Alps

Anniversaries. Conditions abroad have naturally precluded any celebrations, but mountaineers throughout the world should recall that 1940 was the bicentenary of the birth of the Genevese scientist de Saussure, who ascended Mont Blanc in 1787. 1941 is the bicentenary of the arrival of the first Englishmen at Chamonix, Richard Pococke and William Windham, whose names are commemorated on the “Englishmen’s Stone” near the Montanvert hotel. Windham and his brother, when small boys, were given swimming lessons in the Thames by none other than Benjamin Franklin, as recorded in the latter’s autobiography.

In the Eastern Alps, 1940 is the one hundredth anniversary of the first ascent of the Gross Venediger by von Ruthner.