Chapter I: Observations on the Mer De Glace 339 (7)

These deep gorges occur, I believe, for the most part in limestone strata; and the effects which the merest driblet of water can produce on such rocks are quite astonishing. It is not uncommon to meet chasms of considerable depth produced by small streams the beds of which are dry for a large portion of the year. Right and left of the larger gorges such secondary chasms are usually to be found. The idea of _time_ must, I think, be more and more included in our reasonings on these phenomena. Happily, the marks which the rivers have, in most cases, left behind them, and which refer, geologically considered, to actions of yesterday, give us ground and courage to conceive what may be effected in geologic periods. Thus the modern portion of the Via Mala throws light upon the whole. Near Bergün, in the valley of the Albula, there is also a little Via Mala, which is not less significant than the great one. The river flows here through a profound limestone gorge; but to the very edges of the gorge we have the evidences of erosion. The most striking illustration of water-action upon limestone rock which I have ever witnessed is, I think, furnished by the gorge at Pfäffers. Here the traveller passes along the side of the chasm midway between top and bottom. Whichever way he looks, backwards or forwards, upwards or downwards, towards the sky or towards the river, he meets everywhere the irresistible and impressive evidence that this wonderful fissure has been sawn through the mountain by the waters of the Tamina.

I have thus far confined myself to the consideration of the gorges formed by the cutting through of the rock-barriers which frequently cross the valleys of the Alps; as far as I have examined them they are the work of erosion. But the larger question still remains, To what action are we to ascribe the formation of the valleys themselves? This question includes that of the formation of the mountain-ridges, for were the valleys wholly filled, the ridges would disappear. Possibly no answer can be given to this question which is not beset with more or less of difficulty. Special localities might be found which would seem to contradict every solution which refers the conformation of the Alps to the operation of a single cause.

Still the Alps present features of a character sufficiently definite to bring the question of their origin within the sphere of close reasoning. That they were in whole or in part once beneath the sea will not be disputed; for they are in great part composed of sedimentary rocks which required a sea to form them. Their present elevation above the sea is due to one of those local changes in the shape of the earth which have been of frequent occurrence throughout geologic time, and which in some cases have depressed the land, and in others caused the sea-bottom to protrude beyond its surface. Considering the inelastic character of its materials, the protuberance of the Alps could hardly have been pushed out without dislocation and fracture; and this conclusion gains in probability when we consider the foldings, contortions, and even reversals in position of the strata in many parts of the Alps. Such changes in the position of beds which were once horizontal could not have been effected without dislocation. Fissures would be produced by these changes; and such fissures, the advocates of the fracture theory contend, mark the positions of the valleys of the Alps.

Imagination is necessary to the man of science, and we could not reason on our present subject without the power of presenting mentally a picture of the earth’s crust cracked and fissured by the forces which produced its upheaval. Imagination, however, must be strictly checked by reason and by observation. That fractures occurred cannot, I think, be doubted, but that the valleys of the Alps are thus formed is a conclusion not at all involved in the admission of dislocations. I never met with a precise statement of the manner in which the advocates of the fissure theory suppose the forces to have acted--whether they assume a general elevation of the region, or a local elevation of distinct ridges; or whether they assume local subsidences after a general elevation, or whether they would superpose upon the general upheaval minor and local upheavals.

In the absence of any distinct statement, I will assume the elevation to be general--that a swelling out of the earth’s crust occurred here, sufficient to place the most prominent portions of the protuberance three miles above the sea-level. To fix the ideas, let us consider a circular portion of the crust, say one hundred miles in diameter, and let us suppose, in the first instance, the circumference of this circle to remain fixed, and that the elevation was confined to the space within it. The upheaval would throw the crust into a state of strain; and, if it were inflexible, the strain must be relieved by fracture. Crevasses would thus intersect the crust. Let us now enquire what proportion the area of these open fissures is likely to bear to the area of the unfissured crust. An approximate answer is all that is here required; for the problem is of such a character as to render minute precision unnecessary.

No one, I think, would affirm that the area of the fissures would be one-hundredth the area of the land. For let us consider the strain upon a single line drawn over the summit of the protuberance from a point on its rim to a point opposite. Regarding the protuberance as a spherical swelling, the length of the arc corresponding to a chord of 100 miles and a versed sine of 3 miles is 100.24 miles; consequently the surface to reach its new position must stretch 0.24 of a mile, or be broken. A fissure or a number of cracks with this total width would relieve the strain; that is to say, the sum of the widths of all the cracks over the length of 100 miles would be 420 yards. If, instead of comparing the width of the fissures with the length of the lines of tension, we compared their areas with the area of the unfissured land, we should of course find the proportion much less. These considerations will help the imagination to realise what a small ratio the area of the open fissures must bear to the unfissured crust. They enable us to say, for example, that to assume the area of the fissures to be one-tenth of the area of the land would be quite absurd, while that the area of the fissures could be one-half or more than one-half that of the land would be in a proportionate degree unthinkable. If we suppose the elevation to be due to the shrinking or subsidence of the land all round our assumed circle, we arrive equally at the conclusion that the area of the open fissures would be altogether insignificant as compared with that of the unfissured crust.

