The wise men not only said the glacier moved, but they timed its movement.  They ciphered out a glacier’s gait, and then said confidently that it would travel just so far in so many years.  There is record of a striking and curious example of the accuracy which may be attained in these reckonings.

In 1820 the ascent of Mont Blanc was attempted by a Russian and two Englishmen, with seven guides.  They had reached a prodigious altitude, and were approaching the summit, when an avalanche swept several of the party down a sharp slope of two hundred feet and hurled five of them (all guides) into one of the crevices of a glacier.  The life of one of the five was saved by a long barometer which was strapped to his back—­it bridged the crevice and suspended him until help came.  The alpenstock or baton of another saved its owner in a similar way.  Three men were lost—­Pierre Balmat, Pierre Carrier, and Auguste Tairraz.  They had been hurled down into the fathomless great deeps of the crevice.

Dr. Forbes, the English geologist, had made frequent visits to the Mont Blanc region, and had given much attention to the disputed question of the movement of glaciers.  During one of these visits he completed his estimates of the rate of movement of the glacier which had swallowed up the three guides, and uttered the prediction that the glacier would deliver up its dead at the foot of the mountain thirty-five years from the time of the accident, or possibly forty.

A dull, slow journey—­a movement imperceptible to any eye —­but it was proceeding, nevertheless, and without cessation.  It was a journey which a rolling stone would make in a few seconds—­the lofty point of departure was visible from the village below in the valley.

The prediction cut curiously close to the truth; forty-one years after the catastrophe, the remains were cast forth at the foot of the glacier.

I find an interesting account of the matter in the HISTOIRE Du Mont Blanc, by Stephen d’Arve.  I will condense this account, as follows: 

On the 12th of August, 1861, at the hour of the close of mass, a guide arrived out of breath at the mairie of Chamonix, and bearing on his shoulders a very lugubrious burden.  It was a sack filled with human remains which he had gathered from the orifice of a crevice in the Glacier des Bossons.  He conjectured that these were remains of the victims of the catastrophe of 1820, and a minute inquest, immediately instituted by the local authorities, soon demonstrated the correctness of his supposition.  The contents of the sack were spread upon a long table, and officially inventoried, as follows: 

Portions of three human skulls.  Several tufts of black and blonde hair.  A human jaw, furnished with fine white teeth.  A forearm and hand, all the fingers of the latter intact.  The flesh was white and fresh, and both the arm and hand preserved a degree of flexibility in the articulations.