimes troubles me, & therefore was not quite so robust as usual : the guides told us that it was never done except by the best walkers, & was upwards of 40 miles, rather beating the walk I took to Salem & back with E. C. a few days before I left home, don’t it?

At the Montenvert we found a Frenchman & his lady who were going to ascend to the Jardin the next day. After supper we, guides & all, went to another house near by where there was an immense open fireplace & a merry great fire blazing cheerfully, & gladdening the hearts of all who saw it. It was quite cold, albeit in the middle of August, when you were probably wiping your faces & drinking ice water, we found this fire extremely comfortable. Here we remained an hour or two, talking in French & speculating on the weather we should have the next day & listening to the stories & adventures of the guides. The Frenchman’s wife was very amusing & droll, & a very pleasant companion— she took a cigar with her husband & smoked as though she had been long accustomed to the practise, but to C. & myself the sight was novel & singular.

The next morning we started at half past 6, to penetrate somewhat the heart of these enormous mountains, to witness scenes of the most savage wildness & solitude, which forever reign there : some parts of the ascent are exceedingly difficult & dangerous.

In the midst of the snow, ice & huge rocks is a green island of grass & small shrubs, an oasis in a desert of snow & ice, which in August is covered with beautiful verdure & flowers:—this spot is a delightful one, surrounded as it is with everything that is barren, frigid & unfruitful. It was here while lying on the soft grass that we first thought of ascending Mt. Blanc, the summit of which we could clearly see & which was as bright as silver. The idea seemed to have been suggested to both our minds at the same time, for when I said, let’s ascend Mt. Blanc, the instantaneous answer was —“agreed.”

The matter being settled, we descended at once to Chamouni. Now I must make a short digression. When I was at this place before with Mons. Briquet, I made the acquaintance of a man by the name of Balmat,2 nephew of Jacques Balmat who first ascended Mt. Blanc in 1786: he had a son in America, & learning that I was an American he became interested & we had a very long conversation about the States, his son there, Mt. Blanc, &c. When I left him he told me that whenever I was at Chamouni I must come & see him, & that if he could render me any assistance at any time, he should be very happy to do so : formerly he was quite a guide himself & he accompanied Prof. Forbes in all of his excursions, but meeting with an accident he gave up the business. I mention this because he was of great service to us. I went to see Mons. Balmat & told him our intention, on our arrival in Chamouni at this time ; he received me very kindly & advised us in what to do & what to take, & did everything for us in his power : he selected & engaged our guides, & consulted with Mons. Couttet & Cachat,2a two of the most experienced; and if one had been a year in preparing, we could not have had things better arranged than we did under his direction during the evening previous to our starting : as you may well imagine the friendship & kind offices of a man like Balmat were not to be slighted, & I was incessantly congratulating myself in having been so fortunate in making his acquaintance: he had been four times to the summit of Mont Blanc, & was familiar with the most dangerous passes in the Alps.

Owing to my excitement & thinking of the scenes that would commence with the following day, I slept but little that night. We got up at 6 o’clk, had a fine breakfast & went & found that Mons. Balmat had everything ready ; as it is hard work to eat much when one is at a great elevation in the mountains, I took the precaution to make a hearty breakfast. All things being ready we started at 8 o’clock Thursday morning Aug. 16 & moved out of Chamouni amidst the shouts & applause of the spectators, who had assembled to witness the departure of our caravan, which consisted of Chapman & myself, besides a chief guide, 8 guides, four each of us, 2 volunteer guides, & 8 porters, each guide having a porter as far as the Grand Mulets, as it is called, about 9000 ft. high, making in all 21 persons. It must be confessed that with our ropes, ice axes, alpenstocks &c., &c., we made quite a formidable appearance, while our porters were loaded with sacks of bread & cheese, cold meats, kegs of drinkables, tea. coffee, prunes, wax candles, & a multitude of little necessary articles crowded into knapsacks ; all looked as if the excursion was not an every day one, but something more serious & dangerous that we were commencing. Each guide has his partner as far as the resting place for the night, to carry luggage, in order to preserve his strength as much as possible for the hard work of the next day, so we made a pretty good sized company for two such youngsters as we were.

