Ages are your days,
Ye grand expressors of the present tense
And types of permanence;
Firm ensigns of the fatal Being
Amid these coward shapes of joy and grief
That will not bide the seeing.
Hither we bring
Our insect miseries to the rocks,
And the whole flight with pestering wing
Vanish and end their murmuring,
Vanish beside these dedicated blocks.
Emerson
GLACIERS OF THE ALPS.
In the autumn of 1854 I attended the meeting of the British Association
at Liverpool; and, after it was over, availed myself of my position to
make an excursion into North Wales. Guided by a friend who knew the
country, I became acquainted with its chief beauties, and concluded the
expedition by a visit to Bangor and the neighbouring slate quarries of
Penrhyn.
From my boyhood I had been accustomed to handle slates; had seen them
used as roofing materials, and had worked the usual amount of arithmetic
upon them at school; but now, as I saw the rocks blasted, the broken
masses removed to the sheds surrounding the quarry, and there cloven
into thin plates, a new interest was excited, and I could not help
asking after the cause of this extraordinary property of cleavage. It
sufficed to strike the point of an iron instrument into the edge of a
plate of rock to cause the mass to yield and open, as wood opens in
advance of a wedge driven into it. I walked round the quarry and
observed that the planes of cleavage were everywhere parallel; the rock
was capable of being split in one direction only, and this direction
remained perfectly constant throughout the entire quarry.
CLEAVAGE OF SLATE ROCKS.
I was puzzled, and, on expressing my perplexity to my companion, he
suggested that the cleavage was nothing more than the layers in which
the rock had been originally deposited, and which, by some subsequent
disturbance, had been set on end, like the strata of the sandstone rocks
and chalk cliffs of Alum Bay. But though I was too ignorant to combat
this notion successfully, it by no means satisfied me. I did not know
that at the time of my visit this very question of slaty cleavage was
exciting the greatest attention among English geologists, and I quitted
the place with that feeling of intellectual discontent which, however
unpleasant it may be for a time, is very useful as a stimulant, and
perhaps as necessary to the true appreciation of knowledge as a healthy
appetite is to the enjoyment of food.
On inquiry I found that the subject had been treated by three English
writers, Professor Sedgwick, Mr. Daniel Sharpe, and Mr. Sorby. From
Professor Sedgwick I learned that cleavage and stratification were
things totally distinct from each other; that in many cases the strata
could be observed with the cleavage passing through them at a high
angle; and that this was the case throughout vast areas in North Wales
and Cumberland. I read the lucid and important memoir of this eminent
geologist with great interest: it placed the data of the problem before
me, as far as they were then known, and I found myself, to some extent
at least, in a condition to appreciate the value of a theoretic
explanation.
Everybody has heard of the force of gravitation, and of that of
cohesion; but there is a more subtle play of forces exerted by the
molecules of bodies upon each other when these molecules possess
sufficient freedom of action. In virtue of such forces, the ultimate
particles of matter are enabled to build themselves up into those
wondrous edifices which we call crystals. A diamond is a crystal
self-erected from atoms of carbon; an amethyst is a crystal built up
from particles of silica; Iceland spar is a crystal built by particles
of carbonate of lime. By artificial means we can allow the particles of
bodies the free play necessary to their crystallization. Thus a solution
of saltpetre exposed to slow evaporation produces crystals of saltpetre;
alum crystals of great size and beauty may be obtained in a similar
manner; and in the formation of a bit of common sugar-candy there are
agencies at play, the contemplation of which, as mere objects of
thought, is sufficient to make the wisest philosopher bow down in
wonder, and confess himself a child.
CRYSTALLIZATION THEORY.
The particles of certain crystalline bodies are found to arrange
themselves in layers, like courses of atomic masonry, and along these
layers such crystals may be easily cloven into the thinnest laminæ. Some
crystals possess one such direction in which they may be cloven, some
several; some, on the other hand, may be split with different facility
in different directions. Rock salt may be cloven with equal facility in
three directions at right angles to each other; that is, it may be split
into cubes; calcspar may be cloven in three directions oblique to each
other; that is, into rhomboids. Heavy spar may also be cloven in three
directions, but one cleavage is much more perfect, or more eminent as
it is sometimes called, than the rest. Mica is a crystal which cleaves
very readily in one direction, and it is sufficiently tough to furnish
films of extreme tenuity: finally, any boy, with sufficient skill, who
tries a good crystal of sugar-candy in various directions with the blade
of his penknife, will find that it possesses one direction in
particular, along which, if the blade of the knife be placed and struck,
the crystal will split into plates possessing clean and shining surfaces
of cleavage.
POLAR FORCES.
Professor Sedgwick was intimately acquainted with all these facts, and a
great many more, when he investigated the cleavage of slate rocks; and
seeing no other explanation open to him, he ascribed to slaty cleavage a
crystalline origin. He supposed that the particles of slate rock were
acted on, after their deposition, by "polar forces," which so arranged
them as to produce the cleavage. According to this theory, therefore,
Honister Crag and the cliffs of Penrhyn are to be regarded as portions
of enormous crystals; a length of time commensurate with the vastness of
the supposed action being assumed to have elapsed between the deposition
of the rock and its final crystallization.
When, however, we look closely into this bold and beautiful hypothesis,
we find that the only analogy which exists between the physical
structure of slate rocks and of crystals is this single one of cleavage.
Such a coincidence might fairly give rise to the conjecture that both
were due to a common cause; but there is great difficulty in accepting
this as a theoretic truth. When we examine the structure of a slate
rock, we find that the substance is composed of the débris of former
rocks; that it was once a fine mud, composed of particles of sensible
magnitude. Is it meant that these particles, each taken as a whole,
were re-arranged after deposition? If so, the force which effected such
an arrangement must be wholly different from that of crystallization,
for the latter is essentially molecular. What is this force? Nature,
as far as we know, furnishes none competent, under the conditions, to
produce the effect. Is it meant that the molecules composing these
sensible particles have re-arranged themselves? We find no evidence of
such an action in the individual fragments: the mica is still mica, and
possesses all the properties of mica; and so of the other ingredients of
which the rock is composed. Independent of this, that an aggregate of
heterogeneous mineral fragments should, without any assignable external
cause, so shift its molecules as to produce a plane of cleavage common
to them all, is, in my opinion, an assumption too heavy for any theory
to bear.
Nevertheless, the paper of Professor Sedgwick invested the subject of
slaty cleavage with an interest not to be forgotten, and proved the
stimulus to further inquiry. The structure of slate rocks was more
closely examined; the fossils which they contained were subjected to
rigid scrutiny, and their shapes compared with those of the same species
taken from other rocks. Thus proceeding, the late Mr. Daniel Sharpe
found that the fossils contained in slate rocks are distorted in shape,
being uniformly flattened out in the direction of the planes of
cleavage. Here, then, was a fact of capital importance,—the shells
became the indicators of an action to which the mass containing them had
been subjected; they demonstrated the operation of pressure acting at
right angles to the planes of cleavage.
MECHANICAL THEORY.
The more the subject was investigated, the more clearly were the
evidences of pressure made out. Subsequent to Mr. Sharpe, Mr. Sorby
entered upon this field of inquiry. With great skill and patience he
prepared sections of slate rock, which he submitted to microscopic
examination, and his observations showed that the evidences of pressure
could be plainly traced, even in his minute specimens. The subject has
been since ably followed up by Professors Haughton, Harkness, and
others; but to the two gentlemen first mentioned we are, I think,
indebted for the prime facts on which rests the mechanical theory of
slaty cleavage.[A]
LECTURE AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.
The observations just referred to showed the co-existence of the two
phenomena, but they did not prove that pressure and cleavage stood to
each other in the relation of cause and effect. "Can the pressure
produce the cleavage?" was still an open question, and it was one which
mere reasoning, unaided by experiment, was incompetent to answer.
Sharpe despaired of an experimental solution, regarding our means as
inadequate, and our time on earth too short to produce the result. Mr.
Sorby was more hopeful. Submitting mixtures of gypsum and oxide of iron
scales to pressure, he found that the scales set themselves
approximately at right angles to the direction in which the pressure was
applied. The position of the scales resembled that of the plates of mica
which his researches had disclosed to him in slate rock, and he inferred
that the presence of such plates, and of flat or elongated fragments
generally, lying all in the same general direction, was the cause of
slaty cleavage. At the meeting of the British Association at Glasgow, in
1855, I had the pleasure of seeing some of Mr. Sorby's specimens, and,
though the cleavage they exhibited was very rough, still, the tendency
to yield at right angles to the direction in which the pressure had been
applied, appeared sufficiently manifest.
At the time now referred to I was engaged, and had been for a long time
previously, in examining the effects of pressure upon the magnetic
force, and, as far back as 1851, I had noticed that some of the bodies
which I had subjected to pressure exhibited a cleavage of surpassing
beauty and delicacy. The bearing of such facts upon the present question
now forcibly occurred to me. I followed up the observations; visited
slate yards and quarries, observed the exfoliation of rails, the fibres
of iron, the structure of tiles, pottery, and cheese, and had several
practical lessons in the manufacture of puff-paste and other laminated
confectionery. My observations, I thought, pointed to a theory of slaty
cleavage different from any previously given, and which, moreover,
referred a great number of apparently unrelated phenomena to a common
cause. On the 10th of June, 1856, I made them the subject of a Friday
evening's discourse at the Royal Institution.[B]
ORIGIN OF RESEARCHES.
Such are the circumstances, apparently remote enough, under which my
connexion with glaciers originated. My friend Professor Huxley was
present at the lecture referred to: he was well acquainted with the work
of Professor Forbes, entitled 'Travels in the Alps,' and he surmised
that the question of slaty cleavage, in its new aspect, might have some
bearing upon the laminated structure of glacier-ice discussed in the
work referred to. He therefore urged me to read the 'Travels,' which I
did with care, and the book made the same impression upon me that it had
produced upon my friend. We were both going to Switzerland that year,
and it required but a slight modification of our plans to arrange a
joint excursion over some of the glaciers of the Oberland, and thus
afford ourselves the means of observing together the veined structure of
the ice.
Had the results of this arrangement been revealed to me beforehand, I
should have paused before entering upon an investigation which required
of me so long a renunciation of my old and more favourite pursuits. But
no man knows when he commences the examination of a physical problem
into what new and complicated mental alliances it may lead him. No
fragment of nature can be studied alone; each part is related to every
other part; and hence it is, that, following up the links of law which
connect phenomena, the physical investigator often finds himself led far
beyond the scope of his original intentions, the danger in this respect
augmenting in direct proportion to the wish of the inquirer to render
his knowledge solid and complete.
A BOY'S BOOK.
When the idea of writing this book first occurred to me, it was not my
intention to confine myself to the glaciers alone, but to make the work
a vehicle for the familiar explanation of such general physical
phenomena as had come under my notice. Nor did I intend to address it to
a cultured man of science, but to a youth of average intelligence, and
furnished with the education which England now offers to the young. I
wished indeed to make it a boy's class-book, which should reveal the
mode of life, as well as the scientific objects, of an explorer of the
Alps. The incidents of the past year have caused me to deviate, in some
degree, from this intention, but its traces will be sufficiently
manifest; and this reference to it will, I trust, excuse an occasional
liberty of style and simplicity of treatment which would be out of place
if intended for a reader of riper years.
THE OBERLAND. 1856.
On the 16th of August, 1856, I received my Alpenstock from the hands of
Dr. Hooker, in the garden of the Pension Ober, at Interlaken. It bore my
name, not marked, however, by the vulgar brands of the country, but by
the solar beams which had been converged upon it by the pocket lens of
my friend. I was the companion of Mr. Huxley, and our first aim was to
cross the Wengern Alp. Light and shadow enriched the crags and green
slopes as we advanced up the valley of Lauterbrunnen, and each occupied
himself with that which most interested him. My companion examined the
drift, I the cleavage, while both of us looked with interest at the
contortions of the strata to our left, and at the shadowy, unsubstantial
aspect of the pines, gleaming through the sunhaze to our right.
FOLDED ROCKS. 1856.
What was the physical condition of the rock when it was thus bent and
folded like a pliant mass? Was it necessarily softer than it is at
present? I do not think so. The shock which would crush a railway
carriage, if communicated to it at once, is harmless when distributed
over the interval necessary for the pushing in of the buffer. By
suddenly stopping a cock from which water flows you may burst the
conveyance pipe, while a slow turning of the cock keeps all safe. Might
not a solid rock by ages of pressure be folded as above? It is a
physical axiom that no body is perfectly hard, none perfectly soft, none
perfectly elastic. The hardest body subjected to pressure yields,
however little, and the same body when the pressure is removed cannot
return to its original form. If it did not yield in the slightest degree
it would be perfectly hard; if it could completely return to its
original shape it would be perfectly elastic.
Let a pound weight be placed upon a cube of granite; the cube is
flattened, though in an infinitesimal degree. Let the weight be removed,
the cube remains a little flattened; it cannot quite return to its
primitive condition. Let us call the cube thus flattened No. 1. Starting
with No. 1 as a new mass, let the pound weight be laid upon it; the mass
yields, and on removing the weight it cannot return to the dimensions of
No. 1; we have a more flattened mass, No. 2. Proceeding in this manner,
it is manifest that by a repetition of the process we should produce a
series of masses, each succeeding one more flattened than the former.
This appears to be a necessary consequence of the physical axiom
referred to above.
Now if, instead of removing and replacing the weight in the manner
supposed, we cause it to rest continuously upon the cube, the
flattening, which above was intermittent, will be continuous; no matter
how hard the cube may be, there will be a gradual yielding of its mass
under the pressure. Apply this to squeezed rocks—to those, for example,
which form the base of an obelisk like the Matterhorn; that this base
must yield, seems a certain consequence of the physical constitution of
matter: the conclusion seems inevitable that the mountain is sinking by
its own weight. Let two points be fixed, one near the summit, the other
near the base of the obelisk; next year these points will have
approached each other. Whether the amount of approach in a human
lifetime be measureable we know not; but it seems certain that ages
would leave their impress upon the mass, and render visible to the eye
an action which at present is appreciable by the imagination only.
THE JUNGFRAU AND SILBERHORN. 1856.
We halted on the night of the 16th at the Jungfrau Hotel, and next
morning we saw the beams of the rising sun fall upon the peaked snow of
the Silberhorn. Slowly and solemnly the pure white cone appeared to rise
higher and higher into the sunlight, being afterwards mottled with gold
and gloom, as clouds drifted between it and the sun. I descended alone
towards the base of the mountain, making my way through a rugged gorge,
the sides of which were strewn with pine-trees, splintered, broken
across, and torn up by the roots. I finally reached the end of a
glacier, formed by the snow and shattered ice which fall from the
shoulders of the Jungfrau. The view from this place had a savage
magnificence such as I had not previously beheld, and it was not without
some slight feeling of awe that I clambered up the end of the glacier.
It was the first I had actually stood upon. The loneliness of the place
was very impressive, the silence being only broken by fitful gusts of
wind, or by the weird rattle of the débris which fell at intervals from
the melting ice.
AVALANCHES. 1856.
Once I noticed what appeared to be the sudden and enormous augmentation
of the waters of a cascade, but the sound soon informed me that the
increase was due to an avalanche which had chosen the track of the
cascade for its rush. Soon afterwards my eyes were fixed upon a white
slope some thousands of feet above me; I saw the ice give way, and,
after a sensible interval, the thunder of another avalanche reached me.
A kind of zigzag channel had been worn on the side of the mountain, and
through this the avalanche rushed, hidden at intervals, and anon
shooting forth, and leaping like a cataract down the precipices. The
sound was sometimes continuous, but sometimes broken into rounded
explosions which seemed to assert a passionate predominance over the
general level of the roar. These avalanches, when they first give way,
usually consist of enormous blocks of ice, which are more and more
shattered as they descend. Partly to the echoes of the first crash, but
mainly, I think, to the shock of the harder masses which preserve their
cohesion, the explosions which occur during the descent of the avalanche
are to be ascribed. Much of the ice is crushed to powder; and thus, when
an avalanche pours cataract-like over a ledge, the heavier masses, being
less influenced by the atmospheric resistance, shoot forward like
descending rockets, leaving the lighter powder in trains behind them.
Such is the material of which a class of the smaller glaciers in the
Alps is composed. They are the products of avalanches, the crushed ice
being recompacted into a solid mass, which exhibits on a smaller scale
most of the characteristics of the large glaciers.
After three hours' absence I reascended to the hotel, breakfasted, and
afterwards returned with Mr. Huxley to the glacier. While we were
engaged upon it the weather suddenly changed; lightning flashed about
the summits of the Jungfrau, and thunder "leaped" among her crags. Heavy
rain fell, but it cleared up afterwards with magical speed, and we
returned to our hotel. Heedless of the forebodings of many prophets of
evil weather we set out for Grindelwald. The scene from the summit of
the Little Scheideck was exceedingly grand. The upper air exhibited a
commotion which we did not experience; clouds were wildly driven against
the flanks of the Eiger, the Jungfrau thundered behind, while in front
of us a magnificent rainbow, fixing one of its arms in the valley of
Grindelwald, and, throwing the other right over the crown of the
Wetterhorn, clasped the mountain in its embrace. Through jagged
apertures in the clouds floods of golden light were poured down the
sides of the mountain. On the slopes were innumerable chalets,
glistening in the sunbeams, herds browsing peacefully and shaking their
mellow bells; while the blackness of the pine-trees, crowded into
woods, or scattered in pleasant clusters over alp and valley, contrasted
forcibly with the lively green of the fields.
THE HEISSE PLATTE. 1856.
At Grindelwald, on the 18th, we engaged a strong and competent guide,
named Christian Kaufmann, and proceeded to the Lower Glacier. After a
steep ascent, we gained a point from which we could look down upon the
frozen mass. At first the ice presented an appearance of utter
confusion, but we soon reached a position where the mechanical
conditions of the glacier revealed themselves, and where we might learn,
had we not known it before, that confusion is merely the unknown
intermixture of laws, and becomes order and beauty when we rise to their
comprehension. We reached the so-called Eismeer—Ice Sea. In front of us
was the range of the Viescherhörner, and a vast snow slope, from which
one branch of the glacier was fed. Near the base of this névé, and
surrounded on all sides by ice, lay a brown rock, to which our attention
was directed as a place noted for avalanches; on this rock snow or ice
never rests, and it is hence called the Heisse Platte—the Hot Plate.