To those who have seen them from a commanding elevation, it is needless to say that the Alps themselves bear no sort of resemblance to the picture which this theory presents to us. Instead of deep cracks with approximately vertical walls, we have ridges before us running into peaks, and gradually sloping to form valleys. Instead of a fissured crust, we have a state of things closely resembling the surface of the ocean when agitated by a storm. The valleys, instead of being much narrower than the ridges, occupy the greater space. A plaster cast of the Alps turned upside down, so as to invert the elevations and depressions, would exhibit blunter and broader mountains, with narrower valleys between them, than the present ones. The valleys that exist cannot, I think, with any correctness of language be called fissures. It may be urged that they originated in fissures: but even this is unproved, and, were it proved, would still make the fissures play the subordinate part of giving direction to the agents which are to be regarded as the real sculptors of the Alps.

The fracture theory, then, if it regards the elevation of the Alps as due to the operation of a force acting throughout the entire region, is, in my opinion, utterly incompetent to account for the conformation of the country. If, on the other hand, we are compelled to resort to local disturbances, the manipulation of the earth’s crust necessary to obtain the valleys and the mountains will, I imagine, bring the difficulties of the theory into very strong relief. Indeed an examination of the region from many of the more accessible eminences--from the Galenstock, the Grauhaupt, the Pitz Languard, the Monte Confinale--or, better still, from Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, the Jungfrau, the Finsteraarhorn, the Weisshorn, or the Matterhorn, where local peculiarities are toned down, and the operations of the powers which really made this region what it is are alone brought into prominence--must, I imagine, convince every physically-minded man of the inability of any fracture theory to account for the present conformation of the Alps.

A correct model of the mountains, with an unexaggerated vertical scale, produces the same effect upon the mind as the prospect from one of the highest peaks. We are apt to be influenced by local phenomena which, though insignificant in view of the general question of Alpine conformation, are, with reference to our customary standards, vast and impressive. In a true model those local peculiarities disappear; for on the scale of a model they are too small to be visible; while the essential facts and forms are presented to the undistracted attention.

A minute analysis of the phenomena strengthens the conviction which the general aspect of the Alps fixes in the mind. We find, for example, numerous valleys which the most ardent plutonist would not think of ascribing to any other agency than erosion. That such is their genesis and history is as certain as that erosion produced the Chines in the Isle of Wight. From these indubitable cases of erosion--commencing, if necessary, with the small ravines which run down the flanks of the ridges, with their little working navigators at their bottoms--we can proceed, by almost insensible gradations, to the largest valleys of the Alps; and it would perplex the plutonist to fix upon the point at which fracture begins to play a material part.

In ascending one of the larger valleys, we enter it where it is wide and where the eminences are gentle on either side. The flanking mountains become higher and more abrupt as we ascend, and at length we reach a place where the depth of the valley is a maximum. Continuing our walk upwards, we find ourselves flanked by gentler slopes, and finally emerge from the valley and reach the summit of an open col, or depression in the chain of mountains. This is the common character of the large valleys. Crossing the col, we descend along the opposite slope of the chain, and through the same series of appearances in the reverse order. If the valleys on both sides of the col were produced by fissures, what prevents the fissure from prolonging itself across the col? The case here cited is representative; and I am not acquainted with a single instance in the Alps where the chain has been cracked in the manner indicated. The cols are simply depressions, and in the case of many of them the unfissured rock can be traced from side to side.

The typical instance just sketched follows as a natural consequence from the theory of erosion. Before either ice or water can exert great power as an erosive agent, it must collect in sufficient mass. On the higher slopes and plateaus--in the region of cols--the power is not fully developed; but lower down tributaries unite, erosion is carried on with increased vigour, and the excavation gradually reaches a maximum. Lower still the elevations diminish and the slopes become more gentle; the cutting power gradually relaxes, until finally the eroding agent quits the mountains altogether, and the grand effects which it produced in the earlier portions of its course entirely disappear.

I have hitherto confined myself to the consideration of the broad question of the erosion theory as compared with the fracture theory; and all that I have been able to observe and think with reference to the subject leads me to adopt the former. Under the term erosion I include the action of water, of ice, and of the atmosphere, including frost and rain. Water and ice, however, are the principal agents, and which of these two has produced the greatest effect it is perhaps impossible to say. Two years ago I wrote a brief note ‘On the Conformation of the Alps,’[21] in which I ascribed the paramount influence to glaciers. The facts on which that opinion was founded are, I think, unassailable; but whether the conclusion then announced fairly follows from the facts is, I confess, an open question.

[21] Phil. Mag. vol. xxiv. p. 169.

The arguments which have been thus far urged against the conclusion are not convincing. Indeed, the idea of glacier erosion appears so daring to some minds that its boldness alone is deemed its sufficient refutation. It is, however, to be remembered that a precisely similar position was taken up by many respectable people when the question of ancient glacier extension was first mooted. The idea was considered too hardy to be entertained; and the evidences of glacial action were sought to be explained by reference to almost any process rather than the true one. Let those who so wisely took the side of ‘boldness’ in that discussion beware lest they place themselves, with reference to the question of glacier erosion, in the position formerly occupied by their opponents.