We wound along through the meadows at the base of a mountain until just to the left of the little village of Bosson, when we commenced an ascent. It led at first up thro’ a gloomy forest of pines, & emerging at length from this we found ourselves directly under the base of the immense Aiguille du Midi (about 13,000 ft. high) when the ascent begins to be excessively steep and laborious. Here we crossed the glacier de Boison at the junction of another glacier called the glacier de Taconey. The first two or three hours climb altho’ very steep has nothing remarkable in it, except you notice your ascent by the decreasing growth of vegetation. You leave the little hamlet of Boison with the singing of birds & the hum of insects in your ears, the air around being filled with the odor of the hay & flowers : as you gradually ascend, these things, one after another, all disappear: the plants grow more dwarfish, the pines more stunted, & the whole aspect of nature more sterile, until there is nothing before you but naked rocks & snow & ice, except here & there a tuft of grass or moss shows itself between the rocks, while higher up the arctic lichen is the only thing of vegetation to rest the eyes upon, and all around is a dead silence.

This is a region of complete desolation; no animal intrudes upon it, & while a chance insect may sometimes be seen, only the scantiest lichens appear on the rocks around. After about three hours climbing, we arrived at what is called the Pierre à l’Echelle, an immense rock which in some former period in the world’s history had probably been detached from the mountain above. We are now 4000 ft. above Chamouni. Here we remained to dine & rest & then got ready for the more serious & difficult business. The Moraine or outside of the Glacier du Bosson must now be crossed before fairly entering upon the snow & ice of Mt. Blanc amidst which we must remain for so many hours. The Moraine is formed as follows : the glacier is continually moving onwards & its edges are constantly rubbing against the sides of the mountain, and by the destructive agency of freezing & thawing, it is always detaching stones & dirt & often immense rocks, some weighing hundreds of tons which falling on it are carried along at the same time ; this confused mass of ice & rubbish, increasing from year to year forms an uninterrupted line from top to bottom. Crossing this moraine is a work of some difficulty, & called for the best use of ones eyes, hands limbs & feet; a careless step or slip would probably be attended with some serious injury: as soon as you get over this, you are on the Glacier itself, & nothing is to be seen around you but snow & ice. At first we got along very well, but as we advanced, the crevasses became wider, more irregular & difficult to cross. The glare of the sun from reflection was terrible, & the heat was most oppressive. Most all the party had recourse to green veils & green spectacles to defend the face & eyes. I tried them at first, but gave them up, preferring injury to my complexion rather than to pitch unwillingly into a crevasse !

Here some of the crevasses were very uninviting & require a good deal of nerve to cross. I will try to describe one of the worst we have to encounter, tho’ I am well aware that no description that I can give will convey a correct idea of it. Its general width was about 15 or 16 ft., I should think, in the centre of it there shot up a pyramid of ice about 3 feet wide on the top (see illustration). It was necessary to jump on top of the pillar, & from that across to the opposite side. The danger was you might jump too far, in which case you would fall into the hole beyond, or not far enough, in which event it would be equally disastrous. To make it more fearful you could hear the streams of water which underdrain the glacier, splashing along, & sounding like the slight muttering of distant thunder in the recesses below, all of which gave you a timely intimation of what would become of you if you fell. I must say that I felt very nervous at this place, & I had strong doubts as to the legitimacy of our present adventure, but as I have too much of the “mutare vel timere sperno” feeling about me to retreat, I determined to try it at any rate.

I struck exactly in the centre of the column of ice, & without daring to stop, I followed it up with another tremendous leap, which would have done credit to a harlequin, I fancy, and landed safely on the other side.

I think this was the most dangerous place we met with, because every thing depended solely on yourself, & no one could help you at all, as there was only room enough for one on top of the pyramid. I doubt if I could do it again.

