One might best compare the Ventoux with a heap of stones broken up for road-mending purposes. Raise this heap suddenly to a height of a mile and a quarter, increase its base in proportion, cover the white of the limestone with the black stain of the forests, and you have a clear idea of the general aspect of the mountain. This accumulation of rubbish—sometimes small chips, sometimes huge blocks—rises from the plain without preliminary slopes or successive terraces that would render the ascent less arduous by dividing it into stages. The climb begins at once by rocky paths, the best of which is worse than the surface of a road newly strewn with stones, and continues, becoming ever rougher and rougher, right to the summit, the height of which is 6270 feet. Green swards, babbling brooks, the spacious shade of venerable trees, all the things, in short, that lend such charm to other mountains, are here unknown and are replaced by an interminable bed of limestone broken into scales, which slip under our feet with a sharp, almost metallic “click.” By way of cascades the Ventoux has rills of stones; the rattle of falling rocks takes the place of the whispering waters. [59] But the unsatisfied eagerness that draws the exile from our cool green hills to repeat, again and again, the ascent of the rocky Provençal height, is based on something more than sensitiveness to impressions and a pre-established harmony; he is also strongly attracted by the peculiar and unique variety of the flora growing upon its slopes: Thanks to its isolated position, which leaves it freely exposed on every side to atmospheric influences; thanks also to its height, which makes it the topmost point of France within the frontiers of either the Alps or the Pyrenees, our bare Provençal mountain, Mont Ventoux, lends itself remarkably well to the study of the climatic distribution of plants. At its base the tender olive thrives, with all that multitude of semi-ligneous plants, such as the thyme, whose aromatic fragrance calls for the sun of the Mediterranean regions; on the summit, mantled with snow for at least half the year, the ground is covered with a northern flora, borrowed to some extent from Arctic shores. Half a day’s journey in an upward direction brings before our eyes a succession of the chief vegetable types which we should find in the course of a long voyage from south to north along the same meridian. [60]