Looking at the little glaciers of the present day--mere pigmies as compared to the giants of the glacial epoch--we find that from every one of them issues a river more or less voluminous, charged with the matter which the ice has rubbed from the rocks. Where the rocks are of a soft character, the amount of this finely pulverised matter suspended in the water is very great. The water, for example, of the river which flows from Santa Catarina to Bormio is thick with it. The Rhine is charged with this matter, and by it has so silted up the Lake of Constance as to abolish it for a large fraction of its length. The Rhone is charged with it, and tens of thousands of acres of cultivable land are formed by it above the Lake of Geneva.

In the case of every glacier we have two agents at work--the ice exerting a crushing force on every point of its bed which bears its weight, and either rasping this point into powder or tearing it bodily from the rock to which it belongs; while the water which everywhere circulates upon the bed of the glacier continually washes the detritus away and leaves the rock clean for further abrasion. Confining the action of glaciers to the simple rubbing away of the rocks, and allowing them sufficient time to act, it is not a matter of opinion, but a physical certainty, that they will scoop out valleys. But the glacier does more than abrade. Rocks are not homogeneous; they are intersected by joints and places of weakness, which divide them into virtually detached masses. A glacier is undoubtedly competent to root such masses bodily away. Indeed the mere _à priori_ consideration of the subject proves the competence of a glacier to deepen its bed. Taking the case of a glacier 1,000 feet deep (and some of the older ones were probably three times this depth), and allowing 40 feet of ice to an atmosphere, we find that on every square inch of its bed such a glacier presses with a weight of 375 lbs., and on every square yard of its bed with a weight of 486,000 lbs. With a _vertical_ pressure of this amount the glacier is urged down its valley by the pressure from behind. We can hardly, I think, deny to such a tool a power of excavation.

Before concluding these remarks, I refreshed my memory by a second reading of the paper of Mr. John Ball, published in the ‘Philosophical Magazine’ for February 1863. Mr. Ball’s great experience of the Alps naturally renders everything he writes regarding them interesting. But though I have attended to the suggestions contained in his paper, I am unable to see the cogency of his arguments. An inspection of the map of Switzerland, with reference to the direction of its valleys, suggests to my mind no objection whatever to the theory of erosion.

The reperusal of his paper assured me that Mr. Ball had paid attention to the formation of ancient lakes. He deems their beds a prominent feature of Alpine valleys; and he considers the barriers which dammed them up, and which were not removed by the ancient glaciers, as ‘a formidable difficulty in the way of Prof. Tyndall’s bold hypothesis.’ ‘Looking at the operation as a whole,’ writes Mr. Ball, ‘it is to me quite inconceivable that a glacier should be competent to scoop out valleys a mile or more in depth, and yet be unable to remove the main inequalities from its own channel.’

To this I reply that a glacier _is_ competent to remove such barriers, and they probably have been ground down in some cases thousands of feet. But being of more resisting material than the adjacent rock, they are not ground down to the level of that rock. Were its bed uniform in the first instance, the glacier would, in my opinion, _produce_ the inequalities which Mr. Ball thinks it ought to remove. I have recently had the pleasure of examining some of these barriers in the company of Mr. Ball; and to me they represented nothing more than the natural accidents of the locality. It would, I think, be far more wonderful to find the rocks of the Alps perfectly homogeneous, than to find them exhibiting such variations of resistance to grinding down as are actually observed.

The question of lake-basins is now in competent hands, and on its merits I will offer no opinion. But I cannot help remarking that the dams referred to by Mr. Ball furnish a conclusive reply to some of the arguments which have been urged against Prof. Ramsay’s theory. These barriers have been crossed by the ice, and many of them present steeper gradients than Prof. Ramsay has to cope with in order to get his ice out of his lake-basins. An inspection of the barriers shows that they were incompetent to embay the ice: they are scarred and fluted from bottom to top. When it is urged against Prof. Ramsay that a glacier cannot drop into a hole 2,000 feet deep and get out again, the distance ought to be stated over which these 2,000 feet have to be distributed. A depression 2,000 feet deep, if only of sufficient length, would constitute no material obstacle to the motion of a great glacier.

The retardation of a glacier by its bed has also been referred to as proving its impotence as an erosive agent; but this very retardation is in some measure an expression of the magnitude of the erosive energy. Either the bed must give way, or the ice must slide over itself; and to make ice slide over itself requires great power. We get some idea of the crushing pressure which the moving glacier exercises against its bed from the fact that the resistance, and the effort to overcome it, are such as to make the upper layers of a glacier move bodily over the lower ones--a portion only of the total motion being due to the progress of the entire mass of the glacier down its valley.

The sudden bend in the valley of the Rhone at Martigny has also been regarded as conclusive evidence against the theory of erosion. ‘Why,’ it has been asked, ‘did not the glacier of the Rhone go straight forward instead of making this awkward bend?’ But if the valley be a crack, why did the crack make this bend? The crack, I submit, had at least as much reason to prolong itself in a straight line as the glacier had. A statement of Sir John Herschel with reference to another matter is perfectly applicable here: ‘A crack once produced has a tendency to run--for this plain reason, that at its momentary limit, at the point at which it has just arrived, the divellent force on the molecules there situated is counteracted only by half of the cohesive force which acted when there was no crack, viz. the cohesion of the uncracked portion alone’ (‘Proc. Roy. Soc.’ vol. xii. p. 678). To account then for the bend, the adherent of the fracture theory must assume the existence of some accident which turned the crack at right angles to itself; and he surely will permit the adherent of the erosion theory to make a similar assumption.