A short time after this we had to pass a place where the position of the ice was something of this form. An immense crag shot up some 20 or 30 ft. over your head & overhanging a crevasse more than one hundred feet deep. There was only room enough to pass by placing one foot precisely before the other, & you were obliged to bend over the crevasse a little to avoid striking your shoulders against the ice above. As I am not subject to vertigo or dizziness, I could not refrain from stopping when half way over, to look down into the crevasse under my feet. You could see the dark chasms extending far down & away under the ice where you are standing, with immense ice caverns & pillars covered with frost & icicles, dark blue as far as the light can penetrate the ice, shadowing off into boundless gloom where it cannot.

Generally the crevasses are not very unlike. Over some of them we found natural bridges of snow & ice, that assisted us in crossing very much. The chief guide could go ahead, & with pole & ice-ax test their strength, & advancing cautiously, never leaving one foothold until sure of the next, & when once across assisting the one behind, & so on until all were over. But it was somewhat startling to find the bridge sometimes give way under a vigorous punch of the pole, & a few seconds after hear the broken pieces of ice crash against the sides & splash into the streams below : the only way one had of judging of the depth, by the interval which elapsed between the crash & striking the water, if indeed you could hear it at all !

At 2½ P.M. we arrived at the Grand Mulets. This spot is not usually reached until 5 o’clk., but our guides say that we walk much faster than parties commonly do. Chapman explains it by saying that one of us being an American goes ahead & does things quicker than other folks, while the other being an Englishman, would not be beat by a Yankee! this is logical isn’t it?

The chain of rocks called the Grand Mulets is about 6000 ft. perpendicularly lower than the summit of Mt. Blanc: the guides say that the name is derived from a fancied resemblance at a little distance, of one end of the chain to a mule’s head & of the other to his tail, but I could not perceive the likeness. As soon as we arrived here we gave our porters some refreshment & sent them back to Chamouni, & then began to get ready for the night. Formerly there was no shelter at the Mulets, & you were obliged to encamp in the open air; but a few years since a kind of hut was built for the accommodation of those who ascend Mont Blanc. It was made at Chamouni, then taken to pieces, every board numbered, and then 150 guides carried up a board at a time on their shoulders & put it up. It is about 20 ft. long & 8 ft. wide, with a board running between the end posts for a table, & another round the sides for seats ; it has also a small stove & iron kettle : for fuel you must carry up your wood, & for water, melt the snow & ice.

Our guides immediately got a fire going & a kettle of snow melting to make tea & coffee. I went outside & getting on top of one of the crags where it was smooth, I endeavoured to get asleep, & actually succeeded in having a short nap. The rock was warm from the rays of the sun, & so I was quite comfortable.

Soon however I went inside & found the party as merry as crickets & stowing away supper in a manner marvellous to behold. Owing to a little trouble to which I have before alluded, I ate but very little, & drank a bowl of tea & afterward some wine of the country, unlike ours, but weak somewhat resembling claret. Here we were 10,000 ft. high having a jolly time; our guides could sing capitally & all were in fine spirits.

After a while I went out to see the sunset & close of the day, which was indescribably beautiful. I lay outside in a cranny of the rocks, with a big coat over me, for more than an hour. We had day light long after everything was dim & dusky in the twilight in the valley below : we could see it mount up gradually till at last it left us. The dim twilight seemed to bring the gigantic mountains nearer around you, & increase their tremendous size, while the dead silence of the scene rendered the dreary solitude much more impressive & awful, silence broken only by some laugh inside the hut, the ear could catch nothing save the resounding crash of some toppling ice crag as it fell on the glacier we had just crossed, or the dull roll of some unseen avalanche.

As I lay here my thoughts ran homeward across the Atlantic, & I wondered what you were doing there; familiar faces seemed to be looking down at me out of the sky. It seemed as if I could see father reading the evening paper & mother sitting on the sofa, knitting and every now & then stopping to think of her chickens so far away from the maternal wings, & I started when I thought where the youngest of the brood was at the moment, 9 to 10,000 ft. higher in the air than you were. & several thousand miles away in a foreign country. I was just thinking of uncle Aug. sitting in the little chair before the fire “toasting” his feet, & alternately raising one on top of the other, as he found the fire too hot, while every now and then his head falling back with a short jerk in a quiet snooze, when my reveries were cut short by a guide, who told me I must come inside & get some sleep.

