BOURRIT, MARC THEODORE (1739-1819)

This article appears in Volume V04, Page 334 of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Encyclopedia Britannica - Main :: BOS-BRI

BOURRIT, MARC THEODORE (1739-1819) , Swiss traveller
and writer, came of a family which was of French origin but.had taken

refuge

REFUGE

at Geneva for reasons connected with religion. His father was a watchmaker there, and he himself was educated in his native city. He was a good artist and etcher, and also a pastor, so that by reason of his fine voice and love of music he was made (1768) precentor of the

church

of St Peter (the former

cathedral

CATHEDRAL

) at Geneva. This post enabled him to devote himself to the exploration of the Alps, for which he had conceived a

great

GREAT

passion ever since an ascent (1761) of the Voirons, near Geneva. In 1775 he made the first ascent of the Buet (10,201 ft.) by the now usual route from the Pierre a Berard, on which the

great

GREAT

flat

rock

known as the Table au Chantre still preserves his memory. In 17841785 he was the first traveller to attempt the ascent of Mont Blanc (not conquered till 1786), but neither then nor later (1788) did he succeed in reaching its summit. On the other hand he reopened (1787) the route over the Col du Geant (11,o6o ft.), which had fallen into oblivion, and travelled also among the mountains of the

Valais

VALAIS (Ger. Wallis, Ital. Vallese)

, of the Bernese Oberland, &c. He received a pension from Louis XVI., and was named the historiographe des Alpes by the emperor Joseph II., who visited him at Geneva. His last visit to Chamonix was in 1812. His writings are composed in a naive, sentimental and rather pompous style, but breathe throughout a most passionate love for the Alps, as wonders of nature, and not as objects of scientific study, His

chief

CHIEF (from Fr. chef, head, Lat. caput)

works are the Description des glacieres de Savoye, 1773 (English

translation

TRANSLATION

Norwich

NORWICH
NORWICH, GEORGE GORING, EARL OF (1583?-1663)

, 1775-1776), the Description des Alpes pennines et rhetiennes (2 vols., 1781) (reprinted in 1783 under the title of Nouvelle Description des vallees de glace, and in 1785, with additions, in 3 vols., under the name of Nouvelle Description des glacieres), and the Descriptions des cols ou passages des Alpes, (2 vols., 1803), while his Itineraire de Geneve, Lausanne et Ckamouni, first published in 1791, went through several editions in his lifetime. (W. A. B. C.)

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