The influence of small accidents on the direction of rivers is beautifully illustrated in glacier streams, which are made to cut either straight or sinuous channels by causes apparently of the most trivial character. In his interesting paper ‘On the Lakes of Switzerland,’ M. Studer also refers to the bend of the Rhine at Sargans in proof that the river must there follow a pre-existing fissure. I made a special expedition to the place in 1864; and though I felt that M. Studer had good grounds for the selection of this spot, I was unable to arrive at his conclusion as to the necessity of a fissure.

Again, in the interesting volume recently published by the Swiss Alpine Club, M. Desor informs us that the Swiss naturalists who met last year at Samaden visited the end of the Morteratsch glacier, and there convinced themselves that a glacier had no tendency whatever to imbed itself in the soil. I scarcely think that the question of glacier erosion, as applied either to lakes or valleys, is to be disposed of so easily. Let me record here my experience of the Morteratsch glacier. I took with me in 1864 a theodolite to Pontresina, and while there had to congratulate myself on the invaluable aid of my friend Mr. Hirst, who in 1857 did such good service upon the Mer de Glace and its tributaries. We set out three lines across the Morteratsch glacier, one of which crossed the ice-stream near the well-known hut of the painter Georgei, while the two others were staked out, the one above the hut and the other below it. Calling the highest line A, the line which crossed the glacier at the hut B, and the lowest line C, the following are the mean hourly motions of the three lines, deduced from observations which extended over several days. On each line eleven stakes were fixed, which are designated by the figures 1, 2, 3, &c. in the Tables.

_Morteratsch Glacier, Line_ A.

No. of Stake. Hourly Motion.
1 0.35 inch.
2 0.49 „
3 0.53 „
4 0.54 „
5 0.56 „
6 0.54 „
7 0.52 „
8 0.49 „
9 0.40 „
10 0.29 „
11 0.20 „

As in all other measurements of this kind, the retarding influence of the sides of the glacier is manifest: the centre moves with the greatest velocity.

_Morteratsch Glacier, Line_ B.

No. of Stake. Hourly Motion.
1 0.05 inch.
2 0.14 „
3 0.24 „
4 0.32 „
5 0.41 „
6 0.44 „
7 0.44 „
8 0.45 „
9 0.43 „
10 0.44 „
11 0.44 „

The first stake of this line was quite close to the edge of the glacier, and the ice was thin at the place, hence its slow motion. Crevasses prevented us from carrying the line sufficiently far across to render the retardation of the further side of the glacier fully evident.

_Morteratsch Glacier, Line_ C.

No of Stake. Hourly Motion.
1 0.05 inch.
2 0.09 „
3 0.18 „
4 0.20 „
5 0.25 „
6 0.27 „
7 0.27 „
8 0.30 „
9 0.21 „
10 0.20 „
11 0.16 „

Comparing the three lines together, it will be observed that the velocity diminishes as we descend the glacier. In 100 hours the maximum motion of the three lines respectively is as follows:

_Maximum Motion in 100 hours._

Line A 56 inches
„ B 45 „
„ C 30 „

This deportment explains an appearance which must strike every observer who looks upon the Morteratsch from the Piz Languard, or from the new Bernina Road. A medial moraine runs along the glacier, commencing as a narrow streak, but towards the end the moraine extending in width, until finally it quite covers the terminal portion of the glacier. The cause of this is revealed by the foregoing measurements, which prove that a stone on the moraine where it is crossed by the line A approaches a second stone on the moraine where it is crossed by the line C with a velocity of twenty-six inches per one hundred hours. The moraine is in a state of longitudinal compression. Its materials are more and more squeezed together, and they must consequently move laterally and render the moraine at the terminal portion of the glacier wider than above.

The motion of the Morteratsch glacier, then, diminishes as we descend. The maximum motion of the third line is thirty inches in one hundred hours, or seven inches a day--a very slow motion; and had we run a line nearer to the end of the glacier, the motion would have been slower still. At the end itself it is nearly insensible. Now I submit that this is not the place to seek for the scooping power of a glacier. The opinion appears to be prevalent that it is the snout of a glacier that must act the part of ploughshare; and it is certainly an erroneous opinion. The scooping power will exert itself most where the weight, and consequently (other things being equal) the motion, is greatest. A glacier’s snout often _rests upon_ matter which has been scooped from the glacier’s bed higher up. I therefore do not think that the inspection of what the end of a glacier does or does not accomplish can decide this question.

The snout of a glacier is potent to remove anything against which it can fairly abut; and this power, notwithstanding the slowness of the motion, manifests itself at the end of the Morteratsch glacier. A hillock, bearing pine-trees, was in front of the glacier when Mr. Hirst and myself inspected its end; and this hillock is being bodily removed by the thrust of the ice. Several of the trees are overturned; and in a few years, if the glacier continues its reputed advance, the mound will certainly be ploughed away.

