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side until jammed in by the meeting walls, or plunged into depths from which return would be utterly impracticable. Frequently, too, a crevasse is concealed by a covering of snow. That a light impalpable material like this should ever suffice for the purposes of a bridge, vaulting a chasm of considerable span, may seem as improbable to an untraveled Englishman as the existence of solid water in winter did to that famous, perhaps fabulous king of Siam, who has served to point so many a philosophical moral. But a little alternate melting and freezing will soon impart so cohesive a character to the fallen flakes, that when they unite to produce a roadway upward of a foot in thickness, they may easily sustain the weight of a man; unless, indeed, he be a monster of corpulence, like Dr. Cheyne, who at one time weighed thirty-two stones, and was compelled to have the whole side of his chariot converted into a door to give him admission. To prevent accidents, however, as much as possible, it is customary to attach the adventurers to each other by means of a rope, which is either held in the hand or fastened to the waist. Every now and then one of the party may disappear, but in these days of club-climbing the event seems generally to excite much hilarity, and so far from going into mourning, his comrades proceed to draw the missing man to bank, and probably indulge in some banter highly seasoned with allusions to the functions of hemp and the new drop. Let the precaution, however, be neglected, and some anxious moments, perhaps disastrous ones, may result. In making the passage of the Col de Miage, in 1859, Mr. G. S. L. Fox, who was leading the way, found himself stopped by a chasm of unsearchable depth. He began to cut steps in the icy slope which adjoined, when one of his companions, Mr. Dodson, observed his feet suddenly shoot out as if struck from under him, and in a moment he vanished in the jaws of the crevasse.

"A thrill ran through me as I saw him go, but in another instant I was relieved, when, craning down as well as I could, I caught sight of his hat and an arm stationary, at a depth of

not more than twelve or fifteen feet. Provi

dentially, he had lighted astride of a project ing piece of ice, which brought him up, and by instantly striking the pick of his ax into the wall of the crevasse, steadied himself in that position. The guides, cautiously approaching the

edge, threw him a rope, and he was drawn up, none the worse for his slip. After this warning, however, we took further precautions. Bohren, round whose short person so many fathoms of rope were coiled that he looked like a walking capstan, was unwound, and we were put into harness, with Cachat as leader."

Mr. Packe tells us, that in ascending the Maladetta, in the Pyrenees, the party sat down to rest on the glacier where the snow appeared to be quite smooth. One of the guides released himself from the rope, in order to convey the wine bottle to each of the company.

"He was passing before us, and certainly not more than three yards from the spot where I was sitting, when he suddenly dropped through neither cracking of the ice, nor cry from the the snow and disappeared. There was no sound, man-a slight convulsive shuddering as he fell, and the glacier quietly swollowed up its victim. It was horrible to witness, but of course there was only one thing to be done. We speedily disengaged the rope from our bodies, and carefully holding it in our hands, approached the hole, which was not large, my guide, Pierre Barrau, being the first. We let down the rope, and anxiously expected a reply to our shout. For some seconds, however, none came; and when it did come, it sounded fearfully indistinct and distant, stifled as it was by the snow and walls of ice. The man fell, according to the guide's estimate, 18 meters (59 feet,) but, from the 30 feet. Thanks to the bed of snow that fell length of the rope let down, I should say about with him, and in which he was partly buried, the man was not hurt, and he was able to fasten the rope round his body, so that in about five minutes we drew him up, and a right hearty squeeze of the hand he interchanged with each

of us.

He was not much the worse, but fearfully cold. He described his position as having been very perilous, having been caught on a ledge, below which sank a seemingly unfathomable abyss; but in this he may have exaggerated."