At the base of the rock, and far below it, the glacier was covered with
clean crushed ice, which had fallen from a crown of frozen cliffs
encircling the brow of the rock. One obelisk in particular signalised
itself from all others by its exceeding grace and beauty. Its general
surface was dazzling white, but from its clefts and fissures issued a
delicate blue light, which deepened in hue from the edges inwards. It
stood upon a pedestal of its own substance, and seemed as accurately
fixed as if rule and plummet had been employed in its erection. Fig. 1
represents this beautiful minaret of ice.
ICE MINARET. 1856.
Fig. 1. Ice Minaret.
While we were in sight of the Heisse Platte, a dozen avalanches rushed
downwards from its summit. In most cases we were informed of the descent
of an avalanche by the sound, but sometimes the white mass was seen
gliding down the rock, and scattering its smoke in the air, long
before the sound reached us. It is difficult to reconcile the
insignificant appearance presented by avalanches, when seen from a
distance, with the volume of sound which they generate; but on this day
we saw sufficient to account for the noise. One block of solid ice which
we found below the Heisse Platte measured 7 feet 6 inches in length, 5
feet 8 inches in height, and 4 feet 6 inches in depth. A second mass was
10 feet long, 8 feet high, and 6 feet wide. It contained therefore 480
cubic feet of ice, which had been cast to a distance of nearly 1000
yards down the glacier. The shock of such hard and ponderous projectiles
against rocks and ice, reinforced by the echoes from the surrounding
mountains, will appear sufficient to account for the peals by which
their descent is accompanied.
ECHOES OF THE WETTERHORN. 1856.
A second day, in company with Dr. Hooker, completed the examination of
this glacier in 1856; after which I parted from my friends, Mr. Huxley
intending to rejoin me at the Grimsel. On the morning of the 20th of
August I strapped on my knapsack and ascended the green slopes from
Grindelwald towards the Great Scheideck. Before reaching the summit I
frequently heard the wonderful echoes of the Wetterhorn. Some travellers
were in advance of me, and to amuse them an alpine horn was blown. The
direct sound was cut off from me by a hill, but the echoes talked down
to me from the mountain walls. The sonorous waves arrived after one,
two, three, and more reflections, diminishing gradually in intensity,
but increasing in softness, as if in its wanderings from crag to crag
the sound had undergone a kind of sifting process, leaving all its
grossness behind, and returning in delightful flute notes to the ear.
Let us investigate this point a little. If two looking-glasses be placed
perfectly parallel to each other, with a lighted candle between them, an
infinite series of images of the candle will be seen at both sides, the
images diminishing in brightness the further they recede. But if the
looking-glasses, instead of being parallel, enclose an angle, a limited
number of images only will be seen. The smaller the angle which the
reflectors make with each other, or, in other words, the nearer they
approach parallelism, the greater will be the number of images observed.
To find the number of images the following is the rule:—Divide 360, or
the number of degrees in a circle, by the number of degrees in the angle
enclosed by the two mirrors, the quotient will be one more than the
number of images; or, counting the object itself, the quotient is always
equal to the number of images plus the object. In Fig. 2 I have given
the number and position of the images produced by two mirrors placed at
an angle of 45°. a b and b c mark the edges of the mirrors, and 0
represents the candle, which, for the sake of simplicity, I have placed
midway between them. Fix one point of a pair of compasses at B, and with
the distance B 0 sweep a circle:—all the images will be ranged upon
the circumference of this circle. The number of images found by the
foregoing rule is 7, and their positions are marked in the figure by the
numbers 1, 2, 3, &c.
Fig. 2. Diagram of an angular reflector.
ECHOES EXPLAINED. 1856.
Suppose the ear to occupy the place of the eye, and that a sounding
body occupies the place of the luminous one, we should then have just
as many echoes as we had images in the former case. These echoes
would diminish in loudness just as the images of the candle diminish in
brightness. At each reflection a portion both of sound and light is
lost; hence the oftener light is reflected the dimmer it becomes, and
the oftener sound is reflected the fainter it is.
Now the cliffs of the Wetterhorn are so many rough angular reflectors of
the sound: some of them send it back directly to the listener, and we
have a first echo; some of them send it on to others from which it is
again reflected, forming a second echo. Thus, by repeated reflection,
successive echoes are sent to the ear, until, at length, they become so
faint as to be inaudible. The sound, as it diminishes in intensity,
appears to come from greater and greater distances, as if it were
receding into the mountain solitudes; the final echoes being
inexpressibly soft and pure.
REICHENBACH AND HANDECK. 1856.
After crossing the Scheideck I descended to Meyringen, visiting the
Reichenbach waterfall on my way. A peculiarity of the descending water
here is, that it is broken up in one of the basins into nodular masses,
each of which in falling leaves the light foaming mass which surrounds
it as a train in the air behind; the effect exactly resembles that of
the avalanches of the Jungfrau, in which the more solid blocks of ice
shoot forward in advance of the lighter débris, which is held back by
the friction of the air.
Next day I ascended the valley of Hasli, and observed upon the rocks and
mountains the action of ancient glaciers which once filled the valley to
the height of more than a thousand feet above its present level. I
paused, of course, at the waterfall of Handeck, and stood for a time
upon the wooden bridge which spans the river at its top. The Aar comes
gambolling down to the bridge from its parent glacier, takes one short
jump upon a projecting ledge, boils up into foam, and then leaps into a
chasm, from the bottom of which its roar ascends through the gloom. A
rivulet named the Aarlenbach joins the Aar from the left in the very
jaws of the chasm: falling, at first, upon a projection at some depth
below the edge, and, rebounding from this, it darts at the Aar, and both
plunge together like a pair of fighting demons to the bottom of the
gorge. The foam of the Aarlenbach is white, that of the Aar is yellow,
and this enables the observer to trace the passage of the one cataract
through the other. As I stood upon the bridge the sun shone brightly
upon the spray and foam; my shadow was oblique to the river, and hence a
symmetrical rainbow could not be formed in the spray, but one half of a
lovely bow, with its base in the chasm, leaned over against the opposite
rocks, the colours advancing and retreating as the spray shifted its
position. I had been watching the water intently for some time, when a
little Swiss boy, who stood beside me, observed, in his trenchant
German, "There plunge stones ever downwards." The stones were palpable
enough, carried down by the cataract, and sometimes completely breaking
loose from it, but I did not see them until my attention was withdrawn
from the water.
HUT OF M. DOLLFUSS. 1856.
On my arrival at the Grimsel I found Mr. Huxley already there, and,
after a few minutes' conversation, we decided to spend a night in a hut
built by M. Dollfuss in 1846, beside the Unteraar glacier, about 2000
feet above the Hospice. We hoped thus to be able to examine the glacier
to its origin on the following day. Two days' food and some blankets
were sent up from the Hospice, and, accompanied by our guide, we
proceeded to the glacier.
HÔTEL DES NEUFCHÂTELOIS. 1856.
Having climbed a great terminal moraine, and tramped for a considerable
time amid loose shingle and boulders, we came upon the ice. The finest
specimens of "tables" which I have ever seen are to be found upon this
glacier—huge masses of clean granite poised on pedestals of ice. Here
are also "dirt-cones" of the largest size, and numerous shafts, the
forsaken passages of ancient "moulins," some filled with water, others
simply with deep blue light. I reserve the description and explanation
of both cones and moulins for another place. The surfaces of some of the
small pools were sprinkled lightly over with snow, which the water
underneath was unable to melt; a coating of snow granules was thus
formed, flexible as chain armour, but so close that the air could not
escape through it. Some bubbles which had risen through the water had
lifted the coating here and there into little rounded domes, which, by
gentle pressure, could be shifted hither and thither, and several of
them collected into one. We reached the hut, the floor of which appeared
to be of the original mountain slab; there was a space for cooking
walled off from the sleeping-room, half of which was raised above the
floor, and contained a quantity of old hay. The number 2404 mètres, the
height, I suppose, of the place above the sea, was painted on the door,
behind which were also the names of several well-known
observers—Agassiz, Forbes, Desor, Dollfuss, Ramsay, and others—cut in
the wood. A loft contained a number of instruments for boring, a
surveyor's chain, ropes, and other matters. After dinner I made my way
alone towards the junction of the Finsteraar and Lauteraar glaciers,
which unite at the Abschwung to form the trunk stream of the Unteraar
glacier. Upon the great central moraine which runs between the branches
were perched enormous masses of rock, and, under the overhanging ledge
of one of these, M. Agassiz had his Hôtel des Neufchâtelois. The rock
is still there, bearing traces of names now nearly obliterated by the
weather, while the fragments around also bear inscriptions. There in the
wilderness, in the gray light of evening, these blurred and faded
evidences of human activity wore an aspect of sadness. It was a temple
of science now in ruins, and I a solitary pilgrim to the desecrated
blocks. As the day declined, rain began to fall, and I turned my face
towards my new home; where in due time we betook ourselves to our hay,
and waited hopefully for the morning.
But our hopes were doomed to disappointment. A vast quantity of snow
fell during the night, and, when we arose, we found the glacier covered,
and the air thick with the descending flakes. We waited, hoping that it
might clear up, but noon arrived and passed without improvement; our
fire-wood was exhausted, the weather intensely cold, and, according to
the men's opinion, hopelessly bad; they opposed the idea of ascending
further, and we had therefore no alternative but to pack up and move
downwards. What was snow at the higher elevations changed to rain lower
down, and drenched us completely before we reached the Grimsel. But
though thus partially foiled in our design, this visit taught us much
regarding the structure and general phenomena of the glacier.
THE RHONE GLACIER. 1856.
The morning of the 24th was clear and calm: we rose with the sun,
refreshed and strong, and crossed the Grimsel pass at an early hour. The
view from the summit of the pass was lovely in the extreme; the sky a
deep blue, the surrounding summits all enamelled with the newly-fallen
snow, which gleamed with dazzling whiteness in the sunlight. It was
Sunday, and the scene was itself a Sabbath, with no sound to disturb its
perfect rest. In a lake which we passed the mountains were mirrored
without distortion, for there was no motion of the air to ruffle its
surface. From the summit of the Mayenwand we looked down upon the Rhone
glacier, and a noble object it seemed,—I hardly know a finer of its
kind in the Alps. Forcing itself through the narrow gorge which holds
the ice cascade in its jaws, and where it is greatly riven and
dislocated, it spreads out in the valley below in such a manner as
clearly to reveal to the mind's eye the nature of the forces to which it
is subjected. Longfellow's figure is quite correct; the glacier
resembles a vast gauntlet, of which the gorge represents the wrist;
while the lower glacier, cleft by its fissures into finger-like ridges,
is typified by the hand.
Furnishing ourselves with provisions at the adjacent inn, we devoted
some hours to the examination of the lower portion of the glacier. The
dirt upon its surface was arranged in grooves as fine as if produced by
the passage of a rake, while the laminated structure of the deeper ice
always corresponded to the superficial grooving. We found several
shafts, some empty, some filled with water. At one place our attention
was attracted by a singular noise, evidently produced by the forcing of
air and water through passages in the body of the glacier; the sound
rose and fell for several minutes, like a kind of intermittent snore,
reminding one of Hugi's hypothesis that the glacier was alive.
RINGS AROUND THE SUN. 1856.
We afterwards climbed to a point from which the whole glacier was
visible to us from its origin to its end. Adjacent to us rose the mighty
mass of the Finsteraarhorn, the monarch of the Oberland. The Galenstock
was also at hand, while round about the névé of the glacier a mountain
wall projected its jagged outline against the sky. At a distance was the
grand cone of the Weisshorn, then, and I believe still, unscaled;[A]
further to the left the magnificent peaks of the Mischabel; while
between them, in savage isolation, stood the obelisk of the Matterhorn.
Near us was the chain of the Furca, all covered with shining snow, while
overhead the dark blue of the firmament so influenced the general scene
as to inspire a sentiment of wonder approaching to awe. We descended to
the glacier, and proceeded towards its source. As we advanced an unusual
light fell upon the mountains, and looking upwards we saw a series of
coloured rings, drawn like a vivid circular rainbow quite round the sun.
Between the orb and us spread a thin veil of cloud on which the circles
were painted; the western side of the veil soon melted away, and with it
the colours, but the eastern half remained a quarter of an hour longer,
and then in its turn disappeared. The crevasses became more frequent and
dangerous as we ascended. They were usually furnished with overhanging
eaves of snow, from which long icicles depended, and to tread on which
might be fatal. We were near the source of the glacier, but the time
necessary to reach it was nevertheless indefinite, so great was the
entanglement of fissures. We followed one huge chasm for some hundreds
of yards, hoping to cross it; but after half an hour's fruitless effort
we found ourselves baffled and forced to retrace our steps.
SPIRIT OF THE BROCKEN. 1856.
The sun was sloping to the west, and we thought it wise to return; so
down the glacier we went, mingling our footsteps with the tracks of
chamois, while the frightened marmots piped incessantly from the rocks.
We reached the land once more, and halted for a time to look upon the
scene within view. The marvellous blueness of the sky in the earlier
part of the day indicated that the air was charged, almost to
saturation, with transparent aqueous vapour. As the sun sank the shadow
of the Finsteraarhorn was cast through the adjacent atmosphere, which,
thus deprived of the direct rays, curdled up into visible fog. The
condensed vapour moved slowly along the flanks of the mountain, and
poured itself cataract-like into the valley of the Rhone. Here it met
the sun again, which reduced it once more to the invisible state. Thus,
though there was an incessant supply from the generator behind, the fog
made no progress; as in the case of the moving glacier, the end of the
cloud-river remained stationary where consumption was equal to supply.
Proceeding along the mountain to the Furca, we found the valley at the
further side of the pass also filled with fog, which rose, like a wall,
high above the region of actual shadow. Once on turning a corner an
exclamation of surprise burst simultaneously from my companion and
myself. Before each of us and against the wall of fog, stood a spectral
image of a man, of colossal dimensions; dark as a whole, but bounded by
a coloured outline. We stretched forth our arms; the spectres did the
same. We raised our alpenstocks; the spectres also flourished their
bâtons. All our actions were imitated by these fringed and gigantic
shades. We had, in fact, the Spirit of the Brocken before us in
perfection.
At the time here referred to I had had but little experience of alpine
phenomena. I had been through the Oberland in 1850, but was then too
ignorant to learn much from my excursion. Hence the novelty of this
day's experience may have rendered it impressive: still even now I think
there was an intrinsic grandeur in its phenomena which entitles the day
to rank with the most remarkable that I have spent among the Alps. At
the Furca, to my great regret, the joint ramblings of my friend and
myself ended; I parted from him on the mountain side, and watched him
descending, till the gray of evening finally hid him from my view.
THE TYROL. 1856.
My subsequent destination was Vienna; but I wished to associate with my
journey thither a visit to some of the glaciers of the Tyrol. At
Landeck, on the 29th of August, I learned that the nearest glacier was
that adjacent to the Gebatsch Alp, at the head of the Kaunserthal; and
on the following morning I was on my way towards this valley. I sought
to obtain a guide at Kaltebrunnen, but failed; and afterwards walked to
the little hamlet of Feuchten, where I put up at a very lonely inn. My
host, I believe, had never seen an Englishman, but he had heard of such,
and remarked to me in his patois with emphasis, "Die Engländer sind die
kühnsten Leute in dieser Welt." Through his mediation I secured a
chamois-hunter, named Johann Auer, to be my guide, and next morning I
started with this man up the valley. The sun, as we ascended, smote the
earth and us with great power; high mountains flanked us on either side,
while in front of us, closing the view, was the mass of the Weisskugel,
covered with snow. At three o'clock we came in sight of the glacier,
and soon afterwards I made the acquaintance of the Senner or
cheesemakers of the Gebatsch Alp.
THE GEBATSCH ALP. 1856.
The chief of these was a fine tall fellow, with free, frank countenance,
which, however, had a dash of the mountain wildness in it. His feet were
bare, he wore breeches, and fragments of stockings partially covered his
legs, leaving a black zone between the upper rim of the sock and the
breeches. His feet and face were of the same swarthy hue; still he was
handsome, and in a measure pleasant to look upon. He asked me what he
could cook for me, and I requested some bread and milk; the former was a
month old, the latter was fresh and delicious, and on these I fared
sumptuously. I went to the glacier afterwards with my guide, and
remained upon the ice until twilight, when we returned, guided by no
path, but passing amid crags grasped by the gnarled roots of the pine,
through green dells, and over bilberry knolls of exquisite colouring. My
guide kept in advance of me singing a Tyrolese melody, and his song and
the surrounding scene revived and realised all the impressions of my
boyhood regarding the Tyrol.
Milking was over when we returned to the chalet, which now contained
four men exclusive of myself and my guide. A fire of pine logs was made
upon a platform of stone, elevated three feet above the floor; there was
no chimney, as the smoke found ample vent through the holes and fissures
in the sides and roof. The men were all intensely sunburnt, the
legitimate brown deepening into black with beard and dirt. The chief
senner prepared supper, breaking eggs into a dish, and using his black
fingers to empty the shell when the albumen was refractory. A fine erect
figure he was as he stood in the glowing light of the fire. All the men
were smoking, and now and then a brand was taken from the fire to light
a renewed pipe, and a ruddy glare flung thereby over the wild
countenance of the smoker. In one corner of the chalet, and raised high
above the ground, was a large bed, covered with clothes of the most
dubious black-brown hue; at one end was a little water-wheel turned by a
brook, which communicated motion to a churndash which made the butter.
The beams and rafters were covered with cheeses, drying in the warm
smoke. The senner, at my request, showed me his storeroom, and explained
to me the process of making cheese, its interest to me consisting in its
bearing upon the question of slaty cleavage. Three gigantic masses of
butter were in the room, and I amused my host by calling them
butter-glaciers. Soon afterwards a bit of cotton was stuck in a lump of
grease, which was placed in a lantern, and the wick ignited; the
chamois-hunter took it, and led the way to our resting-place, I having
previously declined a good-natured invitation to sleep in the big black
bed already referred to.
AN ALPINE CHALET. 1856.