I will here record a few other measurements executed on the Rosegg glacier: the line was staked out across the trunk formed by the junction of the Rosegg proper with the Tschierva glacier, a short distance below the rocky promontory called Agaliogs.

_Rosegg Glacier._

No. of Stake. Hourly Motion.
1 0.01 inch.
2 0.05 „
3 0.07 „
4 0.10 „
5 0.11 „
6 0.13 „
7 0.14 „
8 0.18 „
9 0.24 „
10 0.23 „
11 0.24 „

This is an extremely slowly moving glacier; the maximum hardly amounts to seven inches a day. Crevasses prevented us from continuing the line quite across the glacier.

To return to the question of Alpine conformation: it stands, I think, thus: We have, in the first place, great valleys, such as those of the Rhine and the Rhone, which we might conveniently call valleys of the first order. The mountains which flank these main valleys are also cut by lateral valleys running into the main one, and which may be called valleys of the second order. When these latter are examined, smaller valleys are found running into them, which may be called valleys of the third order. Smaller ravines and depressions, again, join the latter, which may be called valleys of the fourth order, and so on until we reach streaks and cuttings so minute as not to merit the name of valleys at all. At the bottom of every valley we have a stream, diminishing in magnitude as the order of the valley ascends, carving the earth and carrying its materials to lower levels. We find that the larger valleys have been filled for untold ages by glaciers of enormous dimensions, always moving, grinding down and tearing away the rocks over which they passed. We have, moreover, on the plains at the feet of the mountains, and in enormous quantities, the very matter derived from the sculpture of the mountains themselves.

The plains of Italy and Switzerland are cumbered by the _débris_ of the Alps. The lower, wider, and more level valleys are also filled to unknown depths with the materials derived from the higher ones. In the vast quantities of moraine-matter which cumber many even of the higher valleys we have also suggestions as to the magnitude of the erosion which has taken place. This moraine-matter, moreover, can only in small part have been derived from the falling of rocks _upon_ the ancient glacier; it is in great part derived from the grinding and the ploughing-out of the glacier itself. This accounts for the magnitude of many of the ancient moraines, which date from a period when almost all the mountains were covered with ice and snow, and when, consequently, the quantity of moraine-matter derived from the naked crests cannot have been considerable.

The erosion theory ascribes the formation of Alpine valleys to the agencies here briefly referred to. It invokes nothing but true causes. Its artificers are still there, though, it may be, in diminished strength; and if they are granted sufficient time, it is demonstrable that they are competent to produce the effects ascribed to them. And what does the fracture theory offer in comparison? From no possible application of this theory, pure and simple, can we obtain the slopes and forms of the mountains. Erosion must in the long run be invoked, and its power therefore conceded. The fracture theory infers from the disturbances of the Alps the existence of fissures; and this is a probable inference. But that they were of a magnitude sufficient to determine the conformation of the Alps, and that they followed, as the Alpine valleys do, the lines of natural drainage of the country, are assumptions which do not appear to me to be justified either by reason or by observation.

There is a grandeur in the secular integration of small effects implied by the theory of erosion almost superior to that involved in the idea of a cataclysm. Think of the ages which must have been consumed in the execution of this colossal sculpture. The question may, of course, be pushed to further limits. Think of the ages which the molten earth required for its consolidation. But these vaster epochs lack sublimity through our inability to grasp them. They bewilder us, but they fail to make a solemn impression. The genesis of the mountains comes more within the scope of the intellect, and the majesty of the operation is enhanced by our partial ability to conceive it. In the falling of a rock from a mountain-head, in the shoot of an avalanche, in the plunge of a cataract, we often see more impressive illustrations of the power of gravity than in the motions of the stars. When the intellect has to intervene, and calculation is necessary to the building up of the conception, the expansion of the feelings ceases to be proportional to the magnitude of the phenomena.

XXI.

_SEARCH ON THE MATTERHORN: A PROJECT._

In July 1865 my excellent friend Hirst and myself visited Glarus, intending, if circumstances favoured us, to climb the Tödi. We had, however, some difficulty with the guides, and therefore gave the expedition up. Crossing the Klausen pass to Altdorf, we ascended the Gotthardt Strasse to Wasen, and went thence over the Susten pass to Gadmen, which we reached late at night. We halted for a moment at Stein, but the blossom of 1863[22] was no longer there, and we did not tarry. On quitting Gadmen next morning I was accosted by a guide, who asked me whether I knew Professor Tyndall. ‘He is killed, sir,’ said the man--‘killed upon the Matterhorn.’ I then listened to a somewhat detailed account of my own destruction, and soon gathered that, though the details were erroneous, something serious if not shocking had occurred. At Imhof the rumour became more consistent, and immediately afterwards the Matterhorn catastrophe was in every mouth, and in all the newspapers. My friend and myself wandered on to Mürren, whence, after an ineffectual attempt to cross the Petersgrat, we went by Kandersteg and the Gemmi to Zermatt.

[22] Page 167.

Of the four sufferers on the Matterhorn one remained behind. But expressed in terms either of mental torture or physical pain, the suffering in my opinion was _nil_. Excitement during the first moments left no room for terror, and immediate unconsciousness prevented pain. No death has probably less of agony in it than that caused by the shock of gravity on a mountain-side. _Expected_, it would be terrible; but unexpected, not. I had heard, however, of other griefs and sufferings consequent on the accident, and this prompted a desire on my part to find the remaining one and bring him down.