In many other cases adventurers have undergone a much longer imprisonment. A hapless hunter crossing the Trift glacier in 1803 went down into a crevasse of fearful depth, but was arrested by a projection of ice. There he was compelled to remain whilst his companions went off to the nearest village, a journey of four hours, to procure materials for his release. These obtained, they returned and lowered a rope, which the prisoner fastened round his waist, but the strands suddenly parted, and the poor man was flung back upon his ledge. What remained of the cord was now too short to reach him, and once more it became necessary for them to visit

the distant houses. Sixteen hours were ¦ when the first huge missile appeared. This was thus spent in a frozen cave, listening to the delinquent which had set the others loose.. the murmur of the glacier torrent beneath, behind the boulder, I let the projectile shoot I was directly in the line of fire, but, ducking and not knowing but that his life-heat over my head. Behind it came a shoal of small. might all be drained out of him, and his er fry, each of them, however, quite competent body consigned to those sunless waters be- to crack a human life. Benen shouted 'Quick,' fore his comrades could reäppear. Many and never before had I seen his ax so wielded. a man, indeed, has been doomed to perish You must rememember that while this infernal inch by inch in a gloomy crevasse, or hid- cannonade was being executed, we hung upon eous mountain gulf. A drummer, belong- a slope of snow, which had been pressed and ing to the French army, under Macdon- polished to ice by the descending stones, and so steep that a single slip would have converted ald, was precipitated into a fissure in the us into an avalanche also. Without steps of Cardinell pass, in the winter of 1800. His some kind we dare not set foot on the slope, comrades could afford him no assistance, and these had to be cut while the stone shower though for hours together the sound of was in the act of falling on us. Mere scratches his instrument rose up from the depths; in the ice, however, were all the ax could the poor fellow being left, in fact, to drum accomplish, and on these we steadied ourselves himself to death. with the energy of desperate men. Benen was first, and I followed him, while the stones flew thick beside and between us. Once an ugly lump made right at me. I might, perhaps, have dodged it; but Benen saw it coming, turned, caught it on the handle of his ax, as a cricketer catches a ball, and thus deflected it from me. The labor of his ax was here for a time divided between the projectiles and the ice, while at every pause in the volley he cut a step and would have been amusing to see our contortions, sprang forward. Had the peril been less, it as we fenced with our swarming foes.

A final

Escaping all these perils, however, we take to the rocks again, traversing, as we best can, the chasm which frequently yawns between the icy stream and the mountain flank; for, as the solid stone sucks in the sun's rays with considerable avidity, the glacial mass seems to recoil from too familiar contact. Or we enter upon the upper part of the glacier where the snow is in a granular porous state, (firn or haut névé,) and has not yet pass-jump landed us on an embankment, out of the ed into the compacter condition which it direct line of fire which raked the gully, and exhibits in the lower part of its course. we thus escaped a danger new in this form and And here too, we encounter huge rifts, extremely exciting to us all." and sometimes obtain glimpses of splendid caverns beneath our feet, where icicles hang from the roof and pillars rise from the floor in fantastic profusion, these fairy edifices being lit up by a soft green radiance which percolates through the walls or ceiling.

Still proceeding over rock and snow and ice, we reach a couloir or gully, along which we toil for some little distance, when a sharp sound is heard, and on look ing aloft, a big block is seen bounding down toward us. It whizzes past our heads, and is followed by a shower of missiles, as if the guardians of the mountain, incensed at our intrusion, had brought their catapults to bear upon our unfortunate troop, and were bent upon stoning us to death. Professor Tyndall narrowly escaped this species of lapidation whilst ascending the old Weissthor last summer:

"Our companion was still clinging to the snow wall, when a horrible clatter was heard overhead. It was another stone avalanche,

which there was hardly a hope of escaping Happily a rock was there, firmly stuck in the bed of the gully, and I chanced to be beside it

The philosophy of these discharges is very simple, although the proceeding itself may be decidedly disagreeable. When the heat of the day loosens a frostbound block resting in a position of ticklish equilibrium, the slightest force, a puff of wind, for example, will set it in motion, and away it flies, dragging other lumps with it, until the slope is all alive with projectiles. The sunbeams, as they beat upon the crumbling ridges, are generally the fusées which fire off this mountain artillery.

Dr.