The guides here are omnipotent, & I was obliged to comply. Chapman was asleep already on the floor with a knapsack under his head, and placing myself at his side I succeeded in dropping off, & was soon wandering in the “land of dreams, less dreamless than the reality.” About 11½ o’clock P.M. I awoke thinking an avalanche was coming down, but it was “but the wind” blowing with regular Alpine freedom, & making noise enough to frighten a caravan. It was our intention to have started at midnight from the Grand Mulets, but the wind made this too dangerous, so we were obliged to wait until 2½ A.M. when there was a lull in the wind & enabled us to get under weigh. I got up & found everything ready, & all were eating as much as they could ; the guides pressing me to eat, I succeeded in swallowing the wing of a chicken & drank some tea.

Everything was now left at the Grand Mulets, not absolutely necessary. I obeyed gladly the order to increase my clothing : I put on three pairs of flannel drawers, & two thick flannel shirts, a heavy pair of pants & a pair of thick gaiters, coming up from the feet to the knees, a big pair of fur gloves on my hands, a Scotch cap on my head, a thick pair of shoes, the soals of which were fitted with nails to hang on the ice ; thus you have my rig for the remainder of the ascent.

Well at 2½ o’clock Friday morning we started from the Grand Mulets all tied together—13 of us with a lantern directly in front of Chapman & myself carried by a guide just ahead of us.

Our order in the march was as follows. First went the chief guide, then directly behind him came the next best & strongest guide, then myself and four guides after me, then came Chapman & three behind him; the best & most powerful guides being always in front & rear of Chapman & myself : we were all tied together, as intervals of two or three yards between each individual.

Of the first part of our ascent there is little to be said ; we skirted along the immense fields of snow that were too steep & difficult to mount straight, walking slowly & with great attention to our feet ; sometimes we had enormous crevasses near, on one side & deep precipices on the other, either of which awful enough to make one shudder to look down into them. In case anyone makes a misstep or slips, everybody stops with their alpenstocks firmly fixed in the snow, so that by their combined weight they can hold him. The Alpenstock is a staff 6 ft. long with an iron spike on one end, & usually some little ornament at the other. Walking on & toiling up these eternal mountains, I did not give much attention to views, my serious & undivided care was given to the observation of my predecessor’s heels, & I was completely absorbed in the steady & sole purpose of placing my feet in the holes just vacated by his. On we struggled & toiled nearly up to our knees sometimes in loose powdery snow, & at others crossing places where your foot made no more impression than it would on stone, and the wind blowing so violently that it was difficult to withstand its force. Every now & then we came to immense crevasses, & were obliged to find a passage, sometimes by natural bridges of snow & ice & at others by leaping ; the guides ahead giving a great pull the moment you jumped, thereby assisting you to clear them. But the principal crevasses start from a part of Mt. Blanc called the Dôme du Gôuter, & thence yawn open in front of the prominent resting places ; there are three of them, called the Grand Plateau, the petite plateau, & another after mounting the Mer de Côte about which hereafter. These plateaus are huge basins where the snow pours down from the mountains, fills & overflows. These crevasses are crossed in the same way as the others, except the one in tront of the Grand Plateau : this was a fearful one. The guides wandered about in search of a passage, now thinking that they had found one & then finding it was impracticable. ; they had a consultation, & we decided to try the passage by a narrow bridge of snow a foot or 14 inches wide at most, & about 10 to 12 ft. long. In the dim light of the morning it was impossible to see the depth of the gulf, tho’ when we returned we had a good opportunity to do so.

The chief guide went forward cautiously, the rest holding back firmly to check him with the rope in case he fell. What rendered the moment more full of anxiety was, that if we could not pass by this place, we should have been obliged probably to return, as it would have been impossible to remain there until daylight should come to aid us in finding a better passage, on account of the cold which now was excessive. At last he got over safe, & then the next guide followed, & I him & so on until all were over, when the chief guide again pushed onward.

