The Ascent of the Matterhorn

by Edward Whymper

THE FIRST PASSAGE OF THE COL DE TRIOLET, AND FIRST ASCENTS OF MONT DOLENT, AIGUILLE DE TRÉLATÊTE, AND AIGUILLE D’ARGENTIÈRE.

“Nothing binds men so closely together as agreement in plans and desires.”
Cicero.

A few years ago not many persons knew from personal knowledge how extremely inaccurately the chain of Mont Blanc was delineated. In the earlier part of the century thousands had made the tour of the chain, and before the year 1860 at least one thousand individuals had stood upon its highest summit; but out of all this number there was not one capable, willing, or able, to map the mountain which, until recently, was regarded the highest in Europe.

Many persons knew that great blunders had been perpetrated, and it was notorious that even Mont Blanc itself was represented in a ludicrously incorrect manner on all sides excepting the north; but there was not, perhaps, a single individual who knew, at the time to which I refer, that errors of no less than 1000 feet had been committed in the determination of heights at each end of the chain; that some glaciers were represented of double their real dimensions; and that ridges and mountains were laid down which actually had no existence.

One portion alone of the entire chain had been surveyed at the time of which I speak with anything like accuracy. It was not done (as one would have expected) by a Government, but by a private individual,—by the British De Saussure,—the late J. D. Forbes. In the year 1842, he “made a special survey of the [pg 177]Mer de Glace of Chamounix and its tributaries, which, in some of the following years, he extended by further observations, so as to include the Glacier des Bossons.” The map produced from this survey was worthy of its author; and subsequent explorers of the region he investigated have been able to detect only trivial inaccuracies in his work.

In 1861, Sheet xxii. of Dufour’s Map of Switzerland appeared. It included the section of the chain of Mont Blanc that belonged to Switzerland, and this portion of the sheet was executed with the admirable fidelity and thoroughness which characterise the whole of Dufour’s unique map. The remainder of the chain (amounting to about four-fifths of the whole) was laid down after the work of previous topographers, and its wretchedness was made more apparent by contrast with the finished work of the Swiss surveyors.

In 1863, Mr. Adams-Reilly, who had been travelling in the Alps during several years, resolved to attempt a survey of the unsurveyed portions of the chain of Mont Blanc. He provided himself with a good theodolite, and starting from a base-line measured by Forbes in the Valley of Chamounix, determined the positions of no less than 200 points. The accuracy of his work may be judged from the fact that, after having turned many corners and carried his observations over a distance of fifty miles, his Col Ferret “fell within 200 yards of the position assigned to it by General Dufour!”

In the winter of 1863 and the spring of 1864, Mr. Reilly constructed an entirely original map from his newly-acquired data. The spaces between his trigonometrically determined points he filled in after photographs, and a series of panoramic sketches which he made from his different stations. The map so produced was an immense advance upon those already in existence, and it was the first which exhibited the great peaks in their proper positions.

This extraordinary piece of work revealed Mr. Reilly to me as a man of wonderful determination and perseverance. With very small hope that my proposal would be accepted, I invited him to take part in renewed attacks on the Matterhorn. He entered [pg 178]heartily into my plans, and met me with a counter-proposition, namely, that I should accompany him on some expeditions which he had projected in the chain of Mont Blanc. The unwritten contract took this form:—I will help you to carry out your desires, and you shall assist me to carry out mine. I eagerly closed with an arrangement in which all the advantages were upon my side.

At the time that Mr. Reilly was carrying on his survey, Captain Mieulet was executing another in continuation of the great map of France; for about one-half of the chain of Mont Blanc (including the whole of the valley of Chamounix) had recently become French once more. Captain Mieulet was directed to survey up to his frontier only, and the sheet which was destined to include his work was to be engraved, of course, upon the scale of the rest of the map, viz., 1/80000 of nature. But upon representations being made at head-quarters that it would be of great advantage to extend the survey as far as Courmayeur, Captain Mieulet was directed to continue his observations into the south (or Italian) side of the chain. A special sheet on the scale of 1/40000 was promptly engraved from the materials he accumulated, and was published in 1865, by order of the late Minister of War, Marshal Randon.[124] This sheet was admirably executed, but it included the central portion of the chain only, and a complete map was still wanting.