Instead of stones, again, we may have great downfalls of ice. There is a spot on the Tödi, called the Schneerose, a ravine inclosed by precipitous walls, where volleys of this description are so frequent that passengers usually traverse it with considerable daintiness of movement. Hegetschwyler, the botanist, of Zürich, nearly fell a victim in this terrible defile. With a roar of indescribable awfulness, a big mass separated from the glacier, and came thundering down in a cascade of fragments which streamed over the cliff, and

would have crushed several of the party | In some instances, however, adventurers had they not clung closely to the rock, are much less fortunate. When Hamel, and allowed the torrent to sweep over their heads.

Perhaps, however, we now reach a steep slope where the snow has been so often melted by the sun during the day, and frozen by the cold at night, that the rock has received a glassy coating. To clamber up such a surface would be difficult, in many cases impracticable, and therefore it is necessary to cut steps in the ice with the axe. Tedious work this is, and somewhat dangerous withal. Chip, chip, goes the hatchet, and hiss, hiss, go the splinters as they glide down the bank, forcibly suggesting to your imagination the consequences of a stumble, and the riotous momentum with which a human body would perform its journey to the base of the declivity. In ascending the Eiger Joch, Mr. Stephen's guides had to hew five hundred and eighty steps, each nearly as big as a soup tureen, on a solitary slope with an inclination of fifty degrees. Mr. Cowell's conductor on the Grand Paradis run up a score of twelve hundred and seventy-five in a single day. Nor is it pleasant to have to rest the whole weight of the frame upon one foot for a minute together, and then to hand over your corpulence to the other supporter, persevering in this species of amusement for hours together. Besides, if the sun is shining in his strength, the glazed rock glows like a mirror, and the reflected rays prove extremely harassing to the eyes.

the Russian, was ascending Mont Blanc, his footing was suddenly torn from under him, the snow began to gather up in heaps around the party, and then carried them down the slope with irresistible force. Some of them managed to extricate themselves from the mass when it came to rest, but three of the guides were hopelessly entombed.

These snow slips, however, should not be confounded with the avalanche proper, which, descending into the more peopled regions, must be regarded as the most terrible monster of the mountains. Its sudden start, its resistless rush, its ferocious spring, killing and burying its victims with the same stroke, give it as appalling a character as was borne by the dragons of antiquity, which were ever darting from their lairs, all athirst for human blood, and, in particular, for virgin flesh. There are several kinds. Sometimes the fine fresh-fallen snow is raised in clouds by an angry wind, and then dropped down summarily, in case the breeze should be arrested, the deposit being effected so rapidly that men and cattle are bewildered and occasionally overpowered by this skyey discharge. Or the new snow, resting on a bank of old ice, may be started by a gust, and then, gathering strength as it advances, it pours over some cliff in a silvery cascade, which is beautiful to behold in the distance, but deadly to encounter if the traveler should happen to come within range of its sweep. These But perhaps this ice slope is mantled falls, called the staub-lauwinen (dust-avawith a layer of newly-fallen snow, and lanches) are prevalent during the winter then danger may come, and perhaps death and early spring. They are remarkable may follow from another cause. Suddenly for the agitation they produce in the atthe loose incoherent mass gives way be- mosphere, owing to the clouds of snow neat the foot, and begins to slide down they raise, and for the prodigious blast by the bank with that serpent-like sound which they are accompanied. Extending which, well understood, strikes a chill into over the path of the snowy stream, and the stoutest heart. Right and left the flanking it to a distance of some hundred contagion extends, until a field of snow, paces on each side, the current of air tears half a mile in breadth, may be seen foam- up trees, carries poor birds helplessly ing down the steep in huge breakers, and along, peels the roofs and chimneys from then plunging in a magnificent cascade houses, or levels them entirely with the over the brow of some precipice. No ground, and sometimes hurries wagons, wonder that when travelers escape from horses, and even men, over the cliffs as if entanglement on these occasions, they they had been leaves sucked into a hurriproceed, as Mr. Tuckett and his compan- cane. Many curious and some incredible ions did on the Aletschhorn, with "feelings stories are told of the ghastly pranks which of gratitude for their great deliverance,) "have been played on these occasions. one of the guides exclaiming, "Il n'a Hay-lofts have been taken up bodily, transmanqué que peu a un grand malheur." ported through the air, and set down at

