"Desert" here means "of the wilderness" (cf. III:3:1 and note). This account, then,
exactly fulfills the prescription innocently thought by Victor as he approached the
alpine range, that these mountains might be "the habitations of another race of beings"
(II:1:12). Since Mont Blanc was first scaled only in 1786, the fact that the Creature
has taken up his abode there indicates just how superior to conventional human endurance
Victor has made him.