From 1840, the number of Englishmen taking part in high ascents increases rapidly; and between 1854 and 1865 the great bulk of virgin ascents stand to their credit, though it must always be remembered that these ascents were led by Swiss, French and Italian guides, who did not, however, do them till the English arrived. Before 1840 a few Englishmen climbed Mont Blanc; Mrs. and Miss Campbell crossed the Col de Géant, which had previously been reopened by Mr. Hill; and Mr. Malkin crossed a few glacier passes. But J. D. Forbes was really the first English mountaineer to carry out a series of systematic attacks on the upper snows. Incidentally, his book, _Travels through the Alps of Savoy_, published in 1843, was the first book in the English language dealing with the High Alps. A few pamphlets had been published by the adventurers of Mont Blanc, but no really serious work. Forbes is, therefore, the true pioneer not only of British mountaineering, but of the Alpine literature in our tongue. He was a worthy successor to De Saussure, and his interest in the mountains was very largely scientific. He investigated the theories of glacier motion, and visited Agassiz at the “Hôtel des Neuchâtelois.” On that occasion, if Agassiz is to be believed, the canny Scotsman managed to extract more than he gave from the genial and expansive Switzer. When Forbes published his theories, Agassiz accused him of stealing his ideas. Desor, whose genius for a row was only excelled by the joy he took in getting up his case, did not improve matters; and a bitter quarrel was the result. Whatever may have been the rights of the matter, Forbes certainly mastered the theory of glacier motion, and proved his thorough grasp of the matter in a rather remarkable way. In 1820, a large party of guides and amateurs were overwhelmed by an avalanche on the Grand Plateau, and three of the guides disappeared into a crevasse. Their bodies were not recovered. Dr. Hamel, who had organised the party, survived. He knew something of glacier motion, and ventured a guess that the bodies of the guides would reappear at the bottom of the glacier in about a thousand years. He was just nine hundred and thirty-nine years wrong in his calculation. Forbes, having ascertained by experiment the rate at which the glacier moved, predicted that the bodies would reappear in forty years. This forecast proved amazingly accurate. Various remains reappeared near the lower end of the Glacier des Bossons in 1861, a fragment of a human body, and a few relics came to light two years later, and a skull, ropes, hat, etc., in 1865. Strangely enough, this accident was repeated in almost all its details in the famous Arkwright disaster of 1866.