another man's door. Cottages have been hoisted like balloons, and their inmates shaken out with little injury. In the year 1754 an avalanche brought down the cupola of one of the towers of a monastery at Dissentis by its mere side-wind, although the snow swept past the building at the distance of at least a quarter of a mile. A man who had observed the starting of an avalanche high up the mountains which overhang the valley of St. Anthony, in the Grisons, instantly scampered off toward a stable which lay beyond its route; but the gale caught him in his flight, and drove him over a ridge, where he was speedily entombed. The mere rebound of the air from opposing rocks has been known to inflict extensive damage, as was the case at the little village of Randa, in the valley of Visp, when, in the year 1819, one of these mountain marauders made a dash at the hamlet, but was deflected toward the north. The rush of wind which followed stripped the roofs from the houses, overthrew several building, and carried one wooden hut, occupied by two old women, to a distance of more than a hundred yards without doing the inmates any damage. Yet, strange to say, though these staub-lauwinen are thus heralded and flanked by avalanches of air, the borders of the blast are almost as sharply defined as the banks of a river; for, at the distance of a few paces, not a single leaf may be seen to stir nor a flake of snow to fall.

The grund-lauwinen (ground avalanches) are formed of compacter material than the powdery torrents just mentioned. High up on the mountain-slopes a vast snow-field begins to succumb to the influences of the sun and the warm winds of incipient summer. The water sinks through the pores, and by lubricating the rock destroys the connection, so that the loosened mass is at the mercy of the first disturbing force. And when the moment arrives, away it breaks with a low hiss and a gentle step, which give no token of its deadly designs on the valley below, but seem to intimate that it is about to saunter harmlessly into the regions of human activity. But its pace soon quickens into a mad gallop, and its voice is heard like the noise of many thunders; and before the startled natives, though skilled in the awful language of the avalanche, can rouse themselves for flight, the merciless invader comes crashing through forest and tearing

off the turf from the fields, until he reaches their village, when, in a single instant, the white plowshare of destruction may be driven over a hundred peaceful habitations. "All words and descriptions," says Herr Berlepsch, "are insufficient to paint this chaos, this complete dissolution, this universal, instantaneously-developed phenomenon of hurricane, earthquake, landslip, and thunderstorm, uproar, flight, destruction, annihilation, accompanied by the crashing of the snow pressed together, the overwhelming roar of splintered trees, the hissing flight of rocks, and their sharp blows against the cliffs; in short, an undefinable, deafening tumult, whose echo, repeated a hundred-fold from the corner of every valley, is collected into the roar.'

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Some avalanches have been frightfully murderous. In 1719 the village of Leukerbad was overwhelmed, and fifty-five persons perished; the remainder of the inhabitants being extricated; and amongst others, a boy, who was heard singing psalms with a valiant voice, though he lay impris oned in a cellar for a week. In 1720, eighty-four men and above four hundred head of cattle were put to death by an avalanche at Obergestelen in the Vallais ; whilst another assassin of snow, in the same year, took the life out of sixty-one people at Fethau in the Lower Engadine. Occasionally, these mountain freebooters exhibit a singular mixture of softness and ferocity. They have been known to bear away huts as quietly as a mother would carry her sleeping child to its cradle. One which descended upon the village of Rueras, in the Grisons, in the year 1749, and found the inhabitants buried in their slumbers, pushed some of the houses so gently forward, that the inmates were not aroused, and did not discover, until the longcontinued darkness excited their surprise, that they were immersed in snow; upward of forty of their neighbors having fallen victims to this nocturnal attack. The transporting power of the avalanche was quaintly exemplified in the removal of a forest from one side of the valley of Calanca where it grew, to the other side, where it was formally deposited, as if Birnam Wood had literally walked off to Dunsinane. Here and there, too, these fearful visitors have inflicted great mischief by throwing their huge frame across a running stream, damming up its waters until a considerable lake was formed; and then, when the reservoir burst, the flood poured down the