There was a cowhouse near the chalet, and above it, raised on pillars of
pine, and approached by a ladder, was a loft, which contained a quantity
of dry hay: this my guide shook to soften the lumps, and erected an
eminence for my head. I lay down, drawing my plaid over me, but Auer
affirmed that this would not be a sufficient protection against the
cold; he therefore piled hay upon me to the shoulders, and proposed
covering up my head also. This, however, I declined, though the biting
coldness of the air, which sometimes blew in upon us, afterwards proved
to me the wisdom of the suggestion. Having set me right, my
chamois-hunter prepared a place for himself, and soon his heavy
breathing informed me that he was in a state of bliss which I could only
envy. One by one the stars crossed the apertures in the roof. Once the
Pleiades hung above me like a cluster of gems; I tried to admire them,
but there was no fervour in my admiration. Sometimes I dozed, but
always as this was about to deepen into positive sleep it was rudely
broken by the clamour of a group of pigs which occupied the ground-floor
of our dwelling. The object of each individual of the group was to
secure for himself the maximum amount of heat, and hence the outside
members were incessantly trying to become inside ones. It was the
struggle of radical and conservative among the pachyderms, the politics
being determined by the accident of position.
THE GEBATSCH GLACIER. 1856.
I rose at five o'clock on the 1st of September, and after a breakfast of
black bread and milk ascended the glacier as far as practicable. We once
quitted it, crossed a promontory, and descended upon one of its
branches, which was flanked by some fine old moraines. We here came upon
a group of seven marmots, which with yells of terror scattered
themselves among the rocks. The points of the glacier beyond my reach I
examined through a telescope; along the faces of the sections the lines
of stratification were clearly shown; and in many places where the mass
showed manifest signs of lateral pressure, I thought I could observe the
cleavage passing though the strata. The point, however, was too
important to rest upon an observation made from such a distance, and I
therefore abstained from mentioning it subsequently. I examined the
fissures and the veining, and noticed how the latter became most perfect
in places where the pressure was greatest. The effect of oblique
pressure was also finely shown: at one place the thrust of the
descending glacier was opposed by the resistance offered by the side of
the valley, the direction of the force being oblique to the side; the
consequence was a structure nearly parallel to the valley, and
consequently oblique to the thrust which I believe to be its cause.
A CHAMOIS ON THE ROCKS. 1856.
After five hours' examination we returned to our chalet, where we
refreshed ourselves, put our things in order, and faced a nameless
"Joch," or pass; our aim being to cross the mountains into the valley of
Lantaufer, and reach Graun that evening. After a rough ascent over the
alp we came to the dead crag, where the weather had broken up the
mountains into ruinous heaps of rock and shingle. We reached the end of
a glacier, the ice of which was covered by sloppy snow, and at some
distance up it came upon an islet of stones and débris, where we paused
to rest ourselves. My guide, as usual, ranged over the summits with his
telescope, and at length exclaimed, "I see a chamois." The creature
stood upon a cliff some hundreds of yards to our left, and seemed to
watch our movements. It was a most graceful animal, and its life and
beauty stood out in forcible antithesis to the surrounding savagery and
death.
On the steep slopes of the glacier I was assisted by the hand of my
guide. In fact, on this day I deemed places dangerous, and dreaded them
as such, which subsequent practice enabled me to regard with perfect
indifference; so much does what we call courage depend upon habit, or on
the fact of knowing that we have really nothing to fear. Doubtless there
are times when a climber has to make up his mind for very unpleasant
possibilities, and even gather calmness from the contemplation of the
worst; but in most cases I should say that his courage is derived from
the latent feeling that the chances of safety are immensely in his
favour.
PASSAGE OF A JOCH. 1856.
After a tough struggle we reached the narrow row of crags which form the
crest of the pass, and looked into the world of mountain and cloud on
the other side. The scene was one of stern grandeur—the misty lights
and deep cloud-glooms being so disposed as to augment the impression of
vastness which the scene conveyed. The breeze at the summit was
exceedingly keen, but it gave our muscles tone, and we sprang swiftly
downward through the yielding débris which here overlies the mountain,
and in which we sometimes sank to the knees. Lower down we came once
more upon the ice. The glacier had at one place melted away from its
bounding cliff, which rose vertically to our right, while a wall of ice
60 or 80 feet high was on our left. Between the two was a narrow
passage, the floor of which was snow, which I knew to be hollow beneath:
my companion, however, was in advance of me, and he being the heavier
man, where he trod I followed without hesitation. On turning an angle of
the rock I noticed an expression of concern upon his countenance, and he
muttered audibly, "I did not expect this." The snow-floor had, in fact,
given way, and exposed to view a clear green lake, one boundary of which
was a sheer precipice of rock, and the other the aforesaid wall of ice;
the latter, however, curved a little at its base, so as to form a short
steep slope which overhung the water. My guide first tried the slope
alone; biting the ice with his shoe-nails, and holding on by the spike
of his bâton, he reached the other side. He then returned, and,
divesting myself of all superfluous clothes, as a preparation for the
plunge which I fully expected, I also passed in safety. Probably the
consciousness that I had water to fall into instead of pure space,
enabled me to get across without anxiety or mischance; but had I, like
my guide, been unable to swim, my feelings would have been far
different.
This accomplished, we went swiftly down the valley, and the more I saw
of my guide the more I liked him. He might, if he wished, have made his
day's journey shorter by stopping before he reached Graun, but he would
not do so. Every word he said to me regarding distances was true, and
there was not the slightest desire shown to magnify his own labour. I
learnt by mere accident that the day's work had cut up his feet, but his
cheerfulness and energy did not bate a jot till he had landed me in the
Black Eagle at Graun. Next morning he came to my room, and said that he
felt sufficiently refreshed to return home. I paid him what I owed him,
when he took my hand, and, silently bending down his head, kissed it;
then, standing erect, he stretched forth his right hand, which I grasped
firmly in mine, and bade him farewell; and thus I parted from Johann
Auer, my brave and truthful chamois-hunter.
On the following day I met Dr. Frankland in the Finstermuntz pass, and
that night we bivouacked together at Mals. Heavy rain fell throughout
the night, but it came from a region high above that of liquidity. It
was first snow, which, as it descended through the warmer strata of the
atmosphere, was reduced to water. Overhead, in the air, might be traced
a surface, below which the precipitate was liquid, above which it was
solid; and this surface, intersecting the mountains which surround Mals,
marked upon them a beautifully-defined snow-line, below which the
pines were dark and the pastures green, but above which pines and
pastures and crags were covered with the freshly-fallen snow.
THE STELVIO. 1856.
On the 2nd of September we crossed the Stelvio. The brown cone of the
well-known Madatschspitze was clear, but the higher summits were
clouded, and the fragments of sunshine which reached the lower world
wandered like gleams of fluorescent light over the glaciers.
COLOUR OF FRESH SNOW. 1856.
Near the
snow-line the partial melting of the snow had rendered it coarsely
granular, but as we ascended it became finer, and the light emitted from
its cracks and cavities a pure and deep blue. When a staff was driven
into the snow low down the mountain, the colour of the light in the
orifice was scarcely sensibly blue, but higher up this increased in a
wonderful degree, and at the summit the effect was marvellous. I struck
my staff into the snow, and turned it round and round; the surrounding
snow cracked repeatedly, and flashes of blue light issued from the
fissures. The fragments of snow that adhered to the staff were, by
contrast, of a beautiful pink yellow, so that, on moving the staff with
such fragments attached to it up and down, it was difficult to resist
the impression that a pink flame was ascending and descending in the
hole. As we went down the other side of the pass, the effect became more
and more feeble, until, near the snow-line, it almost wholly
disappeared.
We remained that night at the baths of Bormio, but the following
afternoon being fine we wished to avail ourselves of the fair weather to
witness the scene from the summit of the pass. Twilight came on before
we reached Santa Maria, but a gorgeous orange overspread the western
horizon, from which we hoped to derive sufficient light. It was a little
too late when we reached the top, but still the scene was magnificent. A
multitude of mountains raised their crowns towards heaven, while above
all rose the snow-white cone of the Ortler. Far into the valley the
giant stretched his granite limbs, until they were hid from us by
darkness. As this deepened, the heavens became more and more crowded
with stars, which blazed like gems over the heads of the mountains. At
times the silence was perfect, unbroken save by the crackling of the
frozen snow beneath our own feet; while at other times a breeze would
swoop down upon us, keen and hostile, scattering the snow from the roofs
of the wooden galleries in frozen powder over us. Long after night had
set in, a ghastly gleam rested upon the summit of the Ortler, while the
peaks in front deepened to a dusky neutral tint, the more distant ones
being lost in gloom. We descended at a swift pace to Trafoi, which we
reached before 11 p.m.
SINGULAR HAILSTORM. 1856.
Meran was our next resting-place, whence we turned through the
Schnalzerthal to Unserfrau, and thence over the Hochjoch to Fend. From
a religious procession we took a guide, who, though partly intoxicated,
did his duty well. Before reaching the summit of the pass we were
assailed by a violent hailstorm, each hailstone being a frozen cone with
a rounded end. Had not their motion through the air something to do with
the shape of these hailstones? The theory of meteorites now generally
accepted is that they are small planetary bodies drawn to the earth by
gravity, and brought to incandescence by friction against the earth's
atmosphere. Such a body moving through the atmosphere must have
condensed hot air in front of it, and rarefied cool air behind it; and
the same is true to a small extent of a hailstone. This distribution of
temperature must, I imagine, have some influence on the shape of the
stone. Possibly also the stratified appearance of some hailstones may be
connected with this action.[A]
THE HOCHJOCH AND FEND. 1856.
The hail ceased and the heights above us cleared as we ascended. At the
top of the pass we found ourselves on the verge of a great névé, which
lay between two ranges of summits, sloping down to the base of each
range from a high and rounded centre: a wilder glacier scene I have
scarcely witnessed. Wishing to obtain a more perfect view of the region,
I diverged from the track followed by Dr. Frankland and the guide, and
climbed a ridge of snow about half a mile to the right of them. A
glorious expanse was before me, stretching itself in vast undulations,
and heaping itself here and there into mountainous cones, white and
pure, with the deep blue heaven behind them. Here I had my first
experience of hidden crevasses, and to my extreme astonishment once
found myself in the jaws of a fissure of whose existence I had not the
slightest notice. Such accidents have often occurred to me since, but
the impression made by the first is likely to remain the strongest. It
was dark when we reached the wretched Wirthshaus at Fend, where, badly
fed, badly lodged, and disturbed by the noise of innumerable rats, we
spent the night. Thus ended my brief glacier expedition of 1856; and on
the observations then made, and on subsequent experiments, was founded a
paper presented to the Royal Society by Mr. Huxley and myself.[B]
THE LAKE OF GENEVA. 1857.
The time occupied in the observations of 1856 embraced about five whole
days; and though these days were laborious and instructive, still so
short a time proved to be wholly incommensurate with the claims of so
wide a problem. During the subsequent experimental treatment of the
subject, I had often occasion to feel the incompleteness of my
knowledge, and hence arose the desire to make a second expedition to the
Alps, for the purpose of expanding, fortifying, or, if necessary,
correcting first impressions.
On Thursday, the 9th of July, 1857, I found myself upon the Lake of
Geneva, proceeding towards Vevey. I had long wished to see the waters of
this renowned inland sea, the colour of which is perhaps more
interesting to the man of science than to the poets who have sung about
it. Long ago its depth of blue excited attention, but no systematic
examination of the subject has, so far as I know, been attempted. It may
be that the lake simply exhibits the colour of pure water. Ice is blue,
and it is reasonable to suppose that the liquid obtained from the fusion
of ice is of the same colour; but still the question presses—"Is the
blue of the Lake of Geneva to be entirely accounted for in this way?"
The attempts which have been made to explain it otherwise show that at
least a doubt exists as to the sufficiency of the above explanation.
BLUENESS OF THE WATER. 1857.
It is only in its deeper portions that the colour of the lake is
properly seen. Where the bottom comes into view the pure effect of the
water is disturbed; but where the water is deep the colour is deep:
between Rolle and Nyon for example, the blue is superb. Where the blue
was deepest, however, it gave me the impression of turbidity rather than
of deep transparency. At the upper portion of the lake the water through
which the steamer passed was of a blue green. Wishing to see the place
where the Rhone enters the lake, I walked on the morning of the 10th
from Villeneuve to Novelle, and thence through the woods to the river
side. Proceeding along an embankment, raised to defend the adjacent land
from the incursions of the river, an hour brought me to the place where
it empties itself into the lake. The contrast between the two waters was
very great: the river was almost white with the finely divided matter
which it held in suspension; while the lake at some distance was of a
deep ultramarine.
The lake in fact forms a reservoir where the particles held in
suspension by the river have time to subside, and its waters to become
pure. The subsidence of course takes place most copiously at the head of
the lake; and here the deposit continues to form new land, adding year
by year to the thousands of acres which it has already left behind it,
and invading more and more the space occupied by the water. Innumerable
plates of mica spangled the fine sand which the river brought down, and
these, mixing with the water, and flashing like minute mirrors as the
sun's rays fell upon them, gave the otherwise muddy stream a silvery
appearance. Had I an opportunity I would make the following
experiments:—
(a.) Compare the colour of the light transmitted by a column of the
lake water fifteen feet long with that transmitted by a second column,
of the same length, derived from the melting of freshly fallen mountain
snow.
(b.) Compare in the same manner the colour of the ordinary water of
the lake with that of the same water after careful distillation.
(c.) Strictly examine whether the light transmitted by the ordinary
water contains an excess of red over that transmitted by the distilled
water: this latter point, as will be seen farther on, is one of peculiar
interest.
The length is fixed at fifteen feet, because I have found this length
extremely efficient in similar experiments.
Fig. 3, 4. Boats' sails inverted by Atmospheric Refraction.
ATMOSPHERIC REFRACTION. 1857.
On returning to the pier at Villeneuve, a peculiar flickering motion was
manifest upon the surface of the distant portions of the lake, and I
soon noticed that the coast line was inverted by atmospheric refraction.
It required a long distance to produce the effect: no trace of it was
seen about the Castle of Chillon, but at Vevey and beyond it, the whole
coast was clearly inverted; and the houses on the margin of the lake
were also imaged to a certain height. Two boats at a considerable
distance presented the appearance sketched in Figs. 3 and 4; the hull of
each, except a small portion at the end, was invisible, but the sails
seemed lifted up high in the air, with their inverted images below; as
the boats drew nearer the hulls appeared inverted, the apparent height
of the vessel above the surface of the lake being thereby nearly
doubled, while the sails and higher objects, in these cases, were
almost completely cut away. When viewed through a telescope the sensible
horizon of the lake presented a billowy tumultuous appearance, fragments
being incessantly detached from it and suspended in the air.
MIRAGE. 1857.
The explanation of this effect is the same as that of the mirage of the
desert, which may be found in almost any book on physics, and which so
tantalized the French soldiers in Egypt. They often mistook this aërial
inversion for the reflection from a lake, and on trial found hot and
sterile sand at the place where they expected refreshing waters. The
effect was shown by Monge, one of the learned men who accompanied the
expedition, to be due to the total reflection of very oblique rays at
the upper surface of the layer of rarefied air which was nearest to the
heated earth. A sandy plain, in the early part of the day, is peculiarly
favourable for the production of such effects; and on the extensive flat
strand which stretches between Mont St. Michel and the coast adjacent to
Avranches in Normandy, I have noticed Mont Tombeline reflected as if
glass instead of sand surrounded it and formed its mirror.
CHAMOUNI AND THE MONTANVERT. 1857.
On the evening of the 12th of July I reached Chamouni; the weather was
not quite clear, but it was promising; white cumuli had floated round
Mont Blanc during the day, but these diminished more and more, and the
light of the setting sun was of that lingering rosy hue which bodes good
weather. Two parallel beams of a purple tinge were drawn by the shadows
of the adjacent peaks, straight across the Glacier des Bossons, and the
Glacier des Pèlerins was also steeped for a time in the same purple
light. Once when the surrounding red illumination was strong, the
shadows of the Grands Mulets falling upon the adjacent snow appeared of
a vivid green.
This green belonged to the class of subjective colours, or colours
produced by contrast, about which a volume might be written. The eye
received the impression of green, but the colour was not external to the
eye. Place a red wafer on white paper, and look at it intently, it will
be surrounded in a little time by a green fringe: move the wafer bodily
away, and the entire space which it occupied upon the paper will appear
green. A body may have its proper colour entirely masked in this way.
Let a red wafer be attached to a piece of red glass, and from a
moderately illuminated position let the sky be regarded through the
glass; the wafer will appear of a vivid green. If a strong beam of light
be sent through a red glass and caused to fall upon a screen, which at
the same time is moderately illuminated by a separate source of white
light, an opaque body placed in the path of the beam will cast a green
shadow upon the screen which may be seen by several hundred persons at
once. If a blue glass be used, the shadow will be yellow, which is the
complementary colour to blue.
COLOURED SHADOWS. 1857.
When we suddenly pass from open sunlight to a moderately illuminated
room, it appears dark at first, but after a little time the eye regains
the power of seeing objects distinctly. Thus one effect of light upon
the eye is to render it less sensitive, and light of any particular
colour falling upon the eye blunts its appreciation of that colour. Let
us apply this to the shadow upon the screen. This shadow is moderately
illuminated by a jet of white light; but the space surrounding it is
red, the effect of which upon the eye is to blind it in some degree to
the perception of red. Hence, when the feeble white light of the shadow
reaches the eye, the red component of this light is, as it were,
abstracted from it, and the eye sees the residual colour, which is
green. A similar explanation applies to the shadows of the Grands
Mulets.
On the 13th of July I was joined by my friend Mr. Thomas Hirst, and on
the 14th we examined together the end of the Mer de Glace. In former
times the whole volume of the Arveiron escaped from beneath the ice at
the end of the glacier, forming a fine arch at its place of issue. This
year a fraction only of the water thus found egress; the greater portion
of it escaping laterally from the glacier at the summit of the rocks
called Les Mottets, down which it tumbled in a fine cascade. The vault
at the end of the glacier was nevertheless respectable, and rather
tempting to a traveller in search of information regarding the structure
of the ice. Perhaps, however, Nature meant to give me a friendly warning
at the outset, for, while speculating as to the wisdom of entering the
cavern, it suddenly gave way, and, with a crash which rivalled thunder,
the roof strewed itself in ruins upon the floor.
SUNRISE AT CHAMOUNI. 1857.
