Mont Cenis

“ At Mont-Cenis, near the Hospice, is a large lake which is frozen during eight months of the year. Here reigns eternal winter and the mountains are covered with snows that never melt. From Mont-Cenis to Suza the descent is very grand and striking, and the scenery resembles that of the Simplon; there are more obstacles of nature than on the former part of the road, and here ravines are connected by the means of bridges, and there are subterraneous galleries to pass thro. ”

“ I then remembered poor little Louis XVII.; to-day I think of Henry V.: what swiftness of downfall and misfortune!
Here one begins to ascend Mont Cenis and leave the little River Arc, which brings you to the foot of the mountain. On the other side of Mont Cenis, the Dora opens the entrance of Italy to you. Rivers are not only "moving high-roads," as Pascal calls them, but they also mark the road for men. ”

“ On p. 55 he endorses Bonney’s description of the Cenis passes. “Between the plateau of the Little Mont Cenis and La Grande Croix [on the Great Mont Cenis] a ridge can be gained by a few minutes’ walk, whence is seen the country to the east of the Po, and the south of the Tanaro, as far as the Apennines.” ”

“ Left early, for the clouds, though they threatened, dropped no rain, and took the road to Modane, the descent as far as Formignone being rapid, skirting the Arc and its pine-forests, the cold head of Mont Cenis towering behind. The weather grew milder and the scenery more lovely; larch and other trees not evergreen appearing beneath the masses of dark fir, and red and yellow with the tints of autumn, have a richness in their hues I never saw equalled elsewhere. ”

“ It is long, certainly, but it has a fair proportion of picturesque points, and it is not easy to see how it can be dull to those who have eyes. In the days when it was a rude mountain track, crossed by trains of mules, and when it was better known to smugglers than to tourists, it may have been dull; but when Napoleon’s road changed the rough path into one of the finest highways in Europe, mounting in grand curves and by uniform grades, and rendered the trot possible throughout its entire distance, the Mont Cenis became one of the most interesting passes in the Alps. ”

“ I had an opportunity of verifying this fact, in company with Signor Gastaldi as my guide, by examining the erratics and boulder formation between Susa and Turin, on the banks of the Dora Riparia, which brings down the waters from Mont Cenis and from the Alps south-west of it. I there observed striated fragments of dolomite and gypsum, which had come down from Mont Cenis and had travelled as far as Avigliana; also masses of serpentine brought from less remote points, some of them apparently exceeding in dimensions the largest erratics of Switzerland. ”

“ Passing a rushing mountain stream, spanned by an iron bridge, we leave the snowy Alps behind us, only one bold peak appearing at the end of the valley—where a little town is nested—almost filling up the gap with its wintry summit, and making a beautiful outline against the blue sky. [325] And now we stop at Onyx, a station of some importance. Here we find the Hotel Gozie, a nice-looking building, close to the great Mont Cenis tunnel, and evidently intended for the convenience of Alpine climbers. ”

“ So far the thaw had been rapid, for no snow lay in the road here, nor till we had passed the little inn of Mont Cenis. At 377 Molaret, where the church bells were tinkling sweetly in the quiet air, the route, turning suddenly, no longer hangs over Piedmont, but looks on a home view, which has its charm likewise, and the village built in the glen directly below, among the trees of the rich meadow. The first refuge is a little further, and by the time we had arrived there the half-melted snow began to ball in our horses’ feet so as to impede our progress ”

“ The Alps, on the Piedmontese side of Mont Cenis, and to whose firm bases we were now fast descending, were infinitely more stupendous, more overwhelming in their proportions, and displayed stronger features of actual sublimity, perhaps, than those we had seen in Savoy ”

“ Hardly less stirring is a paper in The Alpine Journal by the same famous climber, from which he most kindly allows me to give a long quotation, telling of a narrow escape during one of the most appalling thunderstorms that could be experienced. The party were making the ascent of the Roche Melon, a peak 11,593 feet high not far from the Mont Cenis. ”

