PREFACE TO THE FIRST EDITION. IN offering the following pages to the public, the author disclaims any desire to put himself forward as an aspirant for literary distinction. The peculiar nature of the work, and the circumstances which have given rise to it, are the best apology he can make for its now appearing in print; nor does he mean to urge the trite and puerile plea of his having been importuned by friends to give to the world a production, of which, in their partiality, they happened to approve. At the time the author succeeded in achieving the ascent of Mont Blanc, he had no intention to publish any account of the enterprise; nor did he prepare any materials for appearing before the public in the character of a tourist; but on returning from the mountain, and while the impression produced by the scenes he had witnessed, and the perils he had escaped, was still fresh in his remembrance, he committed to paper some memoranda of the particulars for his own satisfaction, as well as to gratify some friends who he knew would take an interest in the narrative, merely because it was his. On a subsequent perusal of the accounts given by those who had preceded him in the ascent, he found the appearances observed by each to differ in some degree from those noticed by the others, and none of them exactly to correspond with his impression of what he had himself witnessed. It therefore appeared to him, that a work of circumstantial detail, but without any ambitious pretensions to scientific research, might still be acceptable to the public; and with that view he drew up the present Narrative. He found, that although the labours of De Saussure, and other succeeding observers, had left nothing new to be explained to the scientific world with regard to the mineralogical formation of the mountain, or its height, or the atmospheric phenomena observable in its ascent, yet the topography of that portion of the Alps, and of the peaks and glaciers which surround the "monarch of mountains," as well as of the beautiful valleys which are spread out beneath, was but imperfectly described; and he conceived that some information and illustrations worthy of notice remained to be offered to the English reader, and to the future traveller. He therefore collected in Switzerland the most interesting views of Mont Blanc and the scenes in its vicinity, and with these he combined a few sketches of the most striking objects which excited his attention, and of some situations in which, together with the guides, he found himself placed in passing the glaciers. These form a series of lithographic embellishments, executed by artists of the first eminence; and the author has endeavoured to be minutely particular in describing the subject of each representation; he is also convinced that they cannot fail to be admired, whatever may be the opinion formed with regard to the narrative. |