Many years ago I had read with delight Coleridge's poem entitled
'Sunrise in the Valley of Chamouni,' and to witness in all perfection
the scene described by the poet, I waited at Chamouni a day longer than
was otherwise necessary. On the morning of Wednesday, the 15th of July,
I rose before the sun; Mont Blanc and his wondrous staff of Aiguilles
were without a cloud; eastward the sky was of a pale orange which
gradually shaded off to a kind of rosy violet, and this again blended by
imperceptible degrees with the deep zenithal blue. The morning star was
still shining to the right, and the moon also turned a pale face towards
the rising day. The valley was full of music; from the adjacent woods
issued a gush of song, while the sound of the Arve formed a suitable
bass to the shriller melody of the birds. The mountain rose for a time
cold and grand, with no apparent stain upon his snows. Suddenly the
sunbeams struck his crown and converted it into a boss of gold. For some
time it remained the only gilded summit in view, holding communion with
the dawn while all the others waited in silence. These, in the order of
their heights, came afterwards, relaxing, as the sunbeams struck each in
succession, into a blush and smile.
GLACIER DES BOIS. 1857.
On the same day we had our luggage transported to the Montanvert, while
we clambered along the lateral moraine of the glacier to the Chapeau.
The rocks alongside the glacier were beautifully scratched and polished,
and I paid particular attention to them, for the purpose of furnishing
myself with a key to ancient glacier action. The scene to my right was
one of the most wonderful I had ever witnessed. Along the entire slope
of the Glacier des Bois, the ice was cleft and riven into the most
striking and fantastic forms. It had not yet suffered much from the
wasting influence of the summer weather, but its towers and minarets
sprang from the general mass with clean chiselled outlines. Some stood
erect, others leaned, while the white débris, strewn here and there over
the glacier, showed where the wintry edifices had fallen, breaking
themselves to pieces, and grinding the masses on which they fell to
powder. Some of them gave way during our inspection of the place, and
shook the valley with the reverberated noise of their fall. I
endeavoured to get near them, but failed; the chasms at the margin of
the glacier were too dangerous, and the stones resting upon the heights
too loosely poised to render persistence in the attempt excusable.
We subsequently crossed the glacier to the Montanvert, and I formally
took up my position there. The rooms of the hotel were separated from
each other by wooden partitions merely, and thus the noise of early
risers in one room was plainly heard in the next. For the sake of quiet,
therefore, I had my bed placed in the château next door,—a little
octagonal building erected by some kind and sentimental Frenchman, and
dedicated "à la Nature." My host at first demurred, thinking the place
not "propre," but I insisted, and he acquiesced. True the stone floor
was dark with moisture, and on the walls a glistening was here and there
observable, which suggested rheumatism, and other penalties, but I had
had no experience of rheumatism, and trusted to the strength which
mountain air and exercise were sure to give me, for power to resist its
attacks. Moreover, to dispel some of the humidity, it was agreed that a
large pine fire should be made there on necessary occasions.
QUARTERS AT THE MONTANVERT. 1857.
Though singularly favoured on the whole, still our residence at the
Montanvert was sufficiently long to give us specimens of all kinds of
weather; and thus my château derived an interest from the mutations of
external nature. Sometimes no breath disturbed the perfect serenity of
the night, and the moon, set in a black-blue sky, turned a face of
almost supernatural brightness to the mountains, while in her absence
the thick-strewn stars alone flashed and twinkled through the
transparent air. Sometimes dull dank fog choked the valley, and heavy
rain plashed upon the stones outside. On two or three occasions we were
favoured by a thunderstorm, every peal of which broke into a hundred
echoes, while the seams of lightning which ran through the heavens
produced a wonderful intermittence of gloom and glare. And as I sat
within, musing on the experiences of the day, with my pine logs
crackling, and the ruddy fire-light gleaming over the walls, and lending
animation to the visages sketched upon them with charcoal by the guides,
I felt that my position was in every way worthy of a student of nature.
A RIVER OF ICE. 1857.
The name "Mer de Glace" has doubtless led many who have never seen this
glacier to a totally erroneous conception of its character. Misled
probably by this term, a distinguished writer, for example, defines a
glacier to be a sheet of ice spread out upon the slope of a mountain;
whereas the Mer de Glace is indeed a river, and not a sea of ice.
But certain forms upon its surface, often noticed and described, and
which I saw for the first time from the window of our hotel on the
morning of the 16th of July, suggest at once the origin of the name. The
glacier here has the appearance of a sea which, after it had been tossed
by a storm, had suddenly stiffened into rest. The ridges upon its
surface accurately resemble waves in shape, and this singular appearance
is produced in the following way:—
Some distance above the Montanvert—opposite to the Echelets—the
glacier, in passing down an incline, is rent by deep fissures, between
each two of which a ridge of ice intervenes. At first the edges of these
ridges are sharp and angular, but they are soon sculptured off by the
action of the sun. The bearing of the Mer de Glace being approximately
north and south, the sun at mid-day shines down the glacier, or rather
very obliquely across it; and the consequence is, that the fronts of the
ridges, which look downward, remain in shadow all the day, while the
backs of the ridges, which look up the glacier, meet the direct stroke
of the solar rays. The ridges thus acted upon have their hindmost angles
wasted off and converted into slopes which represent the back of a
wave, while the opposite sides of the ridges, which are protected from
the sun, preserve their steepness, and represent the front of the
wave. Fig. 5 will render my meaning at once plain.
FROZEN WAVES. 1857.
Fig. 5. Wave-like forms on the Mer de Glace.
The dotted lines are intended to represent three of the ridges into
which the glacier is divided, with their interposed fissures; the dots
representing the boundaries of the ridges when the glacier is first
broken. The parallel shading lines represent the direction of the sun's
rays, which, falling obliquely upon the ridges, waste away the
right-hand corners, and finally produce wave-like forms.
We spent a day or two in making the general acquaintance of the glacier.
On the 16th we ascended till we came to the rim of the Talèfre basin,
from which we had a good view of the glacier system of the region. The
laminated structure of the ice was a point which particularly interested
me; and as I saw the exposed sections of the névé, counted the lines
of stratification, and compared these with the lines upon the ends of
the secondary glaciers, I felt the absolute necessity either of
connecting the veined structure with the strata by a continuous
chain of observations, or of proving by ocular evidence that they were
totally distinct from each other. I was well acquainted with the
literature of the subject, but nothing that I had read was sufficient to
prove what I required. Strictly speaking, nothing that had been written
upon the subject rose above the domain of opinion, while I felt that
without absolute demonstration the question would never be set at
rest.
Fig. 6. Glacier Table.
GLACIER TABLES. 1857.
On this day we saw some fine glacier tables; flat masses of rock, raised
high upon columns of ice: Fig. 6 is a sketch of one of the finest of
them. Some of them fell from their pedestals while we were near them,
and the clean ice-surfaces which they left behind sparkled with minute
stars as the small bubbles of air ruptured the film of water by which
they were overspread. I also noticed that "petit bruit de crépitation,"
to which M. Agassiz alludes, and which he refers to the rupture of the
ice by the expansion of the air-bubbles contained within it. When I
first read Agassiz's account of it, I thought it might be produced by
the rupture of the minute air-bubbles which incessantly escape from the
glacier. This, doubtless, produces an effect, but there is something in
the character of the sound to be referred, I think, to a less obvious
cause, which I shall notice further on.
FIRST SIGHT OF THE DIRT-BANDS. 1857.
At six p.m. this day I reached the Montanvert; and the same evening,
wrapping my plaid around me, I wandered up towards Charmoz, and from its
heights observed, as they had been observed fifteen years previously by
Professor Forbes, the dirt-bands of the Mer de Glace. They were
different from any I had previously seen, and I felt a strong desire to
trace them to their origin. Content, however, with the performance of
the day, and feeling healthily tired by it, I lay down upon the bilberry
bushes and fell asleep. It was dark when I awoke, and I experienced some
difficulty and risk in getting down from the petty eminence referred to.
The illumination of the glacier, as remarked by Professor Forbes, has
great influence upon the appearance of the bands; they are best seen in
a subdued light, and I think for the following reasons:—
The dirt-bands are seen simply because they send less light to the eye
than the cleaner portions of the glacier which lie between them; two
surfaces, differently illuminated, are presented to the eye, and it is
found that this difference is more observable when the light is that of
evening than when it is that of noon.
It is only within certain limits that the eye is able to perceive
differences of intensity in different lights; beyond a certain
intensity, if I may use the expression, light ceases to be light, and
becomes mere pain. The naked eye can detect no difference in brightness
between the electric light and the lime light, although, when we come
to strict measurement, the former may possess many times the intensity
of the latter. It follows from this that we might reduce the ordinary
electric light to a fraction of its intensity, without any perceptible
change of brightness to the naked eye which looks at it. But if we
reduce the lime light in the same proportion the effect would be very
different. This light lies much nearer to the limit at which the eye can
appreciate differences of brightness, and its reduction might bring it
quite within this limit, and make it sensibly dimmer than before. Hence
we see that when two sources of intense light are presented to the eye,
by reducing both the lights in the same proportion, the difference
between them may become more perceptible.
BANDS SEEN BEST BY TWILIGHT. 1857.
Now the dirt-bands and the spaces between them resemble, in some
measure, the two lights above mentioned. By the full glare of noon both
are so strongly illuminated that the difference which the eye perceives
is very small; as the evening advances the light of both is lowered in
the same proportion, but the differential effect upon the eye is thereby
augmented, and the bands are consequently more clearly seen.
On Friday, the 17th of July, we commenced our measurements. Through the
kindness of Sir Roderick Murchison, I found myself in the possession of
an excellent five-inch theodolite, an instrument with the use of which
both my friend Hirst and myself were perfectly familiar. We worked in
concert for a few days to familiarize our assistant with the mode of
proceeding, but afterwards it was my custom to simply determine the
position where a measurement was to be made, and to leave the execution
of it entirely to Mr. Hirst and our guide.
On the 20th of July I made a long excursion up the glacier, examining
the moraines, the crevasses, the structure, the moulins, and the
disintegration of the surface. I was accompanied by a boy named Edouard
Balmat,[A] and found him so good an iceman that I was induced to take
him with me on the following day also.
THE CLEFT STATION. 1857.
Looking upwards from the Montanvert to the left of the Aiguille de
Charmoz, a singular gap is observed in the rocky mountain wall, in the
centre of which stands a detached column of granite. Both cleft and
pillar are shown in the frontispiece, to the right. The eminence to the
left of this gap is signalised by Professor Forbes as one of the best
stations from which to view the Mer de Glace, and this point, which I
shall refer to hereafter as the Cleft Station, it was now my desire to
attain. From the Montanvert side a steep gully leads to the cleft; up
this couloir we proposed to try the ascent. At a considerable height
above the Mer de Glace, and closely hugging the base of the Aiguille de
Charmoz, is the small Glacier de Tendue, shown in the frontispiece, and
from which a steep slope stretches down to the Mer de Glace. This Tendue
is the most talkative glacier I have ever known; the clatter of the
small stones which fall from it is incessant. Huge masses of granite
also frequently fall upon the glacier from the cliffs above it, and,
being slowly borne downwards by the moving ice, are at length seen
toppling above the terminal face of the glacier. The ice which supports
them being gradually melted, they are at length undermined, and sent
bounding down the slope with peal and rattle, according as the masses
among which they move are large or small. The space beneath the glacier
is cumbered with blocks thus sent down; some of them of enormous size.
ROUGH ASCENT. 1857.
The danger arising from this intermittent cannonade, though in reality
small, has caused the guides to swerve from the path which formerly led
across the slope to the promontory of Trélaporte. I say "small,"
because, even should a rock choose the precise moment at which a
traveller is passing to leap down, the boulders at hand are so large and
so capable of bearing a shock that the least presence of mind would be
sufficient to place him in safety. But presence of mind is not to be
calculated on under such circumstances, and hence the guides were right
to abandon the path.
Reaching the mouth of our gully after a rough ascent, we took to the
snow, instead of climbing the adjacent rocks. It was moist and soft, in
fact in a condition altogether favourable for the "regelation" of its
granules. As the foot pressed upon it the particles became cemented
together. A portion of the pressure was transmitted laterally, which
produced attachments beyond the boundary of the foot; thus as the latter
sank, it pressed upon a surface which became continually wider and more
rigid, and at length sufficiently strong to bear the entire weight of
the body; the pressed snow formed in fact a virtual camel's foot,
which soon placed a limit to the sinking. It is this same principle of
regelation which enables men to cross snow bridges in safety. By gentle
cautious pressure the loose granules of the substance are cemented into
a continuous mass, all sudden shocks which might cause the frozen
surfaces to snap asunder being avoided. In this way an arch of snow
fifteen or twenty inches in thickness may be rendered so firm that a
man will cross it, although it may span a chasm one hundred feet in
depth.
As we ascended, the incline became very steep, and once or twice we
diverged from the snow to the adjacent rocks; these were disintegrated,
and the slightest disturbance was sufficient to bring them down; some
fell, and from one of them I found it a little difficult to escape; for
it grazed my leg, inflicting a slight wound as it passed. Just before
reaching the cleft at which we aimed, the snow for a short distance was
exceedingly steep, but we surmounted it; and I sat for a time beside the
granite pillar, pleased to find that I could permit my legs to dangle
over a precipice without prejudice to my head.
CHAMOIS ON THE MOUNTAINS. 1857.
While we remained here a chamois made its appearance upon the rocks
above us. Deeming itself too near, it climbed higher, and then turned
round to watch us. It was soon joined by a second, and the two formed a
very pretty picture: their attitudes frequently changed, but they were
always graceful; with head erect and horns curved back, a light limb
thrown forward upon a ledge of rock, looking towards us with wild and
earnest gaze, each seemed a type of freedom and agility. Turning now to
the left, we attacked the granite tower, from which we purposed to scan
the glacier, and were soon upon its top. My companion was greatly
pleased—he was "très-content" to have reached the place—he felt
assured that many old guides would have retreated from that ugly gully,
with its shifting shingle and débris, and his elation reached its climax
in the declaration that, if I resolved to ascend Mont Blanc without a
guide, he was willing to accompany me.
SCENE FROM THE STATION. 1857.
From the position which we had attained, the prospect was exceedingly
fine, both of the glaciers and of the mountains. Beside us was the
Aiguille de Charmoz, piercing with its spikes of granite the clear air.
To my mind it is one of the finest of the Aiguilles, noble in mass, with
its summits singularly cleft and splintered. In some atmospheric
colourings it has the exact appearance of a mountain of cast copper, and
the manner in which some of its highest pinnacles are bent, suggesting
the idea of ductility, gives strength to the illusion that the mass is
metallic. At the opposite side of the glacier was the Aiguille Verte,
with a cloud poised upon its point: it has long been the ambition of
climbers to scale this peak, and on this day it was attempted by a young
French count with a long retinue of guides. He had not fair play, for
before we quitted our position we heard the rumble of thunder upon the
mountain, which indicated the presence of a foe more terrible than the
avalanches themselves. Higher to the right, and also at the opposite
side of the glacier, rose the Aiguille du Moine; and beyond was the
basin of the Talèfre, the ice cascade issuing from which appeared, from
our position, like the foam of a waterfall. Then came the Aiguille de
Léchaud, the Petite Jorasse, the Grande Jorasse, and the Mont Tacul; all
of which form a cradle for the Glacier de Léchaud. Mont Mallet, the
Périades, and the Aiguille Noire, came next, and then the singular
obelisk of the Aiguille du Géant, from which a serrated edge of cliff
descends to the summit of the "Col."
SÉRACS OF THE COL DU GÉANT. 1857.
Over the slopes of the Col du Géant was spread a coverlet of shining
snow, at some places apparently as smooth as polished marble, at others
broken so as to form precipices, on the pale blue faces of which the
horizontal lines of bedding were beautifully drawn. As the eye
approaches the line which stretches from the Rognon to the Aiguille
Noire, the repose of the névé becomes more and more disturbed. Vast
chasms are formed, which however are still merely indicative of the
trouble in advance. If the glacier were lifted off we should probably
see that the line just referred to would lie along the summit of a
steep gorge; over this summit the glacier is pushed, and has its back
periodically broken, thus forming vast transverse ridges which follow
each other in succession down the slope. At the summit these ridges are
often cleft by fissures transverse to them, thus forming detached towers
of ice of the most picturesque and imposing character.[B] These towers
often fall; and while some are caught upon the platforms of the cascade,
others struggle with the slow energy of a behemoth through the débris
which opposes them, reach the edges of the precipices which rise in
succession along the fall, leap over, and, amid ice-smoke and
thunder-peals, fight their way downwards.
GLACIER MOTION. 1857.
A great number of secondary glaciers were in sight hanging on the steep
slopes of the mountains, and from them streams sped downwards, falling
over the rocks, and filling the valley with a low rich music. In front
of me, for example, was the Glacier du Moine, and I could not help
feeling as I looked at it, that the arguments drawn from the deportment
of such glaciers against the "sliding theory," and which are still
repeated in works upon the Alps, militate just as strongly against the
"viscous theory." "How," demands the antagonist of the sliding theory,
"can a secondary glacier exist upon so steep a slope? why does it not
slide down as an avalanche?" "But how," the person addressed may retort,
"can a mass which you assume to be viscous exist under similar
conditions? If it be viscous, what prevents it from rolling down?" The
sliding theory assumes the lubrication of the bed of the glacier, but on
this cold height the quantity melted is too small to lubricate the bed,
and hence the slow motion of these glaciers. Thus a sliding-theory man
might reason, and, if the external deportment of secondary glaciers were
to decide the question, De Saussure might perhaps have the best of the
argument.
And with regard to the current idea, originated by M. de Charpentier,
and adopted by Professor Forbes, that if a glacier slides it must slide
as an avalanche, it may be simply retorted that, in part, it does so;
but if it be asserted that an accelerated motion is the necessary
motion of an avalanche, the statement needs qualification. An avalanche
on passing through a rough couloir soon attains a uniform velocity—its
motion being accelerated only up to the point when the sum of the
resistances acting upon it is equal to the force drawing it downwards.
These resistances are furnished by the numberless asperities which the
mass encounters, and which incessantly check its descent, and render an
accumulation of motion impossible. The motion of a man walking down
stairs may be on the whole uniform, but it is really made up of an
aggregate of small motions, each of which is accelerated; and it is easy
to conceive how a glacier moving over an uneven bed, when released from
one opposing obstacle will be checked by another, and its motion thus
rendered sensibly uniform.
MORAINES. 1857.
TRIBUTARIES OF THE MER DE GLACE. 1857.
Fig. 7. Tributaries of the Mer de Glace.