“ Here commences a long chain of mountains, the highest of which is called Mount Cenis, which forms a dangerous pass for travellers in times of snow. The road is so difficult to find, that a traveller, unless he wish to lose it, must take one of the guides of the country, called Marrons. These people advise you not to make any sort of noise that may shake the atmosphere round the mountain, for in that case the snow is detached, and rolls with impetuosity to the ground. Mount Cenis separates Italy from France. ”

“ This is a pretty breathing hill, and may be called, the Alpes foul over, or the Alpes in a running hand and not in that fair Text hand which I found Mount Cenis to be in. It hath all the lineaments and shapes of the great Alpes, that is, much winding and turning; deep precipices, Marons, or Men with little open Cairs, to carry you up and down the Hill for a Crown; and much stumbling work. In fine this hill resembles Mount Cenis, as a proper man may do a Giant. ”

“ Thence passing by the Chappel, of the Transis (that is, of those who are found dead of cold in the Snow, and are buried here) we came to the great Cross and Tavern, where we began to descend. This Hill of Mount Cenis is four miles in the going up, four miles upon the Plain, and two in its descent to Novalese. ”

“ The snow was not yet melted on the summit of Mount Cenis, over which the travellers passed; but Emily, as she looked upon its clear lake and extended plain, surrounded by broken cliffs, saw, in imagination, the verdant beauty it would exhibit when the snows should be gone, and the shepherds, leading up the midsummer flocks from Piedmont, to pasture on its flowery summit, should add Arcadian figures to Arcadian landscape. ”

“ The Mount Cenis railway tunnel route, which pierces these mountains, carries the modern tourist from the Rhône to the cities of the upper Po Valley in a few hours. The French slopes of the Alps support only a scant population of mountaineers. Many of these migrate in winter to the plains in search of work, or, housed for long months in their frozen valleys, devote themselves to household industries or to reading and self-education. It is a matter of general remark in the towns of the Rhône Valley that the schoolmasters come from the mountains. ”

“ Jean de Maurienne. The expedition we travelled with was too much for Mr. Lowther; and I expected, and was not disappointed, from the unusual backwardness of the season, to find the passage over Mount Cenis less agreeable than it usually is in the beginning of May.
The bishop of Nocera had offered to meet me any where on his side of the mountains. I wrote to him from Lyons, that I hoped to see him at Parma, on or about the very day that I was so fortunate as to reach the palace of the Count of Belvedere in that city; where I found, that he and Father Marescotti had arrived the evening before. ”

“ Opposite the Rivoli station, in the Piazza dello Statuto, is a monument to the engineers of Mt. Cenis tunnel, in the shape of a pyramid, 60 ft. high, composed of huge blocks of unhewn granite, up which scramble discomfited, colossal, naked Titans in white marble. On the pinnacle stands the Genius of Science, of a slighter make, and on a tablet the names of the engineers, Sommeiller, Gratoni, and Grandi. ”

“ The summits of the highest mountains are composed of rocks, of granite, free-stone, and other hard and vitrifiable matters, and this often as deep as two or three hundred fathoms; below which we often meet with quarries of marble, or hard stone, filled with fossil-shells, and whose matter is calcinable; as may be remarked at Great Chartreuse, in Dauphiny, and on Mount Cenis, where the stone and marble, which contains shells, are some hundred fathoms below the summits, points and peaks of high mountains ”

“ The northernmost portion of the Cevennes is the chain of the Boutières, composed of granite and gneiss, and they are the least interesting portion of the series. Few of the summits surpass 3,600 feet, but they throw out a spur that is a supreme effort, the Mont Pilat, 4,700 feet; precisely as the Pyrenees, before expiring in the east, have projected to the north-east, and tossed aloft the noble pyramid of the Canigou. The Boutières attach themselves at their southern extremity to Mézenc, the loftiest peak of the Cevennes, 5,750 feet. ”

“ On such rents smaller or parasitic cones are often formed, which imitate the operations of the parent cone and, after repeated eruptions, may rise to hills hundreds of feet in height. In course of centuries the result of the constant outpouring of volcanic materials may be to build up a large mountain like Etna, which towers above the sea to a height of 10,840 feet, and has some 200 minor cones along its flanks. ”