I had seen the road-makers at work between St. Nicholas and Zermatt, and was struck by the rapidity with which they pierced the rocks for blasting. One of these fellows could drive a hole a foot deep into hard granite in less than an hour. I was therefore determined to secure in aid of my project the services of a road-maker. None of the Zermatt guides would second me, but I found one of the Lochmatters of St. Nicholas willing to do so. Him I sent to Geneva to buy 3,000 feet of rope, which duly came on heavily laden mules to Zermatt. Hammers and steel punches were prepared; a tent was put in order, and the whole was carried up to the chapel by the Schwarz See. But the weather would by no means smile upon the undertaking. I waited in Zermatt for twenty days, making excursions with pleasant friends, but they merely spanned the brief intervals which separated one rain-gush or thunderstorm from another. Bound by an engagement to my friend Professor De la Rive, of Geneva, where the Swiss naturalists had their annual assembly in 1865, I was forced to leave Zermatt. My notion was to climb to the point where the men slipped, and to fix there suitable irons in the rocks. By means of ropes attached to these I proposed to scour the mountain along the line of the glissade. There were peculiarities in the notion which need not now be dwelt upon, inasmuch as the weather rendered them all futile.

* * * * *

[I am not sure that the proposed search is practicable; it would certainly require unusually good weather for its execution.--April 1871.]

XXII.

_THE TITLIS, FINSTERAARSCHLUCHT, PETERSGRAT, AND ITALIAN LAKES._

In the summer of 1866 I first went to Engsteln, one of the most charming spots in the Alps. It had at that time a double charm, for the handsome young widow who kept the inn supplemented by her kindness and attention within doors the pleasures extracted from the outer world. A man named Maurer, of Meyringen, was my guide for a time. We climbed the Titlis, going straight up it from the Joch Pass, in the track of a scampering chamois which showed us the way. The Titlis is a very noble mass--one of the few which, while moderate in height, bear a lordly weight of snow. The view from the summit is exceedingly fine, and on it I repeated with a hand spectroscope the observations of M. Janssen on the absorption-bands of aqueous vapour. On the day after this ascent I quitted Engsteln, being drawn towards the Wellhorn and Wetterhorn, both of which, as seen from Engsteln, came out with inexpressible nobleness. The upper dome of heaven was of the deepest blue, while only the faintest lightening of the colour towards the horizon indicated the augmented thickness of the atmosphere in that direction. The sun was very hot, but there was a clear rivulet at hand, deepening here and there into pebbled pools, into which I plunged at intervals, causing my guide surprise if not anxiety; for he shared the common superstition that plunging, when hot, into cold water is dangerous. The danger, and a very serious one it is, is to plunge into cold water when _cold_. The strongest alone can then bear immersion without damage.

This year I subjected the famous Finsteraarschlucht to a closer examination than ordinary. The earthquake theory already adverted to was prevalent regarding it, and I wished to see whether any evidences existed of aqueous erosion. It will be remembered that the Schlucht or gorge is cut through a great barrier of limestone rock called the Kirchet, which throws itself across the valley of Hasli, about three-quarters of an hour’s walk above Meyringen. The plain beyond the barrier, on which stands the hamlet of Imhof, is formed of the sediment of a lake of which the Kirchet constituted the dam. This dam is now cut through for the passage of the Aar, forming one of the noblest gorges in Switzerland. Near the summit of the Kirchet is a house with a signboard inviting the traveller to visit the _Aarenschlucht_, a narrow lateral gorge which runs down to the very bottom of the principal one. The aspect of this smaller chasm from its bottom to its top proves to demonstration that water had in former ages worked there as a navigator. It is scooped, rounded, and polished, so as to render it palpable to the common eye that it is a gorge of erosion. But it was regarding the sides of the great chasm that I needed instruction, and from its edge I could see nothing to satisfy me. I therefore stripped and waded into the river until a point was reached which commanded an excellent view of both sides of the gorge. The water was cutting, but I was repaid. Below me on the left-hand side was a jutting cliff, which bore the thrust of the river and caused the Aar to swerve from its direct course. From top to bottom this cliff was polished, rounded, and scooped. There was no room for doubt. The river which now runs so deeply down had once been above. It has been the delver of its own channel through the barrier of the Kirchet.

I went on to Rosenlaui, proposing to climb the neighbouring mountains in succession. In fact I went to Switzerland in 1866 with a particular hunger for the heights. But the weather thickened before Rosenlaui was reached, and on the night following the morning of my departure from Engsteln I lay upon my plaid under an impervious pine, and watched as wild a thunderstorm and as heavy a downpour of rain as I had ever seen. Most extraordinary was the flicker on cliffs and trees, and most tremendous was the detonation succeeding each discharge. The fine weather came thus to an end, and next day I gave up the Wetterhorn for the ignoble Faulhorn. Here the wind changed, the air became piercingly cold, and on the following morning heavy snow-drifts buttressed the doors, windows, and walls of the inn. We broke away, sinking at some places to the hips in snow. A descent of a thousand feet carried us from the bleakest winter into genial summer. My companion held on to the beaten track, while I sought a rougher and more direct one to the Scheinigeplatte, a resting-place which commands a noble view of the precipices of the Jungfrau. We were solitary visitors there, and I filled the evening with Miss Thackeray’s ‘Story of Elizabeth,’ which some benevolent traveller had left at the hotel.