From the Aiguille du Géant and Les Périades a glacier descended, which
was separated by the promontory of La Noire from the glacier proceeding
from the Col du Géant. A small moraine was formed between them, which is
marked a upon the diagram, Fig. 7. The great mass of the glacier
descending from the Col du Géant came next, and this was bounded on the
side nearest to Trélaporte by a small moraine b, the origin of which I
could not see, its upper portion being shut out by a mountain
promontory. Between the moraine b and the actual side of the valley
was another little glacier, derived from some of the lateral
tributaries. It was, however, between the moraines a and b that the
great mass of the Glacier du Géant really lay. At the promontory of the
Tacul the lateral moraines of the Glacier des Périades and of the
Glacier de Léchaud united to form the medial moraine c of the Mer de
Glace. Carrying the eye across the Léchaud, we had the moraine d
formed by the union of the lateral moraines of the Léchaud and Talèfre;
further to the left was the moraine e, which came from the Jardin, and
beyond it was the second lateral moraine of the Talèfre. The Mer de
Glace is formed by the confluence of the whole of the glaciers here
named; being forced at Trélaporte through a passage, the width of which
appears considerably less than that of the single tributary, the Glacier
du Géant.
In the ice near Trélaporte the blue veins of the glacier are beautifully
shown; but they vary in distinctness according to the manner in which
they are looked at. When regarded obliquely their colour is not so
pronounced as when the vision plunges deeply into them. The weathered
ice of the surface near Trélaporte could be cloven with great facility;
I could with ease obtain plates of it a quarter of an inch thick, and
possessing two square feet of surface. On the 28th of July I followed
the veins several times from side to side across the Géant portion of
the Mer de Glace; starting from one side, and walking along the veins,
my route was directed obliquely downwards towards the axis of the
tributary. At the axis I was forced to turn, in order to keep along the
veins, and now ascended along a line which formed nearly the same angle
with the axis at the other side. Thus the veins led me as it were along
the two sides of a triangle, the vertex of which was near the centre of
the glacier. The vertex was, however, in reality rounded off, and the
figure rather resembled a hyperbola, which tended to coincidence with
its asymptotes. This observation corroborates those of Professor Forbes
with regard to the position of the veins, and, like him, I found that at
the centre the veining, whose normal direction would be transverse to
the glacier, was contorted and confused.
WASTING OF ICE. 1857.
Near the side of the Glacier du Géant, above the promontory of
Trélaporte, the ice is rent in a remarkable manner. Looking upwards from
the lower portions of the glacier, a series of vertical walls, rising
apparently one above the other, face the observer. I clambered up among
these singular terraces, and now recognise, both from my sketch and
memory, that their peculiar forms are due to the same action as that
which has given their shape to the "billows" of the Mer de Glace. A
series of profound crevasses is first formed. The Glacier du Géant
deviates 14° from the meridian line, and hence the sun shines nearly
down it during the middle portion of each day. The backs of the ridges
between the crevasses are thus rounded off, one boundary of each fissure
is destroyed, or at least becomes a mere steep declivity, while the
other boundary being shaded from the sun preserves its verticality; and
thus a very curious series of precipices is formed.
Through all this dislocation, the little moraine on which I have placed
the letter b in the sketch maintains its right to existence, and under
it the laminated structure of this portion of the glacier appears to
reach its most perfect development. The moraine was generally a mere
dirt track, but one or two immense blocks of granite were perched upon
it. I examined the ice underneath one of these, being desirous of seeing
whether the pressure resulting from its enormous weight would produce a
veining, but the result was not satisfactory. Veins were certainly to be
seen in directions different from the normal ones, but whether they were
due to the bending of the latter, or were directly owing to the pressure
of the block, I could not say. The sides of a stream which had cut a
deep gorge in the clean ice of the Glacier du Géant afforded a fine
opportunity of observing the structure. It was very remarkable—highly
significant indeed in a theoretic point of view. Two long and
remarkably deep blue veins traversed the bottom of the stream, and
bending upwards at a place where the rivulet curved, drew themselves
like a pair of parallel lines upon the clean white ice. But the general
structure was of a totally different character; it did not consist of
long bars, but approximated to the lenticular form, and was, moreover,
of a washy paleness, which scarcely exceeded in depth of colouring the
whitish ice around.
GROOVES ON THE SURFACE. 1857.
To the investigator of the structure nothing can be finer than the
appearance of the glacier from one of the ice terraces cut in the
Glacier du Géant by its passage round Trélaporte. As far as the vision
extended the dirt upon the surface of the ice was arranged in striæ.
These striæ were not always straight lines, nor were they unbroken
curves. Within slight limits the various parts into which a glacier is
cut up by its crevasses enjoy a kind of independent motion. The grooves,
for example, on two ridges which have been separated by a small fissure,
may one day have their striæ perfect continuations of each other, but in
a short time this identity of direction may be destroyed by a difference
of motion between the ridges. Thus it is that the grooves upon the
surface above Trélaporte are bent hither and thither, a crack or seam
always marking the point where their continuity is ruptured. This
bending occurs, however, within limits sufficiently small to enable the
striæ to preserve the same general direction.
SEAMS OF WHITE ICE. 1857.
My attention had often been attracted this day by projecting masses of
what at first appeared to be pure white snow, rising in seams above the
general surface of the glacier. On examination, however, I found them to
be compact ice, filled with innumerable air-cells, and so resistant as
to maintain itself in some places at a height of four feet above the
general level. When amongst the ridges they appeared discontinuous and
confused, being scattered apparently at random over the glacier; but
when viewed from a sufficient distance, the detached parts showed
themselves to belong to a system of white seams which swept quite across
the Glacier du Géant, in a direction concentric with the structure.
Unable to account for these singular seams, I climbed up among the
tributary glaciers on the Rognon side of the Glacier du Géant, and
remained there until the sun sank behind the neighbouring peaks, and the
fading light warned me that it was time to return.
Early on the following day I was again upon the ice. I first confined
myself to the right side of the Glacier du Géant, and found that the
veins of white ice which I had noticed on the previous day were
exclusively confined to this glacier, or to the space between the
moraines a and b (Fig. 7), bending up so that the moraine a
between the Glacier du Géant and the Glacier des Périades was tangent to
them. At a good distance up the glacier I encountered a considerable
stream rushing across it almost from side to side. I followed the
rivulet, examining the sections which it exposed. At a certain point
three other streams united, and formed at their place of confluence a
small green lake. From this a rivulet rushed, which was joined by the
stream whose track I had pursued, and at this place of junction a second
green lake was formed, from which flowed a stream equal in volume to the
sum of all the tributaries. It entered a crevasse, and took the bottom
of the fissure for its bed. Standing at the entrance of the chasm, a low
muffled thunder resounding through the valley attracted my attention. I
followed the crevasse, which deepened and narrowed, and, by the blue
light of the ice, could see the stream gambolling along its bottom, and
flashing as it jumped over the ledges which it encountered in its way.
The fissure at length came to an end: placing a foot on each side of it,
and withholding the stronger light from my eyes, I looked down between
its shining walls, and saw the stream plunge into a shaft which carried
it to the bottom of the glacier.
Slowly, and in zigzag fashion, as the crevasses demanded, I continued to
ascend, sometimes climbing vast humps of ice from which good views of
the surrounding glacier were obtained; sometimes hidden in the hollows
between the humps, in which also green glacier tarns were often formed,
very lonely and very beautiful.
A LAKE SET FREE. 1857.
While standing beside one of these, and watching the moving clouds which
it faithfully mirrored, I heard the sound of what appeared to be a
descending avalanche, but the time of its continuance surprised me.
Looking through my opera-glass in the direction of the sound, I saw
issuing from the end of a secondary glacier on the Tacul side a torrent
of what appeared to me to be stones and mud. I could see the stones and
finer débris jumping down the declivities, and shaping themselves into
singular cascades. The noise continued for a quarter of an hour, after
which the torrent rapidly diminished, until, at length, the ordinary
little stream due to the melting of the glacier alone remained. A
subglacial lake had burst its boundary, and carried along with it in its
rush downwards the débris which it met with in its course.
IMPRESSIVE SCENE. 1857.
In some places I found the crevasses difficult, the ice being split in a
very singular manner. Vast plates of it not more than a foot in
thickness were sometimes detached from the sides of the crevasses, and
stood alone. I was now approaching the base of the séracs, and the
glacier around me still retained a portion of the turbulence of the
cascade. I halted at times amid the ruin and confusion, and examined
with my glass the cascade itself. It was a wild and wonderful scene,
suggesting throes of spasmodic energy, though, in reality, all its
dislocation had been slowly and gradually produced. True, the
stratified blocks which here and there cumbered the terraces suggested
débacles, but these were local and partial, and did not affect the
general question. There is scarcely a case of geological disturbance
which could not be matched with its analogue upon the
glaciers,—contortions, faults, fissures, joints, and dislocations,—but
in the case of the ice we can prove the effects to be due to
slowly-acting causes; how reasonable is it then to ascribe to the
operation of similar causes, which have had an incomparably longer time
to work, many geological effects which at first sight might suggest
sudden convulsion!
Wandering slowly upwards, successive points of attraction drawing me
almost unconsciously on, I found myself as the day was declining deep in
the entanglements of the ice. A shower commenced, and a splendid rainbow
threw an oblique arch across the glacier. I was quite alone; the scene
was exceedingly impressive, and the possibility of difficulties on which
I had not calculated intervening between me and the lower glacier, gave
a tinge of anxiety to my position. I turned towards home; crossed some
bosses of ice and rounded others; I followed the tracks of streams which
were very irregular on this portion of the glacier, bending hither and
thither, rushing through deep-cut channels, falling in cascades and
expanding here and there to deep green lakes; they often plunged into
the depths of the ice, flowed under it with hollow gurgle, and
reappeared at some distant point. I threaded my way cautiously amid
systems of crevasses, scattering with my axe, to secure a footing, the
rotten ice of the sharper crests, which fell with a ringing sound into
the chasms at either side. Strange subglacial noises were sometimes
heard, as if caverns existed underneath, into which blocks of ice fell
at intervals, transmitting the shock of their fall with a dull boom to
the surface of the glacier. By the steady surmounting of difficulties
one after another, I at length placed them all behind me, and afterwards
hastened swiftly along the glacier to my mountain home.
CHAMOUNI RULES. 1857.
On the 30th incessant rain confined us to indoor work; on the 31st we
determined the velocity with which the glacier is forced through the
entrance of the trunk valley at Trélaporte, and also the motion of the
Grand Moulin. We also determined both the velocity and the width of the
Glacier du Géant. The 1st of August was spent by me at the cascade of
the Talèfre, examining the structure, crumpling, and scaling off of the
ice. Finding that the rules at Chamouni put an unpleasant limit to my
demands on my guide Simond, I visited the Guide Chef on the 2nd of
August, and explained to him the object of my expedition, pointing out
the inconvenience which a rigid application of the rules made for
tourists would impose upon me. He had then the good sense to acknowledge
the reasonableness of my remarks, and to grant me the liberty I
requested. The 3rd of August was employed in determining the velocity
and width of the Glacier de Léchaud, and in observations on the
lamination of the glacier.
THE JARDIN. 1857.
A RESERVOIR OF ICE. 1857.
On the 4th of August, with a view of commencing a series of observations
on the inclinations of the Mer de Glace and its tributaries, we had our
theodolite transported to the Jardin, which, as is well known, lies
like an island in the middle of the Glacier du Talèfre. We reached the
place by the usual route, and found some tourists reposing on the soft
green sward which covers the lower portion, and to which, and the
flowers which spangle it, the place owes its name. Towards the summit of
the Jardin, a rock jutted forward, apparently the very apex of the
place, or at least hiding by its prominence everything that might exist
behind it; leaving our guide with the instrument, we aimed at this, and
soon left the grass and flowers behind us. Stepping amid broken
fragments of rock, along slopes of granite, with fat felspar crystals
which gave the boots a hold, and crossing at intervals patches of snow,
which continued still to challenge the summer heat, I at length found
myself upon the peak referred to; and, although it was not the highest,
the unimpeded view which it commanded induced me to get astride it. The
Jardin was completely encircled by the ice of the glacier, and this was
held in a mountain basin, which was bounded all round by a grand and
cliffy rim. The outline of the dark brown crags—a deeply serrated and
irregular line—was forcibly drawn against the blue heaven, and still
more strongly against some white and fleecy clouds which lay here and
there behind it; while detached spears and pillars of rock, sculptured
by frost and lightning, stood like a kind of defaced statuary along the
ridge. All round the basin the snow reared itself like a buttress
against the precipitous cliffs, being streaked and fluted by the descent
of blocks from the summits. This mighty tub is the collector of one of
the tributaries of the Mer de Glace. According to Professor Forbes, its
greatest diameter is 4200 yards, and out of it the half-formed ice is
squeezed through a precipitous gorge about 700 yards wide, forming there
the ice cascade of the Talèfre. Bounded on one side by the Grande
Jorasse, and on the other by Mont Mallet, the principal tributary of the
Glacier de Léchaud lay white and pure upon the mountain slope. Round
further to the right we had the vast plateau whence the Glacier du Géant
is fed, fenced on the left by the Aiguille du Géant and the Aiguille
Noire, and on the right by the Monts Maudits and Mont Blanc. The scene
was a truly majestic one. The mighty Aiguilles piercing the sea of air,
the soft white clouds floating here and there behind them; the shining
snow with its striped faults and precipices; the deep blue firmament
overhead; the peals of avalanches and the sound of water;—all conspired
to render the scene glorious, and our enjoyment of it deep.
A voice from above hailed me as I moved from my perch; it was my friend,
who had found a lodgment upon the edge of a rock which was quite
detached from the Jardin, being the first to lift its head in opposition
to the descending névé. Making a détour round a steep concave slope of
the glacier, I reached the flat summit of the rock. The end of a ridge
of ice abutted against it, which was split and bent by the pressure so
as to form a kind of arch. I cut steps in the ice, and ascended until I
got beneath the azure roof. Innumerable little rills of pellucid water
descended from it. Some came straight down, clear for a time, and
apparently motionless, rapidly tapering at first, and more slowly
afterwards, until, at the point of maximum contraction, they resolved
themselves into strings of liquid pearls which pattered against the ice
floor underneath. Others again, owing to the directions of the little
streamlets of which they were constituted, formed spiral figures of
great beauty: one liquid vein wound itself round another, forming a
spiral protuberance, and owing to the centrifugal motion thus imparted,
the vein, at its place of rupture, scattered itself laterally in little
liquid spherules.[A] Even at this great elevation the structure of the
ice was fairly developed, not with the sharpness to be observed lower
down, but still perfectly decided. Blue bands crossed the ridge of ice
to which I have referred, at right angles to the direction of the
pressure.
MORAINES OF THE TALÈFRE. 1857.
I descended, and found my friend beneath an overhanging rock.
Immediately afterwards a peal like that of thunder shook the air, and
right in front of us an avalanche darted down the brown cliffs, then
along a steep slope of snow which reared itself against the mountain
wall, carrying with it the débris of the rocks over which it passed,
until it finally lay a mass of sullied rubbish at the base of the
incline: the whole surface of the Talèfre is thus soiled. Another peal
was heard immediately afterwards, but the avalanche which caused it was
hidden from us by a rocky promontory. From this same promontory the
greater portion of the medial moraine which descends the cascade of the
Talèfre is derived, forming at first a gracefully winding curve, and
afterwards stretching straight to the summit of the fall. In the chasms
of the cascade its boulders are engulfed, but the lost moraine is
restored below the fall, as if disgorged by the ice which had swallowed
it. From the extremity of the Jardin itself a mere driblet of a moraine
proceeds, running parallel to the former, and like it disappearing at
the summit of the cascade.
AMONG THE CREVASSES. 1857.
We afterwards descended towards the cascade, but long before this is
attained the most experienced iceman would find himself in difficulty.
Transverse crevasses are formed, which follow each other so speedily as
to leave between them mere narrow ridges of ice, along which we moved
cautiously, jumping the adjacent fissures, or getting round them, as the
case demanded. As we approached the jaws of the gorge, the ridges
dwindled to mere plates and wedges, which being bent and broken by the
lateral pressure, added to the confusion, and warned us not to advance.
The position was in some measure an exciting one. Our guide had never
been here before; we were far from the beaten track, and the riven
glacier wore an aspect of treacherous hostility. As at the base of the
séracs, a subterranean noise sometimes announced the falling of
ice-blocks into hollows underneath, the existence of which the resonant
concussion of the fallen mass alone revealed. There was thus a dash of
awe mingled with our thoughts; a stirring up of the feelings which
troubled the coolness of the intellect. We finally swerved to the right,
and by a process the reverse of straightforward reached the Couvercle.
Nightfall found us at the threshold of our hotel.
ROUND HAILSTONES. 1857.
On the 5th we were engaged for some time in an important measurement at
the Tacul. We afterwards ascended towards the séracs, and determined
the inclinations of the Glacier du Géant downwards. Dense cloud-masses
gathered round the points of the Aiguilles, and the thunder bellowed at
intervals from the summit of Mont Blanc. As we descended the Mer de
Glace the valley in front of us was filled with a cloud of pitchy
darkness. Suddenly from side to side this field of gloom was riven by a
bar of lightning of intolerable splendour; it was followed by a peal of
commensurate grandeur, the echoes of which leaped from cliff to cliff
long after the first sound had died away. The discharge seemed to unlock
the clouds above us, for they showered their liquid spheres down upon us
with a momentum like that of swan-shot: all the way home we were
battered by this pellet-like rain. On the 6th the rain continued with
scarcely any pause; on the 7th I was engaged all day upon the Glacier du
Géant; on the morning of the 8th heavy hail had fallen there, the stones
being perfect spheres; the rounded rain-drops had solidified during
their descent without sensible change of form. When this hail was
squeezed together, it exactly resembled a mass of oolitic limestone
which I had picked up in 1853 near Blankenburg in the Hartz. Mr. Hirst
and myself were engaged together this day taking the inclinations: he
struck his theodolite at the Angle, and went home accompanied by Simond,
and the evening being extremely serene, I pursued my way down the centre
of the glacier towards the Echelets. The crevasses as I advanced became
more deep and frequent, the ridges of ice between them becoming
gradually narrower. They were very fine, their downward faces being
clear cut, perfectly vertical, and in many cases beautifully veined.
Vast plates of ice moreover often stood out midway between the walls of
the chasms, as if cloven from the glacier and afterwards set on edge.