As soon as you cross this crevasse there comes a hard scramble up the face of a precipice, and the grand plateau is gained : in going up this precipice you have the certainty of falling into this crevasse in case you slip. Before you reach this place you begin to be affected by an awful thirst, & here travellers usually experience difficulty of breathing & other troubles from the rarification of the air. You are now about 14,000 ft. high. For a long time my mouth was excessively parched ; at the petite plateau we stopped a few minutes & I moistened my mouth with a little tea. Oh what a drink that was : spirits & wine tasted like fire, but this miserable cold tea was worth its weight in gold. We rested at the grand plateau about 10 minutes ; I was obliged to keep moving about all the time to keep warm, & to work my feet inside my shoes continually to keep them from freezing. Here we opened a bottle of artificial lemonade to drink—and wasn’t it good? It was at this place that one of the guides began to be sick & complain a good deal; he begged lustily for two minutes of sleep, which of course were denied him, for if he once got asleep, he would never wake again, but freeze to death. We started again & crossed the grand plateau which is about 3 miles in length. On its surface are some very wide & difficult crevasse, but it is quite level & that is very important : and altho’ quite easy of transit, yet it is one of the most dangerous parts of the ascent, on account of its crevasses being partially covered with snow, and you might pitch into them unawares. However, we got along very well & without any accident. The mountains close around it in a sort of semicircle and launch their avalanches into it continually. All along on the right side of the valley enormous masses of ice leaned out from over the precipices, with long fingers of icicles & huge cornices of snow threatening to fall every instant, & hanging in such nice balances, it is said, that the “disturbing vibrations of a whisper might bring them down.”

It was here that the fearful accident happened in 1820 when three guides were overwhelmed by one of these avalanches falling & hurling them into abysses, never more to be heard from. You may believe that we did not make much noise as we passed under them.

To show you how much two of our guides, who were esteemed very skilful, knew I have to mention a fact. At this point in the grand plateau there are two ways by which the summit of Mt. Blanc may be reached, one much shorter than the other, & much more dangerous ; this one leads to the right. On arriving at the place where the way divides, the guides consulted on the choice to be made: they concluded to take the left, as there was too much danger of avalanches by the right. When we returned we saw that there had been two large ones since we passed them in the morning, and had we taken that rout, probably the noise we should have made in passing under them, would have brought them down on our heads : so much for having good guides.

Of the rest of our ascent the worst part is the terrible Mur de la Côte. It is a precipice of ice excessively steep, and you are obliged to cut your steps up the whole of it, one notch for your hand & another for your foot, and slow tough & dangerous work was the ascent. The wind too blew extremely strong & was so piercingly cold, it went thro’ my flannel clothing as if it were paper, and was so violent that every now & then we had to stop, & then move on in the lulls, while it seemed as if it would take you off your feet, & the little hard granulated particles of snow, more like hail than anything else, peppered me in the face till it felt as if it was full of needles.

I began to suffer a good deal from the rarefaction of the air here ; my mouth seemed as if it was full of sand, and my tongue was very much parched & dry. My head also was very much affected, feeling as if there was a cord drawn very tightly around it, with knots cutting into my temples & it ached intensely, & besides all this there was a sensation of dryness perfectly indescribable. But I was determined to reach the summit or die in the attempt. Here the guide, who had begun to complain before, gave out & was completely done up ; I did not see him again until we got down to the Grand Mulets. At last we arrived at the top of this place & got a moments rest, but no sleep, which seemed to be something worth selling a birth right for.

The guides would not allow it, & would shake you & do all sorts of things to keep you awake : I took pieces of snow and rubbed my eyes to keep them open, & found it served better than anything else. Our chief allowed us to rest here but a few minutes, and in fact as soon as we could get breath we were anxious to move on again, as it was excessively cold, & the wind seemed to go through you like a knife.

