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 groves. 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.” In the blandest manner, my comrade inquired if to persevere would not be to do that which is called “tempting Providence.” My reply being in the affirmative, he further observed, “Suppose we go down?” “Very willingly.” “Ask the guides.” They had not the least objection; so we went down, and slept that night at the Montanvert. Off the ridge we were out of the wind. In fact, a hundred feet down _to windward_, on the slope fronting the Glacier du Chardonnet, we were broiling hot; there was not a suspicion of a breeze. Upon that side there was nothing to tell that a hurricane was raging a hundred feet higher,—the cloudless sky looked tranquillity itself: whilst to leeward the only sign of a disturbed atmosphere was the friskiness of the snow upon the crests of the ridges. We set out on the 14th, with Croz, Payot, and Charlet, to finish off the work which had been cut short so abruptly, and slept, as before, at the Chalets de Lognan. On the 15th, about midday, we arrived upon the summit of the aiguille, and found that we had actually been within one hundred feet of it when we turned back upon the first attempt. It was a triumph to Reilly. In this neighbourhood he had performed the feat (in 1863) of joining together “two mountains, each about 13,000 feet high, standing on the map about a mile and a half apart.” Long before we made the ascent he had procured evidence which could not be impugned, that the Pointe des Plines, a fictitious summit which had figured on other maps as a distinct mountain, could be no other than the Aiguille d’Argentière, and he had accordingly obliterated it from the preliminary draft of his map. We saw that it was right to do so. The Pointe des Plines did not exist. We had ocular demonstration of the accuracy of his previous observations.