The place was certainly one calculated to test the skill and nerve of an
iceman; and as the day drooped, and the shadow in the valley deepened, a
feeling approaching to awe took possession of me. My route was an
exaggerated zigzag; right and left amid the chasms wherever a hope of
progress opened; and here I made the experience which I have often
repeated since, and laid to heart as regards intellectual work also,
that enormous difficulties may be overcome when they are attacked in
earnest. Sometimes I found myself so hedged in by fissures that escape
seemed absolutely impossible; but close and resolute examination so
often revealed a means of exit, that I felt in all its force the brave
verity of the remark of Mirabeau, that the word "impossible" is a mere
blockhead of a word. It finally became necessary to reach the shore, but
I found this a work of extreme difficulty. At length, however, it became
pretty evident that, if I could cross a certain crevasse, my retreat
would be secured.
A DANGEROUS LEAP. 1857.
The width of the fissure seemed to be fairly within
jumping distance, and if I could have calculated on a safe purchase for
my foot I should have thought little of the spring; but the ice on the
edge from which I was to leap was loose and insecure, and hence a kind
of nervous thrill shot through me as I made the bound. The opposite side
was fairly reached, but an involuntary tremor shook me all over after I
felt myself secure. I reached the edge of the glacier without further
serious difficulty, and soon after found myself steeped in the creature
comforts of our hotel.
On Monday, August 10th, I had the great pleasure of being joined by my
friend Huxley; and though the weather was very unpromising, we started
together up the glacier, he being desirous to learn something of its
general features, and, if possible, to reach the Jardin. We reached the
Couvercle, and squeezed ourselves through the Egralets; but here the
rain whizzed past us, and dense fog settled upon the cascade of the
Talèfre, obscuring all its parts. We met Mr. Galton, the African
traveller, returning from an attempt upon the Jardin; and learning that
his guides had lost their way in the fog, we deemed it prudent to
return.
The foregoing brief notes will have informed the reader that at the
period of Mr. Huxley's arrival I was not without due training upon the
ice; I may also remark, that on the 25th of July I reached the summit
of the Col du Géant, accompanied by the boy Balmat, and returned to the
Montanvert on the same day. My health was perfect, and incessant
practice had taught me the art of dealing with the difficulties of the
ice. From the time of my arrival at the Montanvert the thought of
ascending Mont Blanc, and thus expanding my knowledge of the glaciers,
had often occurred to me, and I think I was justified in feeling that
the discipline which both my friend Hirst and myself had undergone ought
to enable us to accomplish the journey in a much more modest way than
ordinary. I thought a single guide sufficient for this purpose, and I
was strengthened in this opinion by the fact that Simond, who was a man
of the strictest prudence, and who at first declared four guides to be
necessary, had lowered his demand first to two, and was now evidently
willing to try the ascent with us alone.
PREPARATIONS FOR A CLIMB. 1857.
On mentioning the thing to Mr. Huxley he at once resolved to accompany
us. On the 11th of August the weather was exceedingly fine, though the
snow which had fallen during the previous days lay thick upon the
glacier. At noon we were all together at the Tacul, and the subject of
attempting Mont Blanc was mooted and discussed. My opinion was that it
would be better to wait until the fresh snow which loaded the mountain
had disappeared; but the weather was so exquisite that my friends
thought it best to take advantage of it. We accordingly entered into an
agreement with our guide, and immediately descended to make preparations
for commencing the expedition on the following morning.
SCENE FROM THE CHARMOZ. 1857.
On Wednesday, the 12th of August, we rose early, after a very brief rest
on my part. Simond had proposed to go down to Chamouni, and commence the
ascent in the usual way, but we preferred crossing the mountains from
the Montanvert, straight to the Glacier des Bossons. At eight o'clock we
started, accompanied by two porters who were to carry our provisions to
the Grands Mulets. Slowly and silently we climbed the hill-side towards
Charmoz. We soon passed the limits of grass and rhododendrons, and
reached the slabs of gneiss which overspread the summit of the ridge,
lying one upon the other like coin upon the table of a money-changer.
From the highest-point I turned to have a last look at the Mer de Glace;
and through a pair of very dark spectacles I could see with perfect
distinctness the looped dirt-bands of the glacier, which to the naked
eye are scarcely discernible except by twilight. Flanking our track to
the left rose a series of mighty Aiguilles—the Aiguille de Charmoz,
with its bent and rifted pinnacles; the Aiguille du Grépon, the Aiguille
de Blaitière, the Aiguille du Midi, all piercing the heavens with their
sharp pyramidal summits. Far in front of us rose the grand snow-cone of
the Dôme du Goûter, while, through a forest of dark pines which gathered
like a cloud at the foot of the mountain, gleamed the white minarets of
the Glacier des Bossons. Below us lay the Valley of Chamouni, beyond
which were the Brévent and the chain of the Aiguilles Rouges; behind us
was the granite obelisk of the Aiguille du Dru, while close at hand
science found a corporeal form in a pyramid of stones used as a
trigonometrical station by Professor Forbes. Sound is known to travel
better up hill than down, because the pulses transmitted from a denser
medium to a rarer, suffer less loss of intensity than when the
transmission is in the opposite direction; and now the mellow voice of
the Arve came swinging upwards from the heavier air of the valley to the
lighter air of the hills in rich deep cadences.
PASSAGE TO THE PIERRE À L'ECHELLE. 1857.
The way for a time was excessively rough, our route being overspread
with the fragments of peaks which had once reared themselves to our
left, but which frost and lightning had shaken to pieces, and poured in
granite avalanches down the mountain. We were sometimes among huge
angular boulders, and sometimes amid lighter shingle, which gave way at
every step, thus forcing us to shift our footing incessantly. Escaping
from these, we crossed the succession of secondary glaciers which lie at
the feet of the Aiguilles, and having secured firewood found ourselves
after some hours of hard work at the Pierre à l'Echelle. Here we were
furnished with leggings of coarse woollen cloth to keep out the snow;
they were tied under the knees and quite tightly again over the insteps,
so that the legs were effectually protected. We had some refreshment,
possessed ourselves of the ladder, and entered upon the glacier.
LADDER LEFT BEHIND. 1857.
The ice was excessively fissured: we crossed crevasses and crept round
slippery ridges, cutting steps in the ice wherever climbing was
necessary. This rendered our progress very slow. Once, with the
intention of lending a helping hand, I stepped forward upon a block of
granite which happened to be poised like a rocking stone upon the ice,
though I did not know it; it treacherously turned under me; I fell, but
my hands were in instant requisition, and I escaped with a bruise, from
which, however, the blood oozed angrily. We found the ladder necessary
in crossing some of the chasms, the iron spikes at its end being firmly
driven into the ice at one side, while the other end rested on the
opposite side of the fissure. The middle portion of the glacier was not
difficult. Mounds of ice rose beside us right and left, which were
sometimes split into high towers and gaunt-looking pyramids, while the
space between was unbroken. Twenty minutes' walking brought us again to
a fissured portion of the glacier, and here our porter left the ladder
on the ice behind him. For some time I was not aware of this, but we
were soon fronted by a chasm to pass which we were in consequence
compelled to make a long and dangerous circuit amid crests of crumbling
ice. This accomplished, we hoped that no repetition of the process would
occur, but we speedily came to a second fissure, where it was necessary
to step from a projecting end of ice to a mass of soft snow which
overhung the opposite side. Simond could reach this snow with his
long-handled axe; he beat it down to give it rigidity, but it was
exceedingly tender, and as he worked at it he continued to express his
fears that it would not bear us. I was the lightest of the party, and
therefore tested the passage, first; being partially lifted by Simond on
the end of his axe, I crossed the fissure, obtained some anchorage at
the other side, and helped the others over.
DIFFICULT CREVASSES. 1857.
We afterwards ascended until
another chasm, deeper and wider than any we had hitherto encountered,
arrested us. We walked alongside of it in search of a snow bridge, which
we at length found, but the keystone of the arch had unfortunately given
way, leaving projecting eaves of snow at both sides, between which we
could look into the gulf, till the gloom of its deeper portions cut the
vision short. Both sides of the crevasse were sounded, but no sure
footing was obtained; the snow was beaten and carefully trodden down as
near to the edge as possible, but it finally broke away from the foot
and fell into the chasm. One of our porters was short-legged and a bad
iceman; the other was a daring fellow, and he now threw the knapsack
from his shoulders, came to the edge of the crevasse, looked into it,
but drew back again. After a pause he repeated the act, testing the snow
with his feet and staff. I looked at the man as he stood beside the
chasm manifestly undecided as to whether he should take the step upon
which his life would hang, and thought it advisable to put a stop to
such perilous play. I accordingly interposed, the man withdrew from the
crevasse, and he and Simond descended to fetch the ladder. While they
were away Huxley sat down upon the ice, with an expression of fatigue
stamped upon his countenance: the spirit and the muscles were evidently
at war, and the resolute will mixed itself strangely with the sense of
peril and feeling of exhaustion. He had been only two days with us, and,
though his strength is great, he had had no opportunity of hardening
himself by previous exercise upon the ice for the task which he had
undertaken. The ladder now arrived, and we crossed the crevasse. I was
intentionally the last of the party, Huxley being immediately in front
of me. The determination of the man disguised his real condition from
everybody but myself, but I saw that the exhausting journey over the
boulders and débris had been too much for his London limbs. Converting
my waterproof haversack into a cushion, I made him sit down upon it at
intervals, and by thus breaking the steep ascent into short stages we
reached the cabin of the Grands Mulets together. Here I spread a rug on
the boards, and placing my bag for a pillow, he lay down, and after an
hour's profound sleep he rose refreshed and well; but still he thought
it wise not to attempt the ascent farther. Our porters left us: a bâton
was stretched across the room over the stove, and our wet socks and
leggings were thrown across it to dry; our boots were placed around the
fire, and we set about preparing our evening meal. A pan was placed upon
the fire, and filled with snow, which in due time melted and boiled; I
ground some chocolate and placed it in the pan, and afterwards ladled
the beverage into the vessels we possessed, which consisted of two
earthen dishes and the metal cases of our brandy flasks. After supper
Simond went out to inspect the glacier, and was observed by Huxley, as
twilight fell, in a state of deep contemplation beside a crevasse.
STAR TWINKLING. 1857.
Gradually the stars appeared, but as yet no moon. Before lying down we
went out to look at the firmament, and noticed, what I suppose has been
observed to some extent by everybody, that the stars near the horizon
twinkled busily, while those near the zenith shone with a steady light.
One large star in particular excited our admiration; it flashed
intensely, and changed colour incessantly, sometimes blushing like a
ruby, and again gleaming like an emerald. A determinate colour would
sometimes remain constant for a sensible time, but usually the flashes
followed each other in very quick succession. Three planks were now
placed across the room near the stove, and upon these, with their rugs
folded round them, Huxley and Hirst stretched themselves, while I
nestled on the boards at the most distant end of the room. We rose at
eleven o'clock, renewed the fire and warmed ourselves, after which we
lay down again. I at length observed a patch of pale light upon the
wooden wall of the cabin, which had entered through a hole in the end of
the edifice, and rising found that it was past one o'clock. The
cloudless moon was shining over the wastes of snow, and the scene
outside was at once wild, grand, and beautiful.
START FROM THE GRANDS MULETS. 1857.
Breakfast was soon prepared, though not without difficulty; we had no
candles, they had been forgotten; but I fortunately possessed a box of
wax matches, of which Huxley took charge, patiently igniting them in
succession, and thus giving us a tolerably continuous light. We had
some tea, which had been made at the Montanvert, and carried to the
Grands Mulets in a bottle. My memory of that tea is not pleasant; it had
been left a whole night in contact with its leaves, and smacked strongly
of tannin. The snow-water, moreover, with which we diluted it was not
pure, but left a black residuum at the bottom of the dishes in which the
beverage was served. The few provisions deemed necessary being placed in
Simond's knapsack, at twenty minutes past two o'clock we scrambled down
the rocks, leaving Huxley behind us.
The snow was hardened by the night's frost, and we were cheered by the
hope of being able to accomplish the ascent with comparatively little
labour. We were environed by an atmosphere of perfect purity; the larger
stars hung like gems above us, and the moon, about half full, shone with
wondrous radiance in the dark firmament. One star in particular, which
lay eastward from the moon, suddenly made its appearance above one of
the Aiguilles, and burned there with unspeakable splendour. We turned
once towards the Mulets, and saw Huxley's form projected against the sky
as he stood upon a pinnacle of rock; he gave us a last wave of the hand
and descended, while we receded from him into the solitudes.
The evening previous our guide had examined the glacier for some
distance, his progress having been arrested by a crevasse. Beside this
we soon halted: it was spanned at one place by a bridge of snow, which
was of too light a structure to permit of Simond's testing it alone; we
therefore paused while our guide uncoiled a rope and tied us all
together. The moment was to me a peculiarly solemn one. Our little party
seemed so lonely and so small amid the silence and the vastness of the
surrounding scene. We were about to try our strength under unknown
conditions, and as the various possibilities of the enterprise crowded
on the imagination, a sense of responsibility for a moment oppressed
me. But as I looked aloft and saw the glory of the heavens, my heart
lightened, and I remarked cheerily to Hirst that Nature seemed to smile
upon our work. "Yes," he replied, in a calm and earnest voice, "and, God
willing, we shall accomplish it."
A WRONG TURN. 1857.
A pale light now overspread the eastern sky, which increased, as we
ascended, to a daffodil tinge; this afterwards heightened to orange,
deepening at one extremity into red, and fading at the other into a pure
ethereal hue to which it would be difficult to assign a special name.
Higher up the sky was violet, and this changed by insensible degrees
into the darkling blue of the zenith, which had to thank the light of
moon and stars alone for its existence. We wound steadily for a time
through valleys of ice, climbed white and slippery slopes, crossed a
number of crevasses, and after some time found ourselves beside a chasm
of great depth and width, which extended right and left as far as we
could see. We turned to the left, and marched along its edge in search
of a pont; but matters became gradually worse: other crevasses joined
on to the first one, and the further we proceeded the more riven and
dislocated the ice became. At length we reached a place where further
advance was impossible. Simond in his difficulty complained of the want
of light, and wished us to wait for the advancing day; I, on the
contrary, thought that we had light enough and ought to make use of it.
Here the thought occurred to me that Simond, having been only once
before to the top of the mountain, might not be quite clear about the
route; the glacier, however, changes within certain limits from year to
year, so that a general knowledge was all that could be expected, and we
trusted to our own muscles to make good any mistake in the way of
guidance. We now turned and retraced our steps along the edges of chasms
where the ice was disintegrated and insecure, and succeeded at length
in finding a bridge which bore us across the crevasse. This error caused
us the loss of an hour, and after walking for this time we could cast a
stone from the point we had attained to the place whence we had been
compelled to return.
SÉRACS OF THE DÔME DU GOÛTER. 1857.
Our way now lay along the face of a steep incline of snow, which was cut
by the fissure we had just passed, in a direction parallel to our route.
On the heights to our right, loose ice-crags seemed to totter, and we
passed two tracks over which the frozen blocks had rushed some short
time previously. We were glad to get out of the range of these terrible
projectiles, and still more so to escape the vicinity of that ugly
crevasse. To be killed in the open air would be a luxury, compared with
having the life squeezed out of one in the horrible gloom of these
chasms. The blush of the coming day became more and more intense; still
the sun himself did not appear, being hidden from us by the peaks of the
Aiguille du Midi, which were drawn clear and sharp against the
brightening sky. Right under this Aiguille were heaps of snow smoothly
rounded and constituting a portion of the sources whence the Glacier du
Géant is fed; these, as the day advanced, bloomed with a rosy light. We
reached the Petit Plateau, which we found covered with the remains of
ice avalanches; above us upon the crest of the mountain rose three
mighty bastions, divided from each other by deep vertical rents, with
clean smooth walls, across which the lines of annual bedding were drawn
like courses of masonry. From these, which incessantly renew themselves,
and from the loose and broken ice-crags near them, the boulders amid
which we now threaded our way had been discharged. When they fall their
descent must be sublime.
THE LOST GUIDES. 1857.
The snow had been gradually getting deeper, and the ascent more
wearisome, but superadded to this at the Petit Plateau was the
uncertainty of the footing between the blocks of ice. In many places
the space was merely covered by a thin crust, which, when trod upon,
instantly yielded, and we sank with a shock sometimes to the hips. Our
way next lay up a steep incline to the Grand Plateau, the depth and
tenderness of the snow augmenting as we ascended. We had not yet seen
the sun, but, as we attained the brow which forms the entrance to the
Grand Plateau, he hung his disk upon a spike of rock to our left, and,
surrounded by a glory of interference spectra of the most gorgeous
colours, blazed down upon us. On the Grand Plateau we halted and had our
frugal refreshment. At some distance to our left was the crevasse into
which Dr. Hamel's three guides were precipitated by an avalanche in
1820; they are still entombed in the ice, and some future explorer may
perhaps see them disgorged lower down, fresh and undecayed. They can
hardly reach the surface until they pass the snow-line of the glacier,
for above this line the quantity of snow that annually falls being in
excess of the quantity melted, the tendency would be to make the
ice-covering above them thicker. But it is also possible that the waste
of the ice underneath may have brought the bodies to the bed of the
glacier, where their very bones may have been ground to mud by an agency
which the hardest rocks cannot withstand.
THE GUIDE TIRED. 1857.
As the sun poured his light upon the Plateau the little snow-facets
sparkled brilliantly, sometimes with a pure white light, and at others
with prismatic colours. Contrasted with the white spaces above and
around us were the dark mountains on the opposite side of the valley of
Chamouni, around which fantastic masses of cloud were beginning to build
themselves. Mont Buet, with its cone of snow, looked small, and the
Brévent altogether mean; the limestone bastions of the Fys, however,
still presented a front of gloom and grandeur. We traversed the Grand
Plateau, and at length reached the base of an extremely steep incline
which stretched upwards towards the Corridor. Here, as if produced by a
fault, consequent upon the sinking of the ice in front, rose a vertical
precipice, from the coping of which vast stalactites of ice depended.
Previous to reaching this place I had noticed a haggard expression upon
the countenance of our guide, which was now intensified by the prospect
of the ascent before him. Hitherto he had always been in front, which
was certainly the most fatiguing position. I felt that I must now take
the lead, so I spoke cheerily to the man and placed him behind me.