And now for the calotte of Mt. Blanc. “His great white glistening dome.” I believed we should be successful & my spirits rose accordingly : but this last climb we were to have was more dreadful than any that we had had before. There was nearly a thousand feet in height to accomplish, and where every foot-step must be cut in the ice, one notch for each hand & one for each foot, the labor was very severe. A single misstep on the “glistening dome” would have hurried you to inevitable as well as invisible destruction. It was so steep that the guide ahead of me had his foot on a level with my head, & we could not take more than eight or ten steps without stopping to get breath. It was precisely the same thing as when to have been running very fast & hard, & then stop ; you know how difficult it is to breathe fast enough. I thought I never should get air enough to supply my lungs, and I could almost hear my heart beat as it struck against the side of my chest, as with the force of a trip-hammer, and my head ached as if it would split. I have been told since, that I was in great danger of breaking a blood vessel under such circumstances.

It seems to me that I must have slept in going up the last few minutes, for I recollect perfectly looking up to the top which was some way above me, & I don’t remember anything more till the chief guide seized me by the hand with, “Courage my friend, we are at the summit of Mont Blanc!” and I looked up, & the next moment I stood on the “stainless summit of Europe” and threw my puny shadow on the very crown of the “Monarch of mountains,” the only American,3 it is said, & the youngest man who had ever been there except my companion, he being seventeen & I eighteen years old.

But I must confess that when I first reached the top I was not in much of a mood for sentimentalising. I could scarcely breathe. I threw myself down on the snow & with my head resting on my hands between my kness & almost gasping for air, and I can’t say that the rest were in a better condition, all being in about the same state. As for Chapman, during our ascent of the Calotte, he had to be assisted & lifted along. However in ten minutes we were both of us all right, and having recovered my breath I was no more tired than when I left the Grand Mulets—I mean I was not leg weary at all, but had a general feeling of lassitude. I can only explain it by my being so much excited that it took away all sense of fatigue.

The top may be 300 ft. long & 150 ft. wide; but the ridge itself instead of being round, is as sharp as the back of a horse. On the north side, towards Switzerland, the air was intensely cold, & the wind was so strong that we could scarcely stand against it, while on the other side, towards Italy, 20 ft. below the ridge, the weather was warm and comfortable. Well, here we ensconced ourselves, and the guides got out our refreshments. We had a bottle of champagne to drink Mt. Blanc’s health & our own too : as soon as we cut the wire that held the cork in, the cork, without waiting for the strings to be cut, started off without ceremony in a bee line for the higher regions, & for aught I know, is going yet, for I never saw it come down again,

We left the Grand Mulets at 2½ A.M. and at 20 minutes after 9 A.M. we stood on the summit, thus taking but seven hours for making the ascension from the G. Mulets : this is better time than has usually been made by other excursionists. We stayed on the top 30 to 40 minutes, but from very inconvenience we might have tarried longer.

There was not a cloud in the sky as “big as a man’s hand,” & the atmosphere was perfectly clear—the guides said we were remarkably fortunate, & that we might have made the ascent an hundred times without such success as we had in every respect, and as to the view from the summit, no words or description can convey any idea of it. “It was worth a life to see.” That which most impressed me was the awful dead silence all around. The air was so rare & afforded so little resistance that when you spoke, your voice sounded as weak as a child’s.

The sky was all black:—we had approached, as it seemed to me, so near the outside of atmosphere that envelopes the globe, that we could see through the remainder into the black limitless void beyond. The sky was cloudless but ebon black, & I was very sure that I could see the stars shining in it, but I attributed this to the affects of fatigue in my head, but since my return, I have seen some account of another party who observed the same thing, so I am quite sure I saw them. You can’t imagine what my feelings & impressions were as I stood on this spot. Almost the first thing I thought of as I reached the summit was how little you at home would imagine where not on but above the earth, your youngest boy was! How often from Geneva, 60 miles distant, had I looked at this “vague misty, spiritlike shape of lightness far away,” little thinking I should ever stand there. But I had toiled & toiled in light & darkness by menacing rocks, over fearful crevasses, beneath overhanging precipices, and avalanches, along fields of snow & up walls of ice & at last I stood in triumph on the summit itself of Mt. Blanc ! the toil forgotten, but the victory never will be.

