Note 28 — HANNIBAL.[20]
Reading edition
"The way on every side was utterly impassable, through an accident of a peculiar kind, which is peculiar to the Alps. The snows of the former years having remained unmelted upon the mountains, were now covered over by that which had fallen in the present autumn, and when the soldiers feet went through the latter they fell, and slid down with great violence."—Polybius, iii. 54. This shows the place was within the circle of perpetual snow; whereas that on the Little St Bernard is much below it, and far beneath any avalanches.