[32] The interior of Greenland appears to be absolutely covered by glacier between 68° 30′—70° N. Lat. Others speak of peaks peeping through the ice to the N. and S. of this district; but I suspect that these peaks are upon the outskirts of the great Mer de Glace.
There is evidence, then, that considerable areas of exposed rock-surface are essential to the production of large moraines, and that glacial periods do not necessarily produce vast moraines—that moraines are not built up of matter which is excavated by glaciers, but simply illustrate the powers of glaciers for transportation and arrangement.
We descended in our track to the Lac de Combal, and from thence went over the Col de la Seigne to Les Motets, where we slept: on July 13 crossed the Col du Mont Tondu to Contamines (in a sharp thunderstorm), and the Col de Voza to Chamounix. Two days only remained for excursions in this neighborhood, and we resolved to employ them in another attempt to ascend the Aiguille d’Argentiere, upon which mountain we had been cruelly defeated just eight days before.
It happened in this way: Reilly had a notion that the ascent of the aiguille could be accomplished by following the ridge leading to its summit from the Col du Chardonnet. At half-past six on the morning of the 6th we found ourselves accordingly on the top of that pass, which is about eleven thousand or eleven thousand one hundred feet above the level of the sea. The party consisted of our friend Moore and his guide Almer, Reilly and his guide Francois Couttet, myself and Michel Croz. So far, the weather had been calm and the way easy, but immediately we arrived on the summit of the pass we got into a furious wind. Five minutes earlier we were warm—now we were frozen. Fine snow, whirled up into the air, penetrated every crack in our harness, and assailed our skins as painfully as if it had been red hot instead of freezing cold. The teeth chattered involuntarily; talking was laborious; the breath froze instantaneously; eating was disagreeable; sitting was impossible.
We looked toward our mountain: its aspect was not encouraging. The ridge that led upward had a spiked arête, palisaded with miniature aiguilles, banked up at their bases by heavy snow-beds, which led down at considerable angles, on one side toward the Glacier de Saleinoz, on the other toward the Glacier du Chardonnet. Under any circumstances it would have been a stiff piece of work to clamber up that way. Prudence and comfort counseled, “Give it up.” Discretion overruled valor. Moore and Almer crossed the Col du Chardonnet to go to Orsières, and we others returned toward Chamounix.
But when we got some distance down the evil spirit which prompts men to ascend mountains tempted us to stop and to look back at the Aiguille d’Argentiere. The sky was cloudless; no wind could be felt, nor sign of it perceived; it was only eight o’clock in the morning; and here, right before us, we saw another branch of the glacier leading high up nto the mountain—far above the Col du Chardonnet—and a little couloir rising from its head almost to the top of the peak. This was clearly the right route to take. We turned back and went at it.
The glacier was steep, and the snow-gully rising out of it was steeper. Seven hundred steps were cut. Then the couloir became too steep. We took to the rocks on its left, and at last gained the ridge, at a point about fifteen hundred feet above the col. We faced about to the right and went along the ridge, keeping on some snow a little below its crest, on the Saleinoz side. Then we got the wind again, but no one thought of turning, for we were within two hundred and fifty feet of the summit.
The axes of Croz and Couttet went to work once more, for the slope was about as steep as snow could be. Its surface was covered with a loose, granular crust, dry and utterly incoherent, which slipped away in streaks directly it was meddled with. The men had to cut through this into the old beds underneath, and to pause incessantly to rake away the powdery stuff, which poured down in hissing streams over the hard substratum. Ugh! how cold it was! How the wind blew! Couttet’s hat was torn from its fastenings and went on a tour in Switzerland. The flour-like snow, swept off the ridge above, was tossed spirally upward, eddying in tourmentes; then, dropped in lulls or caught by other gusts, was flung far and wide to feed the Saleinoz.
“My feet are getting suspiciously numbed,” cried Reilly: “how about frost-bites?” “Kick hard, sir,” shouted the men: “it’s the only way.” Their fingers were kept alive by their work, but it was cold for their feet, and they kicked and hewed simultaneously. I followed their example, but was too violent, and made a hole clean through my footing. A clatter followed as if crockery had been thrown down a well.
I went down a step or two, and discovered in a second that all were standing over a cavern (not a crevasse, speaking properly) that was bridged over by a thin vault of ice, from which great icicles hung in grooves. Almost in the same minute Reilly pushed one of his hands right through the roof. The whole party might have tumbled through at any moment. “Go ahead, Croz: we are over a chasm!” “We know it,” he answered, “and we can’t find a firm place.”