I thought of Jacques Balmat, the first man who had ever ascended it, & what must have been his feelings as he stood alone on this unearthly spot, on June 9th 1786,4 kept up by the brave heart within him, & with the consciousness that he was the first of men who had dared to defy the tempests & dangers, & mark out the route to the summit of Mt. Blanc amidst these terrible & unexplored regions of snow & ice. When I see now from Geneva, “high over the gigantic Mountain Wall of Savoy to the south, & behind which peak after peak seem to pierce the sky & prop up the heavens—beyond & above all these, a spirit like shape of dazzling white—mystic & wonderful, brighter than the brightest cloud, and though seemingly suspended high in air, perfectly motionless,” when I see this, I can scarcely believe that I have actually been there & stood on the silvery summit of “Europe’s peerless peak.” It seems more like a dream, & yet we found the way thither any thing but a dream.

It was curious to look down on the Dôme du Gôute far below us—the dome which from the height & advanced position seems from Chamouni to be the highest in the chain & towering above the calotte of Mt. Blanc : as to the Brevent of which I spoke in the early part of this letter, it looked like a mere ploughed ridge.

Away to the East stretched a succession of aiguilles & domes in countless numbers. In our immediate vicinity were the Aiguilles du Midi, Blatiere, the Grand Jorasses, the Charmoz, & across the Mer de Glace, the magnificent Aiguille Verte, fenced round with all its inferior needles, but none of which aspired to the height of Mt. Blanc. From these succeeded domes & spires in an almost unbroken line till they ended in the gigantic pyramid of the Matter- Horn, and Monte Rosa with her three peaks but a few hundred feet lower than Mt. Blanc.

To the North West, the Lake of Geneva showed itself, shining between the mountains, & far beyond, just on the horison, were the Jura mountains & the numerous hills of France. Just think what a stretch of vision ! looking one way to see distinctly the country near Basle, then turning round to see as distinctly the blue plains of Alexandria & Marengo, & nearer than either the dark valleys & pastures of Aosta. I tried with all my power to see the Mediterranean, but could not do it, tho’ one of the guides said he could. I have no doubt that the ray of vision extends over the M. but the Maritime Alps intervene to hide that which would otherwise be visible.5 But I can give no idea of the view and I may as well stop at once. Not more than twenty four or six hours ago, our gaze was simply round the rocky walls of Chamouni—now we had a “comprehensive view” of Switzerland, parts of France, Lombardy & Piedmont, and were looking down from our snowy eminence into Italy the land of the “sunny vine.” After another long, lingering look from this mountain point upon the wonderful landscape around & beneath, we began our descent.

Many places require as much, if not more care in descending than ascending, but as a general thing, we accomplished in minutes what required hours before. It was difficult & dangerous in some places, where it was ice & no footholds, and very amusing in others, where the snow was soft, and with our alpenstocks behind us, as rudders, we would shoot down long descents with tremendous speed.

Then, sometimes the whole thirteen of us, all tied together, sitting down in the snow, would get under way, setting up a shout, would shoot down hundreds of yards like a steam engine : there was one place which we were an hour & half in ascending that occupied but five minutes to go down. It almost took my breath away to go so fast, but it was splendid as you can imagine. At length we arrived at the Grand Mulets three hours after leaving the summit, where we stopped to rest & get some refreshment. We remained here about an hour, & then collecting everything we had left in the

morning, we recommenced our descent ; we arrived at the Cascade des Pelerines, at the base of the mountain near the place where we began our ascent, and rested another hour. After this we walked into Chamouni about 6 in the evening as safe & sound as when we started. The people fired a salute of 12 guns, & all hands turned out to see us. We were the lions of Chamouni that night.

Two of our guides were so exhausted that they were unable to reach the summit, & one of them complained bitterly the next day of the effects of his exertions : this was one of the volunteers whom I forgot to mention before : he gave out at the back of the Calotte of Mt. Blanc, & we picked him up on our return. We had a good night’s rest and the next morning I felt as well as I ever did, & have not experienced the slightest ill effects of the excursion.