valley in a liquid avalanche, which hurled | lanches, just as a few good counsels planted trees, houses, cattle, and men before it as in the mind at an early period have prefiercely as its brother phenomenon had served many a youth from rushing down done when it rushed headlong from the the slopes of perdition. hills.

Against these pitiless invaders the villagers have but scanty protection. The forest which overhangs the hamlet, if sufficiently near to the sources of the avalanche, may prop up the sheet of snow and prevent it starting from its bed; the stems of the trees, in fact, serving the same purpose as the piles which we drive into declivities to check the crumbling away of the soil. Should the wood, however, be distant, it is needless to say that it will be of no avail as a barrier when the loosened mass has once acquired the deadly momentum for which these destroyers are renowned; the helpless trunks will then be mown down like grass under the scythe. Every village, therefore, which lies exposed to such snowy raids, places itself, if possible, beneath the shelter of a plantation, which becomes as sacred to the inhabitants as a Druidical grove was to the ancient Britons, and infinitely more useful. The trees are tabooed. They must not be felled on any account. There may be a scarcity of fuel, a perfect famine of firewood; and yet the natives will send to remote quarters for a supply rather than burn a twig of the guardian forest. In olden times, indeed, superstition asserted that trees thus consecrated would bleed if wounded by a sacrilegious ax. All woodmen are directed to spare the trees, under pain of a heavy curse. Hence, the name "bann-wälder," which is given to these vegetable ramparts.

Or, failing such a bulwark, the natives in some valleys literally nail the avalanches to the ground. They drive little pegs into the earth along the margin of the snow, and thus either keep it in its place until it is quietly melted by the warm wind or summer sun, or else divide its pressure to such a degree that it breaks away in harmless sections when the time for movement arrives. It is astonishing what little things will serve to arrest the development of evil, either physical or moral, if the resistance be applied at the right hour and in the right place. A few blades of grass left uncut by the mowers, and afterwards frozen into hard spikes, have been know to prevent the launching of ava

In some spots, too, where these children of frost have a regular track, (and this is frequently the case with the grund-lauwinen, as will be readily conceived from the nature of their formation,) the villagers protect houses exposed to attack by building two high walls which meet like the sharp end of a wedge, and thus cheat the avalanche of its prey by dividing its stream. In other places embankments have been constructed, with a smooth incline, in order that the torrent may shoot over the building in its frenzied rush; and as there are parts of the great roads where these monsters are known to ply, or where the windschilde frequently fall, (the latter being masses of snow collected by the wind at a particular point, and at length precipitated by their own gravity,) galleries have been erected for the protection of the traveler, or the path has been roofed in with timbers, sloping in such a way that the snow may roll over his head harmlessly.

Let us not assume, however, that the avalanche is without its uses. On the contrary, it has great functions to discharge in the economy of nature, and in some respects blesses, though it frequently destroys. For if the load of snow with which much valuable land is burdened during the prevalence of frost were to remain in situ, until dissolved by the warmth of spring and summer, the soil would not be emancipated until the season was too far advanced for the purposes of vegetation; whereas the self-acting machinery of the avalanche clears the ground by a few vigorous strokes, and carries the débris of winter into a region where it is speedily melted and turned to fructifying account.

snow.

There are, of course, many other forms of the phenomena than those already indicated; for the material may consist of stone, ice, or mud, as well as The summit of a rock may detach itself, or prodigious masses of earth may sweep down upon the underlying hamlets, as was the case in the terrible Rossberg slide, which pounded three or four villages to dust, and destroyed upwards of four hundred and fifty individuals in less than five minutes.

[TO BE CONCLUDED.]

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