Marking a number of points upon the slope as resting places, I went
swiftly from one to the other. The surface of the snow had been
partially melted by the sun and then refrozen, thus forming a
superficial crust, which bore the weight up to a certain point, and then
suddenly gave way, permitting the leg to sink to above the knee. The
shock consequent on this, and the subsequent effort necessary to
extricate the leg, were extremely fatiguing. My motion was complained of
as too quick, and my tracks as imperfect; I moderated the former, and,
to render my footholes broad and sure, I stamped upon the frozen crust,
and twisted my legs in the soft mass underneath,—a terribly exhausting
process. I thus led the way to the base of the Rochers Rouges, up to
which the fault already referred to had prolonged itself as a crevasse,
which was roofed at one place by a most dangerous-looking snow-bridge.
Simond came to the front; I drew his attention to the state of the snow,
and proposed climbing the Rochers Rouges; but, with a promptness unusual
with him, he replied that this was impossible; the bridge was our only
means of passing, and we must try it. We grasped our ropes, and dug our
feet firmly into the snow to check the man's descent if the pont gave
way, but to our astonishment it bore him, and bore us safely after him.
A PERILOUS SLOPE. 1857.
The slope which we had now to ascend had the snow swept from its
surface, and was therefore firm ice. It was most dangerously steep, and,
its termination being the fretted coping of the precipice to which I
have referred, if we slid downwards we should shoot over this and be
dashed to pieces upon the ice below.[A] Simond, who had come to the
front to cross the crevasse, was now engaged in cutting steps, which he
made deep and large, so that they might serve us on our return. But the
listless strokes of his axe proclaimed his exhaustion; so I took the
implement out of his hands, and changed places with him. Step after step
was hewn, but the top of the Corridor appeared ever to recede from us.
Hirst was behind unoccupied, and could thus turn his thoughts to the
peril of our position: he felt the angle on which we hung, and saw the
edge of the precipice, to which less than a quarter of a minute's slide
would carry us, and for the first time during the journey he grew giddy.
A cigar which he lighted for the purpose tranquilized him.
WILL AND MUSCLE. 1857.
I hewed sixty steps upon this slope, and each step had cost a minute, by
Hirst's watch. The Mur de la Côte was still before us, and on this the
guide-books informed us two or three hundred steps were sometimes found
necessary. If sixty steps cost an hour, what would be the cost of two
hundred? The question was disheartening in the extreme, for the time at
which we had calculated on reaching the summit was already passed, while
the chief difficulties remained unconquered. Having hewn our way along
the harder ice we reached snow. I again resorted to stamping to secure a
footing, and while thus engaged became, for the first time, aware of the
drain of force to which I was subjecting myself. The thought of being
absolutely exhausted had never occurred to me, and from first to last I
had taken no care to husband my strength. I always calculated that the
will would serve me even should the muscles fail, but I now found that
mechanical laws rule man in the long run; that no effort of will, no
power of spirit, can draw beyond a certain limit upon muscular force.
The soul, it is true, can stir the body to action, but its function is
to excite and apply force, and not to create it.
While stamping forward through the frozen crust I was compelled to pause
at short intervals; then would set out again apparently fresh, to find,
however, in a few minutes that my strength was gone, and that I required
to rest once more. In this way I gained the summit of the Corridor, when
Hirst came to the front, and I felt some relief in stepping slowly after
him, making use of the holes into which his feet had sunk. He thus led
the way to the base of the Mur de la Côte, the thought of which had so
long cast a gloom upon us; here we left our rope behind us, and while
pausing I asked Simond whether he did not feel a desire to go to the
summit—"Bien sûr," was his reply, "mais!" Our guide's mind was so
constituted that the "mais" seemed essential to its peace. I stretched
my hand towards him, and said, "Simond, we must do it." One thing alone
I felt could defeat us: the usual time of the ascent had been more than
doubled, the day was already far spent, and if the ascent would throw
our subsequent descent into night it could not be contemplated.
A DOZE ON THE CALOTTE. 1857.
We now faced the Mur, which was by no means so bad as we had expected.
Driving the iron claws of our boots into the scars made by the axe, and
the spikes of our bâtons into the slope above our feet, we ascended
steadily until the summit was attained, and the top of the mountain rose
clearly above us. We congratulated ourselves upon this; but Simond,
probably fearing that our joy might become too full, remarked, "Mais le
sommet est encore bien loin!" It was, alas! too true. The snow became
soft again, and our weary limbs sank in it as before. Our guide went on
in front, audibly muttering his doubts as to our ability to reach the
top, and at length he threw himself upon the snow, and exclaimed, "Il
faut y renoncer!" Hirst now undertook the task of rekindling the
guide's enthusiasm, after which Simond rose, exclaiming, "Ah! comme ça
me fait mal aux genoux," and went forward. Two rocks break through the
snow between the summit of the Mur and the top of the mountain; the
first is called the Petits Mulets, and the highest the Derniers Rochers.
At the former of these we paused to rest, and finished our scanty store
of wine and provisions. We had not a bit of bread nor a drop of wine
left; our brandy flasks were also nearly exhausted, and thus we had to
contemplate the journey to the summit, and the subsequent descent to the
Grands Mulets, without the slightest prospect of physical refreshment.
The almost total loss of two nights' sleep, with two days' toil
superadded, made me long for a few minutes' doze, so I stretched myself
upon a composite couch of snow and granite, and immediately fell asleep.
My friend, however, soon aroused me. "You quite frighten me," he said;
"I have listened for some minutes, and have not heard you breathe once."
I had, in reality, been taking deep draughts of the mountain air, but so
silently as not to be heard.
I now filled our empty wine-bottle with snow and placed it in the
sunshine, that we might have a little water on our return. We then rose;
it was half-past two o'clock; we had been upwards of twelve hours
climbing, and I calculated that, whether we reached the summit or not,
we could at all events work towards it for another hour. To the sense
of fatigue previously experienced, a new phenomenon was now added—the
beating of the heart. We were incessantly pulled up by this, which
sometimes became so intense as to suggest danger. I counted the number
of paces which we were able to accomplish without resting, and found
that at the end of every twenty, sometimes at the end of fifteen, we
were compelled to pause. At each pause my heart throbbed audibly, as I
leaned upon my staff, and the subsidence of this action was always the
signal for further advance. My breathing was quick, but light and
unimpeded. I endeavoured to ascertain whether the hip-joint, on account
of the diminished atmospheric pressure, became loosened, so as to throw
the weight of the leg upon the surrounding ligaments, but could not be
certain about it. I also sought a little aid and encouragement from
philosophy, endeavouring to remember what great things had been done by
the accumulation of small quantities, and I urged upon myself that the
present was a case in point, and that the summation of distances twenty
paces each must finally place us at the top. Still the question of time
left the matter long in doubt, and until we had passed the Derniers
Rochers we worked on with the stern indifference of men who were doing
their duty, and did not look to consequences. Here, however, a gleam of
hope began to brighten our souls; the summit became visibly nearer,
Simond showed more alacrity; at length success became certain, and at
half-past three p.m. my friend and I clasped hands upon the top.
THE SUMMIT ATTAINED. 1857.
The summit of the mountain is an elongated ridge, which has been
compared to the back of an ass. It was perfectly manifest that we were
dominant over all other mountains; as far as the eye could range Mont
Blanc had no competitor. The summits which had looked down upon us in
the morning were now far beneath us. The Dôme du Goûter, which had held
its threatening séracs above us so long, was now at our feet. The
Aiguille du Midi, Mont Blanc du Tacul, and the Monts Maudits, the
Talèfre with its surrounding peaks, the Grand Jorasse, Mont Mallet, and
the Aiguille du Géant, with our own familiar glaciers, were all below
us. And as our eye ranged over the broad shoulders of the mountain, over
ice hills and valleys, plateaux and far-stretching slopes of snow, the
conception of its magnitude grew upon us, and impressed us more and
more.
CLOUDS FROM THE SUMMIT. 1857.
The clouds were very grand—grander indeed than anything I had ever
before seen. Some of them seemed to hold thunder in their breasts, they
were so dense and dark; others, with their faces turned sunward, shone
with the dazzling whiteness of the mountain snow; while others again
built themselves into forms resembling gigantic elm trees, loaded with
foliage. Towards the horizon the luxury of colour added itself to the
magnificent alternations of light and shade. Clear spaces of amber and
ethereal green embraced the red and purple cumuli, and seemed to form
the cradle in which they swung. Closer at hand squally mists, suddenly
engendered, were driven hither and thither by local winds; while the
clouds at a distance lay "like angels sleeping on the wing," with
scarcely visible motion. Mingling with the clouds, and sometimes rising
above them, were the highest mountain heads, and as our eyes wandered
from peak to peak, onwards to the remote horizon, space itself seemed
more vast from the manner in which the objects which it held were
distributed.
INTENSITY OF SOUND. 1857.
I wished to repeat the remarkable experiment of De Saussure upon sound,
and for this purpose had requested Simond to bring a pistol from
Chamouni; but in the multitude of his cares he forgot it, and in lieu of
it my host at the Montanvert had placed in two tin tubes, of the same
size and shape, the same amount of gunpowder, securely closing the tubes
afterwards, and furnishing each of them with a small lateral aperture.
We now planted one of them upon the snow, and bringing a strip of amadou
into communication with the touchhole, ignited its most distant end: it
failed; we tried again, and were successful, the explosion tearing
asunder the little case which contained the powder. The sound was
certainly not so great as I should have expected from an equal quantity
of powder at the sea level.[B]
The snow upon the summit was indurated, but of an exceedingly fine
grain, and the beautiful effect already referred to as noticed upon the
Stelvio was strikingly manifest. The hole made by driving the bâton into
the snow was filled with a delicate blue light; and, by management, its
complementary pinky yellow could also be produced. Even the iron spike
at the end of the bâton made a hole sufficiently deep to exhibit the
blue colour, which certainly depends on the size and arrangement of the
snow crystals. The firmament above us was without a cloud, and of a
darkness almost equal to that which surrounded the moon at 2 a.m. Still,
though the sun was shining, a breeze, whose tooth had been sharpened by
its passage over the snow-fields, searched us through and through. The
day was also waning, and, urged by the warnings of our ever prudent
guide, we at length began the descent.
AN UNEXPECTED GLISSADE. 1857.
Gravity was now in our favour, but gravity could not entirely spare our
wearied limbs, and where we sank in the snow we found our downward
progress very trying. I suffered from thirst, but after we had divided
the liquefied snow at the Petits Mulets amongst us we had nothing to
drink. I crammed the clean snow into my mouth, but the process of
melting was slow and tantalizing to a parched throat, while the chill
was painful to the teeth. We marched along the Corridor, and crossed
cautiously the perilous slope on which we had cut steps in the morning,
breathing more freely after we had cleared the ice-precipice before
described. Along the base of this precipice we now wound, diverging from
our morning's track, in order to get surer footing in the snow; it was
like flour, and while descending to the Grand Plateau we sometimes sank
in it nearly to the waist. When I endeavoured to squeeze it, so as to
fill my flask, it at first refused to cling together, behaving like so
much salt; the heat of the hand, however, soon rendered it a little
moist, and capable of being pressed into compact masses. The sun met us
here with extraordinary power; the heat relaxed my muscles, but when
fairly immersed in the shadow of the Dôme du Goûter, the coolness
restored my strength, which augmented as the evening advanced. Simond
insisted on the necessity of haste, to save us from the perils of
darkness. "On peut périr" was his repeated admonition, and he was
quite right. We reached the region of ponts, more weary, but, in
compensation, more callous, than we had been in the morning, and moved
over the soft snow of the bridges as if we had been walking upon eggs.
The valley of Chamouni was filled with brown-red clouds, which crept
towards us up the mountain; the air around and above us was, however,
clear, and the chastened light told us that day was departing. Once as
we hung upon a steep slope, where the snow was exceedingly soft, Hirst
omitted to make his footing sure; the soft mass gave way, and he fell,
uttering a startled shout as he went down the declivity. I was attached
to him, and, fixing my feet suddenly in the snow, endeavoured to check
his fall, but I seemed a mere feather in opposition to the force with
which he descended.[C] I fell, and went down after him; and we carried
quite an avalanche of snow along with us, in which we were almost
completely hidden at the bottom of the slope. All further dangers,
however, were soon past, and we went at a headlong speed to the base of
the Grands Mulets; the sound of our bâtons against the rocks calling
Huxley forth. A position more desolate than his had been can hardly be
imagined. For seventeen hours he had been there. He had expected us at
two o'clock in the afternoon; the hours came and passed, and till seven
in the evening he had looked for us. "To the end of my life," he said,
"I shall never forget the sound of those bâtons." It was his turn now to
nurse me, which he did, repaying my previous care of him with high
interest. We were all soon stretched, and, in spite of cold and hard
boards, I slept at intervals; but the night, on the whole, was a weary
one, and we rose next morning with muscles more tired than when we lay
down.
BLIND AMID THE CREVASSES. 1857.
Friday, 14th August.—Hirst was almost blind this morning; and our
guide's eyes were also greatly inflamed. We gathered our things
together, and bade the Grands Mulets farewell. It had frozen hard during
the night, and this, on the steeper slopes, rendered the footing very
insecure. Simond, moreover, appeared to be a little bewildered, and I
sometimes preceded him in cutting the steps, while Hirst moved among the
crevasses like a blind man; one of us keeping near him, so that he might
feel for the actual places where our feet had rested, and place his own
in the same position. It cost us three hours to cross from the Grands
Mulets to the Pierre a l'Echelle, where we discarded our leggings, had a
mouthful of food, and a brief rest. Once upon the safe earth Simond's
powers seemed to be restored, and he led us swiftly downwards to the
little auberge beside the Cascade du Tard, where we had some excellent
lemonade, equally choice cognac, fresh strawberries and cream. How sweet
they were, and how beautiful we thought the peasant girl who served
them! Our guide kept a little hotel, at which we halted, and found it
clean and comfortable. We were, in fact, totally unfit to go elsewhere.
My coat was torn, holes were kicked through my boots, and I was
altogether ragged and shabby. A warm bath before dinner refreshed all
mightily. Dense clouds now lowered upon Mont Blanc, and we had not been
an hour at Chamouni when the breaking up of the weather was announced by
a thunder-peal. We had accomplished our journey just in time.
HAPPY EVENINGS. 1857.
After our return we spent every available hour upon the ice, working at
questions which shall be treated under their proper heads, each day's
work being wound up by an evening of perfect enjoyment. Roast mutton and
fried potatoes were our incessant fare, for which, after a little
longing for a change at first, we contracted a final and permanent love.
As the year advanced, moreover, and the grass sprouted with augmented
vigour on the slopes of the Montanvert, the mutton, as predicted by our
host, became more tender and juicy. We had also some capital Sallenches
beer, cold as the glacier water, but effervescent as champagne. Such
were our food and drink. After dinner we gathered round the pine-fire,
and I can hardly think it possible for three men to be more happy than
we then were. It was not the goodness of the conversation, nor any high
intellectual element, which gave the charm to our gatherings; the
gladness grew naturally out of our own perfect health, and out of the
circumstances of our position. Every fibre seemed a repository of latent
joy, which the slightest stimulus sufficed to bring into conscious
action.
A GLACIER "BLOWER." 1857.
On the 17th I penetrated with Simond through thick gloom to the Tacul;
on the 18th we set stakes at the same place: on the same day, while
crossing the medial moraine of the Talèfre, a little below the cascade,
a singular noise attracted my attention; it seemed at first as if a
snake were hissing about my feet. On changing my position the sound
suddenly ceased, but it soon recommenced. There was some snow upon the
glacier, which I removed, and placed my ear close to the ice, but it was
difficult to fix on the precise spot from which the sound issued. I cut
away the disintegrated portion of the surface, and at length discovered
a minute crack, from which a stream of air issued, which I could feel as
a cold blast against my hand. While cutting away the surface further, I
stopped the little "blower." A marmot screamed near me, and while I
paused to look at the creature scampering up the crags, the sound
commenced again, changing its note variously—hissing like a snake,
singing like a kettle, and sometimes chirruping intermittently like a
bird. On passing my fingers to and fro over the crack, I obtained a
succession of audible puffs; the current was sufficiently strong to blow
away the corner of a gauze veil held over the fissure. Still the crack
was not wide enough to permit of the entrance of my finger nail; and to
issue with such force from so minute a rent the air must have been under
considerable pressure. The origin of the blower was in all probability
the following:—When the ice is recompacted after having descended a
cascade, it is next to certain that chambers of air will be here and
there enclosed, which, being powerfully squeezed afterwards, will issue
in the manner described whenever a crack in the ice furnishes it with a
means of escape. In my experiments on flowing mud, for example, the air
entrapped in the mass while descending from the sluice into the trough,
bursts in bubbles from the surface at a short distance downwards.
A DIFFICULT LINE. 1857.
I afterwards examined the Talèfre cascade from summit to base, with
reference to the structure, until at the close of the day thickening
clouds warned me off. I went down the glacier at a trot, guided by the
boulders capped with little cairns which marked the route. The track
which I had pursued for the last five weeks amid the crevasses near
l'Angle was this day barely passable. The glacier had changed, my work
was drawing to a close, and, as I looked at the objects which had now
become so familiar to me, I felt that, though not viscous, the ice did
not lack the quality of "adhesiveness," and I felt a little sad at the
thought of bidding it so soon farewell.
At some distance below the Montanvert the Mer de Glace is riven from
side to side by transverse crevasses: these fissures indicate that the
glacier where they occur is in a state of longitudinal strain which
produces transverse fracture. I wished to ascertain the amount of
stretching which the glacier here demanded, and which the ice was not
able to give; and for this purpose desired to compare the velocity of a
line set out across the fissured portion with that of a second line
staked out across the ice before it had become thus fissured. A previous
inspection of the glacier through the telescope of our theodolite
induced us to fix on a place which, though much riven, still did not
exclude the hope of our being able to reach the other side. Each of us
was, as usual, armed with his own axe; and carrying with us suitable
stakes, my guide and myself entered upon this portion of the glacier on
the morning of the 19th of August.
"NOUS NOUS TROUVERONS PERDUS!" 1857.
