This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1881 edition. Excerpt: ... Chaptek XXII. MAN. Let Us wait, however, wait with confidence; the day will come; the gods will pass away, bearing with them the corteges of kings, their melancholy representatives upon earth. Man is slowly learning to speak the language of liberty; he will also learn to practise its customs. Those mountains which at least possess the merit of being beautiful belong to the number of gods whom we are beginning not to worship. Their thunders and avalanches have ceased to be for us the fulminations of Jupiter; their clouds are no longer the robe of Juno. Henceforth we can fearlessly invade the high valleys, the abode of the gods whither the genii repair. It is precisely the once-dreaded summits which have become the aim of thousands of travellers who have set before themselves the task of leaving not a single rock, not a single bed of ice, untrodden by human footsteps. In our populous countries of Western Europe every summit has already been successively conquered; those of Asia, Africa, America, will be so in their turn. Now that the era of great geographical discoveries is almost at an end, and, with the exception of a few lakes, the world is almost entirely known, other travellers, obliged to content themselves with lesser glory, dispute with one another, in great numbers the honor of being the first to ascend the as yet unvisited mountains. These climbing amateurs go as far as Greenland in search of some unknown summit. Among them are some who, striving annually during the summer season to ascend a difficult lofty peak, are stirred by a vainglorious motive. People say that they seek a contemptible means of causing their names to be repeated in newspaper after newspaper, as if by a simple ascent they had performed some work of use to...