“ It is natural that the hills of the Ardèche should be little known, as the fame of them is extinguished by the Alps; yet they are highly picturesque and full of geological interest. As to the altitudes, they are not considered high mountains in France, but there are twelve of them that exceed Ben Nevis."
[1]
The volcanic region of Mézenc and the Coiron to the east of the granitic plateau separates the southern from the northern Cevennes. The first volcanic cones are met with immediately north of Mont Tanargue (4,785 feet) . The southernmost is the Coupe de Jaujac. ”

“ There are, indeed, few objects in nature more picturesque than a wooded volcanic crater. The cones situated in the higher parts of the forest zone are chiefly clothed with lofty pines; while those at a lower elevation are adorned with chestnuts, oaks, beech, and holm.
Successive obliteration of these cones.—The history of the eruptions of Etna, imperfect and interrupted as it is, affords us, nevertheless, much insight into the manner in which the whole mountain has successively attained its present magnitude and internal structure. ”

“ There are instances in which the earth has been shaken for many successive days in the chain of the Andes in South America, but I am only acquainted with the following cases in which shocks that have been felt almost every hour for months together have occurred far from any volcano, as, for instance, on the eastern declivity of the Alpine chain of Mount Cenis, at Fenestrelles and Pignerol, from April, 1808 ”

“ Numerous similar examples are to be observed in the Auvergne region of Central France and the Eifel. And here we find remarkable cases of "breached cones," or craters, which will require some special description. Standing on the summit of the Puy de Dôme, and looking northwards or southwards, the eye wanders over a tract formed of dome-shaped hills and of extinct crater-cones rising from [Pg 15] a granitic platform. But what is most peculiar in the scene is the ruptured condition of a large number of the cones with craters. ”

“ And each mile was a mile of gruelling toil with axe and shovel and tail-rope and brake-pole, for the snow lay deep upon the trail which twisted and doubled interminably, narrowing in places to a mere shelf high upon the side of a sheer rock wall. At such spots Connie and O'Brien took turns with axe and shovel, heaving the snow into the canyon; for to venture upon the drifts, high-piled upon the edge of the precipice, would have been to invite instant disaster. ”

“ We rarely shot while on a march from camp to camp. We walked or rode along, watching the swarms of game that slowly moved away as we approached. The scenery was beautiful. Sometimes we wound along on game trails or native trails through vast park-like stretches of rolling hills; at other times we climbed across low hills studded with thorn scrub, while off in the distance rose the blue hills and mountains. To the northward, always with us, was the great Mount Kenia, eighteen thousand feet high and nearly always veiled with masses of clouds. ”

“ For all practical purposes, moreover, the mountains near Grenoble must be considered as part of the Alps, lying, as they did, across the route of all who crossed Mt. Cenis, and being no less fearful than any of the Alpine passes themselves. At one point, nearest Aiguebelette, horses and mules were specially trained for the ascent and descent, holes having been cut in the rock which made the way more practicable for animals accustomed to them, but almost impossible to any others, unless riderless. ”

“ There is as much difference between mountains as between people, as mountain-lovers know, and like people they present characters and individualities of their own. The noble lines of Mount Cheyenne are full of a strange dignity; but it is dignity mixed with an indefinable charm. The canyons nestle about its base, as children at a parent's knee; its cedar forests clothe it like drapery; it lifts its head to the dawn and the sunset; and the sun seems to love it best of all, and lies longer on it than on the other peaks. ”

“ The superior cone, a mass of rock a thousand feet in height, and weighing thousands of millions of pounds, had been thrown down upon the island, making it tremble to its foundation. Fortunately, this cone inclined to the north, and had fallen upon the plain of sand and tufa stretching between the volcano and the sea. The aperture of the crater being thus enlarged projected towards the sky a glare so intense that by the simple effect of reflection the atmosphere appeared red-hot. ”