The statue dedicated to Horace Benedict Saussure in the central plaza of Chamonix points to the peak of Mont Blanc.Saussure was a professor of Physics from Geneva who put up a reward for the first people to climb Mont Blanc – in 1786 Michel Paccard and Jacques Balmat were the first to reach the summit, followed by Saussure himself who claimed the third ascent and first circuit of the mountain.
