Mont Blanc

Mont Blanc, the highest (excluding the Caucasus) mountain height of Europe (15,781 feet), is in the Pennine Alps on the frontiers of Franoe, Italy, and Switzerland. The summit and most of the chain, which has a S.W. and N.E. direction, are in the Haute-Savoie. The N.E. part of the chain is in Switzerland, and the boundary-line of France and Italy runs along it. The S.E. presents a precipitous face, but from the N. or S. its shape is pyramidal. The chief glaciers which it contains are on the N.W. slope, among them being the Des Bossons, du Bois, du Talefre. and the Mer'de Glace. The rock composing the central mass is protogine. Jacques Balmat was the first to ascend the mountain (in 1786), since which period it has been climbed times without number.