Thence we dropped down to Lauterbrunnen, went up the valley to the little inn at Trechslawinen, and crossed the Petersgrat the following day. The recent precipitation had cleared the heavens and reloaded the heights. It was, perhaps, the splendour of the weather and the purity of the snows, aided by the subjective effect due to contrast with a series of most dismal days, that made me think the Petersgrat so noble a standpoint for a view of the mountains. The horizontal extent was vast, and the grouping magnificent. The undoubted monarch of this unparagoned scene was the Weisshorn, and this may have rendered me partial in my judgment, for men like to see what they love exalted. At Platten we found shelter in the house of the curé. Next day we crossed the Lotschsattel, and swept round by the Aletsch glacier to the Æggischhorn.

Here I had the pleasure of meeting a very ardent climber, who entertains peculiar notions regarding guides. He deems them, and rightly so, very expensive, and he also feels pleasure in trying his own powers. Very likely it is my habit of going alone that causes me to sympathise with him. I would, however, admonish him that he may go too far in this direction, and probably his own experience has by this time forestalled the admonition. Still, if skill, strength, and self-reliance are things to be cultivated in the Alps, they are, within certain limits, best exercised and developed in the absence of guides. And if the real climbers are ever to be differentiated from the crowd who write and talk about the mountains, it is only to be done by dispensing with professional assistance. But no man without natural aptitude and due training would be justified in committing himself to ventures of this kind, and it is an error to suppose that the necessary knowledge can be obtained in one or two summers in the Alps. Climbing is an art, and those who wish to cultivate it on their own account ought to give themselves sufficient previous practice in the company of first-rate guides. Here, moreover, as in every other sphere of human action, whether intellectual or physical, as indeed among the guides themselves, real eminence falls only to the lot of few. Whatever be the amount of preparation, real climbers must still remain select men.

From the Bel Alp, Mr. Girdlestone and I, without any guide, made an attack upon the Aletschhorn. We failed. The weather as we started was undecided, but we hoped the turn might be in our favour. We first kept along the Alp, with the Jäggi glacier to our right, then crossed its moraine, and made the trunk glacier our highway until we reached the point of confluence of its branches. Here we turned to the right, the Aletschhorn, from base to summit, coming into view. We reached the true base of the mountain, and without halting breasted its snow. But as we climbed the atmosphere thickened more and more. About the Nesthorn the horizon deepened to pitchy darkness, and on the Aletschhorn itself hung a cloud, which we at first hoped would melt before the strengthening sun, but which instead of melting became denser. Now and then an echoing rumble of the wind warned us that we might expect rough handling above. We persisted, however, and reached a considerable height, unwilling to admit that the weather was against us, until a more savage roar and a ruder shake than ordinary caused us to halt, and look more earnestly and anxiously into the darkening atmosphere. We were forced to give in, and during our descent the air was thick and dark with falling snow. Holding on in the dimness to the medial moraine, we managed to get down the glacier, and to clear it at a practicable point, whence, guided by the cliffs which flanked our right, and which became visible only when we came almost into contact with them, we hit the proper track to the Bel Alp hotel.

Though my visits to the Alps had already numbered thirteen, I had never gone so far southward as the Italian lakes. The perfectly unmanageable weather of July 1866 caused me to cross with Mr. Girdlestone into Italy, in the hope that a respite of ten or twelve days might improve the temper of the mountains. We walked over the Simplon to the village of the same name, and took thence the diligence to Domo d’Ossola and Baveno. The atmospheric change was wonderful; and still the clear air which we enjoyed below was the self-same air that heaped clouds and snow upon the mountains. It came across the heated plains of Lombardy charged with moisture, but the moisture was in the transparent condition of true vapour, and hence invisible. Tilted by the mountains, the air rose, and as it expanded it became chilled, and as it became chilled it discharged its vapour as visible cloud, the globules of which swelled by coalescence into raindrops on the mountain-flanks, or were frozen to snow upon the mountain-heads.

We halted on the margin of the Lago Maggiore. I could hear the lisping of the waters on the shingle far into the night. My window looked eastward, and through it could be seen the first warming of the sky at the approach of dawn. I rose, and watched the growth of colour all along the east. The mountains, from mere masses of darkness projected against the heavens, became empurpled. It was not as a mere wash of colour overspreading their surfaces. They blent with the atmosphere as if they were part and parcel of the general purple of the air. Nobody was stirring at the time, and the ‘lap’ of the lake upon its shore only increased the sense of silence.

The holy hour was quiet as a nun
Breathless with adoration.

In my subsequent experience of the Italian lakes I met with nothing which affected me so deeply as this morning scene on the Lago Maggiore.

