ALPINE TRAGEDY RECALLED.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXIX, Issue 148, 15 August 1911, Page 8

ALPINE TRAGEDY RECALLED.

A broken alpenstock bearing the carved name “Dr. J. Bean, Baftimore,” has just been found by a Chamonix guide in the ice of the Glacier des Bessons, which ‘‘flows” down direct from the summit of Mont Blanc to the valley of Chamonix, and the find recalls the most terrible accident in Alpine history, when eleven climbers perished on the summit of the groat white mountain in violent snowstorms which lasted a week.

in September, 1871), Rev. G. McCorkindale, of Glasgow, and two Americans, Dr. ,1. Be an, of Baltimore, and Mr. Randall (both elderly men, and wif.li little experience of the Alps), set out from Chamonix with eight guides, and safely reached the summit in doubtful weather. Hardly had the descent commenced when the snowstorm started, and not one of tiio eleven climbers were seen again alive.

A strong force of guides some days liter found the bodies of five victims, including the clergyman and Dr Bean, but tno other six wore never found, having most probably fallen into crevasses. It is now thought, owing to the discovery of the Drojvcn alpenstock, that the bodies of the six climbers, who have been buried in their tomb of ice for the last fortyod.o years, have reached the end of tne glacier, which travels at the rate of about 500 ft. a year, and are not far from tne surface of the ice at the lip of the Chamonix Valley. ' The longest period of time that a ■glacier, or ice river, has retained its uead in Alpine records has been for-ty-one years,, the victims being Dr. Hamel and bis guides, who perished on Mont Blanc in 1820, and whoso bodies were found in the Bossons Glacier in 1861, as well preserved in the ice ns on the day of their death. The guides at Chamonix are on the lookout for tiie six bodies.