We spent the day in looking round the village, collecting our bills & in settling the affairs of the trip. In the evening we gave our guides a dinner, as is customary, and a grand one it was : the keeper of the hotel was so much pleased that he gave each guide a bottle of the best Burgundy. We invited several to dine with us, & of course Mons. Balmat ;—we were a merry set, I don’t mean we drank so much wine as to make us so, which was not true, but we had a real good-natured festivity. There was a French gentleman at Chamouni, who was engaged in some scientific investigations among the mountains, who has been very kind to us before we started, & got us several little things. We invited him also. He came & we found him a very agreeable companion : to our surprise we learned afterwards that he was the Duke de Brabant,6 eldest son of the King of Belgium & heir apparent to the throne. After dinner the chief magistrate of the place (here calles syndic) came & took wine with us.

Some persons, interested in the occasion, brought a cannon near the hotel & fired it frequently during dinner & so we ate amidst what a Fourth of July orator would call, the “thunder of the artillery & the applause of the surrounding spectators !”

You have now a long account of my ascent of Mt. Blanc, & you may get from it a general idea of the toils & perils, as well as the pleasures & gratifications attendant upon it. I am aware that you may be anxious for my safety if I continue to run such risks, & so to put you at your ease I will say, that now I am perfectly content with

the climbing I have had, & shall be careful in future to avoid such dangers. I have returned to Geneva & am hard at work again at my studies, and so ends the history of this (to me) eventful week. Yours as ever

Geo. W. Heard, Jr.

Mt. Blanc is 14,760 ft. French, or 16,092 feet English in height.

When a person ascends Mt. Blanc it is customary to give him a certificate that he has done so, signed by the guides & countersigned by the syndic, or head man of the place, drawn up by the Town clerk. The following is a literal translation from the French of the one I received:

We the undersigned, all guides of Chamouni, certify & attest, to all whom it may concern, that on the 17th day of August 1855, we have accompanied Monsieur Geo. W. Heard Jr. of Boston U. S. a young man of 18 years of age & Monsieur K. A. Chapman, Englishman of 17 years of age, in making the ascent of Mt. Blanc.

That these gentlemen without having experienced the least difficulty, whether on account of the rarefaction of the air, or on account of the cold, which was very intense, have attained the summit of this giant of the Alps, also all the caravan at nine o’clk & twenty minutes A.M. having only taken seven hours for making the ascent from the station of the Grand Mulets to the very summit.

The undersigned make it their duty to attest that it is the first time it has been done with success by persons of their age.

At 6 o’clk. in the evening of the same day all the caravan made their return to Chamouni safe & sound without having experienced the least accident.

In witness whereof we have signed our names.

Coutet Jean Couttet Solomon

Couttet Simon Charles Mich. David

Cachat Gachiere Pierre Simon Frierre Michael Chalat Julien Bossenger Chief Guide

Seen by the Syndic of the Commune de Chamouni for the “legalisation” of the signatures above in attestation of the veracity of every thing preceding. Aug. 18th 1855.

Alf. Charlet. (Seal)

1 Possibly the M. Briquet who, with M. Maquelin, ascended Mont Blanc from Courmayeur, July 18th, 1863.

2 Auguste Balmat (d. 1862). Not only had he assisted Prof. Forbes and led Alfred Wills on the first ascent of the Hasle-Jungfrau (Wetterhorn) in 1854, but also acted as escort to Empress Eugénie when she visited the Mer de Glace in 1860. For portrait, see Whymper’s Guide to Chamonix.

2a Probably Joseph-Marie Couttet and Cachat-le-Géant.

3 Heard was unaware of the American ascents by Howard and Van Rensselaer in 1819, and by Talbot in 1854, but is correct in stating that he was the youngest person to reach the summit.

4 The first ascent was made with Dr. Paccard, August 8th, 1786.

5 Capt. Undrell had reached a similar conclusion in 1819.

6 Duke of Brabant (1835-1909), became Leopold II in 1865.