From Baveno we crossed the lake to Luino, and went thence to Lugano. At Belaggio, on the junction of the two branches of the Lake of Como, we halted a couple of days. Como itself we reached in a small sailing-boat, as a storm prevented the steamer from taking us. There we saw the statue of Volta--a prophet justly honoured in his own country. From Como we went to Milan. A climber, of course, could not forego the pleasure of looking at Monte Rosa from the cathedral roof. The distribution of the statues magnified the apparent vastness of the pile; still the impression made on me by this great edifice was one of disappointment. Its front seemed to illustrate an attempt to cover meanness of conception by profusion of adornment. The interior, however, notwithstanding the cheat of the ceiling, is exceedingly grand.

From Milan we went to Orta, where we had a plunge into the lake. We crossed it subsequently, and walked on to Varallo: thence by Fobello over a country of noble beauty to Ponte Grande in the Val Ansasca. Thence again by Macugnaga, over the deep snow of the Monte Moro, reaching Mattmark in drenching rain. The temper of the northern slopes did not appear to have improved during our absence. We returned to the Bel Alp, fitful triumphs of the sun causing us to hope that we might still have fair play upon the Aletschhorn. But the day after our arrival snow fell so heavily as to cover the pastures for 2,000 feet below the hotel. Partial famine among the herds was the consequence. They had eventually to be driven below the snow-line. Avalanches were not unfrequent on slopes which a day or two previously had been covered with grass and flowers. In this condition of things Mr. Milman, Mr. Girdlestone, and I climbed the Sparrenhorn, and found its heavy-laden Kamm almost as hard as that of Monte Rosa. Occupation out of doors was, however, insufficient to fill the mind, so I wound my plaid around my loins, and in my cold bedroom studied ‘Mozley upon Miracles.’

XXIII.

_ASCENT OF THE EIGER AND PASSAGE OF THE TRIFT._

Grindelwald was my first halting-place in the summer of 1867: I reached it, in company with a friend, on Sunday evening the 7th of July. The air of the glaciers and the excellent little dinners of the Adler rendered me rapidly fit for mountain-work. The first day we made an excursion along the lower glacier to the Kastenstein, crossing, in returning, the Strahleck branch of the glacier above the ice-fall, and coming down by the Zäsenberg. The second day was spent upon the upper glacier. The sunset covered the crest of the Eiger with indescribable glory that evening. It gave definition to a vague desire I had previously entertained to climb the mountain, and I forthwith arranged with excellent old Christian Michel, and with Peter Baumann, the preliminaries of the ascent.

At half-past one o’clock on the morning of the 11th we started from the Wengern Alp; no trace of cloud was visible in the heavens, which were sown broadcast with stars. Those low down twinkled with extraordinary vivacity, many of them flashing lights of different colours. When an opera-glass was pointed to such a star, and shaken, the line of light described by the image of the star resolved itself into a string of richly coloured beads: rubies and emeralds hung thus together on the same curve. The dark intervals between the beads corresponded to the moments of extinction of the star. Over the summit of the Wetterhorn the Pleiades hung like a diadem, while at intervals a solitary meteor shot across the sky.

We passed along the Alp, and then over the balled snow and broken ice cast down a glacier which fronted us. Here the ascent began; we passed from snow to rock and from rock to snow by turns. The steepness for a time was moderate, the only thing requiring caution being the thin crusts of ice upon the rocks over which water had trickled the previous day. The east gradually brightened, the stars become paler and disappeared, and at length the crown of the adjacent Jungfrau rose out of the twilight into the rose of the sun. The bloom crept gradually downwards over the snows. At length the whole mountain-world partook of the colour. It is not in the night nor in the day--it is not in any statical condition of the atmosphere--that the mountains look most sublime. It is during the few minutes of transition from twilight to full day through the splendours of the dawn.

Seven hours’ climbing brought us to the higher slopes, which were for the most part ice, and required deep step-cutting. The whole duty of the climber on such slopes is to cut his steps properly, and to stand in them securely. At one period of my mountain life I looked lightly on the possibility of a slip, having full faith in the resources of him who accompanied me, and very little doubt of my own. Experience has qualified this faith in the power even of the best of climbers upon a steep ice-slope. A slip under such circumstances must not occur.

The Jungfrau began her cannonade very early, five avalanches having thundered down her precipices before eight o’clock in the morning. Baumann, being the youngest man, undertook the labour of step-cutting, which the hardness of the ice rendered severe. He was glad from time to time to escape to the snow-cornice which, unsupported save by its own tenacity, overhung the Grindelwald side of the mountain, checking himself at intervals by looking over the edge of the cornice, to assure himself that its strength was sufficient to bear our weight. A wilder precipice is hardly to be seen than this wall of the Eiger, viewed from the cornice at its top. It seems to drop sheer for eight thousand feet down to Grindelwald. When the cornice became unsafe, the guide retreated, and step-cutting recommenced. We reached the summit before nine o’clock, and had from it an outlook over as glorious a scene as this world perhaps affords.

* * * * *

On the following day I went down to Lauterbrunnen, and afterwards crossed the Petersgrat to Platten, where, the door of the curé being closed against travellers, we were forced into dirty quarters in an adjacent house. From Platten, instead of going as before over the Lötschsattel, we struck obliquely across the ridge above the Nesthorn, and got down upon the Jäggi glacier, making thus an exceedingly fine excursion from Platten to the Bel Alp. Thence, after a day’s halt, I pushed on to Zermatt.