I was surprised on entering to find some veins of white ice, which from
their position and aspect appeared to be derived from the Glacier du
Géant; but to these I shall subsequently refer. Our work was extremely
difficult; we penetrated to some distance along one line, but were
finally forced back, and compelled to try another. Right and left of us
were profound fissures, and once a cone of ice forty feet high leaned
quite over our track. In front of us was a second leaning mass borne by
a mere stalk, and so topheavy that one wondered why the slight pedestal
on which it rested did not suddenly crack across. We worked slowly
forwards, and soon found ourselves in the shadow of the topheavy mass
above referred to; and from which I escaped with a wounded hand, caused
by over-haste. Simond surmounted the next ridge and exclaimed, "Nous
nous trouverons perdus!" I reached his side, and on looking round the
place saw that there was no footing for man. The glacier here, as shown
in the frontispiece, was cut up into thin wedges, separated from each
other by profound chasms, and the wedges were so broken across as to
render creeping along their edges quite impossible. Thus brought to a
stand, I fixed a stake at the point where we were forced to halt, and
retreated along edges of detestable granular ice, which fell in showers
into the crevasses when struck by the axe. At one place an exceedingly
deep fissure was at our left, which was joined, at a sharp angle, by
another at our right, and we were compelled to cross at the place of
intersection: to do this we had to trust ourselves to a projecting knob
of that vile rotten ice which I had learned to fear since my experience
of it on the Col du Géant. We finally escaped, and set out our line at
another place, where the glacier, though badly cut, was not impassable.
FAREWELL TO THE MONTANVERT. 1857.
On the 20th we made a series of final measurements at the Tacul, and
determined the motion of two lines which we had set out the previous
day. On the 21st we quitted the Montanvert; I had been there from the
15th of July, and the longer I remained the better I liked the
establishment and the people connected with it. It was then managed by
Joseph Tairraz and Jules Charlet, both of whom showed us every
attention. In 1858 and 1859 I had occasion to revisit the establishment,
which was then managed by Jules and his brother, and found in it the
same good qualities. During my winter expedition of 1859 I also found
the same readiness to assist me in every possible way; honest Jules
expressing his willingness to ascend through the snow to the auberge if
I thought his presence would in any degree contribute to my comfort.
We crossed the glacier, and descended by the Chapeau to the Cascade des
Bois, the inclination of which and of the lower portion of the glacier
we then determined. The day was magnificent. Looking upwards, the
Aiguilles de Charmoz and du Dru rose right and left like sentinels of
the valley, while in front of us the ice descended the steep, a
bewildering mass of crags and chasms. At the other side was the
pine-clad slope of the Montanvert. Further on the Aiguille du Midi threw
its granite pyramid between us and Mont Blanc; on the Dôme du Goûter the
séracs of the mountain were to be seen, while issuing as if from a
cleft in the mountain side the Glacier des Bossons thrust through the
black pines its snowy tongue. Below us was the beautiful valley of
Chamouni itself, through which the Arve and Arveiron rushed like
enlivening spirits. We finally examined a grand old moraine produced by
a Mer de Glace of other ages, when the ice quite crossed the valley of
Chamouni and abutted against the opposite mountain-wall.
EDOUARD SIMOND. 1857.
Simond had proved himself a very valuable assistant; he was intelligent
and perfectly trustworthy; and though the peculiar nature of my work
sometimes caused me to attempt things against which his prudence
protested, he lacked neither strength nor courage. On reaching Chamouni
and adding up our accounts, I found that I had not sufficient cash to
pay him; money was waiting for me at the post-office in Geneva, and
thither it was arranged that my friend Hirst should proceed next
morning, while I was to await the arrival of the money at Chamouni. My
guide heard of this arrangement, and divined its cause: he came to me,
and in the most affectionate manner begged of me to accept from him the
loan of 500 francs. Though I did not need the loan, the mode in which it
was offered to me augmented the kindly feelings which I had long
entertained towards Simond, and I may add that my intercourse with him
since has served only to confirm my first estimate of his worthiness.
DOUBTS REGARDING STRUCTURE. 1858.
I had confined myself during the summer of 1857 to the Mer de Glace and
its tributaries, desirous to make my knowledge accurate rather than
extensive. I had made the acquaintance of all accessible parts of the
glacier, and spared no pains to master both the details and the meaning
of the laminated structure of the ice, but I found no fact upon which I
could take my stand and say to an advocate of an opposing theory, "This
is unassailable." In experimental science we have usually the power of
changing the conditions at pleasure; if Nature does not reply to a
question we throw it into another form; a combining of conditions is, in
fact, the essence of experiment. To meet the requirements of the present
question, I could not twist the same glacier into various shapes, and
throw it into different states of strain and pressure; but I might, by
visiting many glaciers, find all needful conditions fulfilled in detail,
and by observing these I hoped to confer upon the subject the character
and precision of a true experimental inquiry.
The summer of 1858 was accordingly devoted to this purpose, when I had
the good fortune to be accompanied by Professor Ramsay, the author of
some extremely interesting papers upon ancient glaciers. Taking Zürich,
Schaffhausen, and Lucerne in our way, we crossed the Brünig on the 22nd
of July, and met my guide, Christian Lauener, at Meyringen. On the 23rd
we visited the glacier of Rosenlaui, and the glacier of the
Schwartzwald, and reached Grindelwald in the evening of the same day. My
expedition with Mr. Huxley had taught me that the Lower Grindelwald
Glacier was extremely instructive, and I was anxious to see many parts
of it once more; this I did, in company with Ramsay, and we also spent a
day upon the upper glacier, after which our path lay over the Strahleck
to the glaciers of the Aar and of the Rhone.
A GLOOMY PROSPECT. 1858.
On Monday, the 26th of July, we were called at 4 a.m., and found the
weather very unpromising, but the two mornings which preceded it had
also been threatening without any evil result. There was, it is true,
something more than usually hostile in the aspect of the clouds which
sailed sullenly from the west, and smeared the air and mountains as if
with the dirty smoke of a manufacturing town. We despatched our coffee,
went down to the bottom of the Grindelwald valley, up the opposite
slope, and were soon amid the gloom of the pines which partially cover
it. On emerging from these, a watery gleam on the mottled head of the
Eiger was the only evidence of direct sunlight in that direction. To our
left was the Wetterhorn surrounded by wild and disorderly clouds,
through the fissures of which the morning light glared strangely. For a
time the Heisse Platte was seen, a dark brown patch amid the ghastly
blue which overspread the surrounding slopes of snow. The clouds once
rolled up, and revealed for a moment the summits of the Viescherhörner;
but they immediately settled down again, and hid the mountains from top
to base. Soon afterwards they drew themselves partially aside, and a
patch of blue over the Strahleck gave us hope and pleasure. As we
ascended, the prospect in front of us grew better, but that behind
us—and the wind came from behind—grew worse. Slowly and stealthily the
dense neutral-tint masses crept along the sides of the mountains, and
seemed to dog us like spies; while over the glacier hung a thin veil of
fog, through which gleamed the white minarets of the ice.
ICE CASCADE AND PROTUBERANCES. 1858.
When we first spoke of crossing the Strahleck, Lauener said it would be
necessary to take two guides at least; but after a day's performance on
the ice he thought we might manage very well by taking, in addition to
himself, the herd of the alp, over the more difficult part of the pass.
He had further experience of us on the second day, and now, as we
approached the herd's hut, I was amused to hear him say that he thought
any assistance beside his own unnecessary. Relying upon ourselves,
therefore, we continued our route, and were soon upon the glacier, which
had been rendered smooth and slippery through the removal of its
disintegrated surface by the warm air. Crossing the Strahleck branch of
the glacier to its left side, we climbed the rocks to the grass and
flowers which clothe the slopes above them. Our way sometimes lay over
these, sometimes along the beds of streams, across turbulent brooks, and
once around the face of a cliff, which afforded us about an inch of
ledge to stand upon, and some protruding splinters to lay hold of by the
hands. Having reached a promontory which commanded a fine view of the
glacier, and of the ice cascade by which it was fed, I halted, to check
the observations already made from the side of the opposite mountain.
Here, as there, cliffy ridges were seen crossing the cascade of the
glacier, with interposed spaces of dirt and débris—the former being
toned down, and the latter squeezed towards the base of the fall, until
finally the ridges swept across the glacier, in gentle swellings, from
side to side; while the valleys between them, holding the principal
share of the superficial impurity, formed the cradles of the so-called
Dirt-Bands.
DIRT-BANDS OF THE STRAHLECK BRANCH. 1858.
These swept concentric with the protuberances across the
glacier, and remained upon its surface even after the swellings had
disappeared. The swifter flow of the centre of the glacier tends of
course incessantly to lengthen the loops of the bands, and to thrust the
summits of the curves which they form more and more in advance of their
lateral portions. The depressions between the protuberances appeared to
be furrowed by minor wrinkles, as if the ice of the depressions had
yielded more than that of the protuberances. This, I think, is extremely
probable, though it has never yet been proved. Three stakes, placed, one
on the summit, another on the frontal slope, and another at the base of
a protuberance, would, I think, move with unequal velocities. They
would, I think, show that, upon the large and general motion of the
glacier, smaller motions are superposed, as minor oscillations are known
to cover parasitically the large ones of a vibrating string. Possibly,
also, the dirt-bands may owe something to the squeezing of impurities
out of the glacier to its surface in the intervals between the
swellings. From our present position we could also see the swellings on
the Viescherhörner branch of the glacier, in the valleys between which
coarse shingle and débris were collected, which would form dirt-bands if
they could. On neither branch, however, do the bands attain the
definition and beauty which they possess upon the Mer de Glace.
After an instructive lesson we faced our task once more, passing amid
crags and boulders, and over steep moraines, from which the stones
rolled down upon the slightest disturbance. While crossing a slope of
snow with an inclination of 45°, my footing gave way, I fell, but turned
promptly on my face, dug my staff deeply into the snow, and arrested the
motion before I had slid a dozen yards. Ramsay was behind me,
speculating whether he should be able to pass the same point without
slipping; before he reached it, however, the snow yielded, he fell, and
slid swiftly downwards. Lauener, whose attention had been aroused by my
fall, chanced to be looking round when Ramsay's footing yielded. With
the velocity of a projectile he threw himself upon my companion, seized
him, and brought him to rest before he had reached the bottom of the
slope. The act made a very favourable impression upon me, it was so
prompt and instinctive. An eagle could not swoop upon its prey with more
directness of aim and swiftness of execution.
ICE CLIFFS THROUGH THE FOG. 1858.
While this went on the clouds were playing hide and seek with the
mountains. The ice-crags and pinnacles to our left, looming through the
haze, seemed of gigantic proportions, reminding one of the Hades of
Byron's 'Cain.'
"How sunless and how vast are these dim realms!"
We climbed for some time along the moraine which flanks the cascade, and
on reaching the level of the brow Lauener paused, cast off his knapsack,
and declared for breakfast. While engaged with it the dense clouds which
had crammed the gorge and obscured the mountains, all melted away, and a
scene of indescribable magnificence was revealed. Overhead the sky
suddenly deepened to dark blue, and against it the Finsteraarhorn
projected his dark and mighty mass. Brown spurs jutted from the
mountain, and between them were precipitous snow-slopes, fluted by the
descent of rocks and avalanches, and broken into ice-precipices lower
down. Right in front of us, and from its proximity more gigantic to the
eye, was the Schreckhorn, while from couloirs and mountain-slopes the
matter of glaciers yet to be was poured into the vast basin on the rim
of which we now stood.
MUTATIONS OF THE CLOUDS. 1858.
This it was next our object to cross; our way lying in part through deep
snow-slush, the scene changing perpetually from blue heaven to gray haze
which massed itself at intervals in dense clouds about the mountains.
After crossing the basin our way lay partly over slopes of snow, partly
over loose shingle, and at one place along the edge of a formidable
precipice of rock. We sat down sometimes to rest, and during these
pauses, though they were very brief, the scene had time to go through
several of its Protean mutations. At one moment all would be perfectly
serene, no cloud in the transparent air to tell us that any portion of
it was in motion, while the blue heaven threw its flattened arch over
the magnificent amphitheatre. Then in an instant, from some local
cauldron, the vapour would boil up suddenly, eddying wildly in the air,
which a moment before seemed so still, and enveloping the entire scene.
Thus the space enclosed by the Finsteraarhorn, the Viescherhörner, and
the Schreckhorn, would at one moment be filled with fog to the mountain
heads, every trace of which a few minutes sufficed to sweep away,
leaving the unstained blue of heaven behind it, and the mountains
showing sharp and jagged outlines in the glassy air. One might be almost
led to imagine that the vapour molecules endured a strain similar to
that of water cooled below its freezing point, or heated beyond its
boiling point; and that, on the strain being relieved by the sudden
yielding of the opposing force, the particles rushed together, and thus
filled in an instant the clear atmosphere with aqueous precipitation.
I had no idea that the Strahleck was so fine a pass. Whether it is the
quality of my mind to take in the glory of the present so intensely as
to make me forgetful of the glory of the past, I know not, but it
appeared to me that I had never seen anything finer than the scene from
the summit. The amphitheatre formed by the mountains seemed to me of
exceeding magnificence; nor do I think that my feeling was subjective
merely; for the simple magnitude of the masses which built up the
spectacle would be sufficient to declare its grandeur. Looking down
towards the Glacier of the Aar, a scene of wild beauty and desolation
presented itself. Not a trace of vegetation could be seen along the
whole range of the bounding mountains; glaciers streamed from their
shoulders into the valley beneath, where they welded themselves to form
the Finsteraar affluent of the Unteraar glacier.
DESCENT OF THE CRAGS. 1858.
After a brief pause, Lauener again strapped on his knapsack, and
tempered both will and muscles by the remark, that our worst piece of
work was now before us. From the place where we sat, the mountain fell
precipitously for several hundred feet; and down the weathered crags,
and over the loose shingle which encumbered their ledges, our route now
lay. Lauener was in front, cool and collected, lending at times a hand
to Ramsay, and a word of encouragement to both of us, while I brought up
the rear. I found my full haversack so inconvenient that I once or twice
thought of sending it down the crags in advance of me, but Lauener
assured me that it would be utterly destroyed before reaching the
bottom. My complaint against it was, that at critical places it
sometimes came between me and the face of the cliff, pushing me away
from the latter so as to throw my centre of gravity almost beyond the
base intended to support it. We came at length upon a snow-slope, which
had for a time an inclination of 50°; then once more to the rocks; again
to the snow, which was both steep and deep. Our bâtons were at least six
feet long: we drove them into the snow to secure an anchorage, but they
sank to their very ends, and we merely retained a length of them
sufficient for a grasp. This slope was intersected by a so-called
Bergschrund, the lower portion of the slope being torn away from its
upper portion so as to form a crevasse that extended quite round the
head of the valley. We reached its upper edge; the chasm was partially
filled with snow, which brought its edges so near that we cleared it by
a jump. The rest of the slope was descended by a glissade. Each sat
down upon the snow, and the motion, once commenced, swiftly augmented to
the rate of an avalanche, and brought us pleasantly to the bottom.
THROUGH GLOOM TO THE GRIMSEL. 1858.
As we looked from the heights, we could see that the valley through
which our route lay was filled with gray fog: into this we soon plunged,
and through it we made our way towards the Abschwung. The inclination of
the glacier was our only guide, for we could see nothing. Reaching the
confluence of the Finsteraar and Lauteraar branches, we went downwards
with long swinging strides, close alongside the medial moraine of the
trunk glacier. The glory of the morning had its check in the dull gloom
of the evening. Across streams, amid dirt-cones and glacier-tables, and
over the long reach of shingle which covers the end of the glacier, we
plodded doggedly, and reached the Grimsel at 7 p.m., the journey having
cost a little more than 14 hours.
ANCIENT GLACIER ACTION. 1858.
We made the Grimsel our station for a day, which was spent in examining
the evidences of ancient glacier action in the valley of Hasli. Near the
Hospice, but at the opposite side of the Aar, rises a mountain-wall of
hard granite, on which the flutings and groovings are magnificently
preserved. After a little practice the eye can trace with the utmost
precision the line which marks the level of the ancient ice: above this
the crags are sharp and rugged; while below it the mighty grinder has
rubbed off the pinnacles of the rocks and worn their edges away. The
height to which this action extends must be nearly two thousand feet
above the bed of the present valley. It is also easy to see the depth to
which the river has worked its channel into the ancient rocks. In some
cases the road from Guttanen to the Grimsel lay right over the polished
rocks, asperities being supplied by the chisel of man in order to
prevent travellers from slipping on their slopes. Here and there also
huge protuberant crags were rounded into domes almost as perfect as if
chiselled by art. To both my companion and myself this walk was full of
instruction and delight.
On the 28th of July we crossed the Grimsel pass, and traced the
scratchings to the very top of it. Ramsay remarked that their direction
changed high up the pass, as if a tributary from the summit had produced
them, while lower down they merged into the general direction of the
glacier which had filled the principal valley. From the summit of the
Mayenwand we had a clear view of the glacier of the Rhone; and to see
the lower portion of this glacier to advantage no better position can be
chosen. The dislocation of its cascade, the spreading out of the ice
below, its system of radial crevasses, and the transverse sweep of its
structural groovings, may all be seen. A few hours afterwards we were
among the wild chasms at the brow of the ice-fall, where we worked our
way to the centre of the ice, but were unable to attain the opposite
side.
Having examined the glacier both above and below the cascade, we went
down the valley to Viesch, and ascended thence, on the 30th of July, to
the Hôtel Jungfrau on the slopes of the Æggischhorn. On the following
day we climbed to the summit of the mountain, and from a sheltered nook
enjoyed the glorious prospect which it commands. The wind was strong,
and fleecy clouds flew over the heavens; some of which, as they formed
and dispersed themselves about the flanks of the Aletschhorn, showed
extraordinary iridescences.
THE MÄRJELEN SEE. 1858.
The sunbeams called us early on the morning of the 1st of August. No
cloud rested on the opposite range of the Valais mountains, but on
looking towards the Æggischhorn we found a cap upon its crest; we looked
again—the cap had disappeared and a serene heaven stretched overhead.
As we breasted the alp the moon was still in the sky, paling more and
more before the advancing day; a single hawk swung in the atmosphere
above us; clear streams babbled from the hills, the louder sounds
reposing on a base of music; while groups of cows with tinkling bells
browsed upon the green alp. Here and there the grass was dispossessed,
and the flanks of the mountain were covered by the blocks which had been
cast down from the summit. On reaching the plateau at the base of the
final pyramid, we rounded the mountain to the right and came over the
lonely and beautiful Märjelen See. No doubt the hollow which this lake
fills had been scooped out in former ages by a branch of the Aletsch
glacier; but long ago the blue ice gave place to blue water. The glacier
bounds it at one side by a vertical wall of ice sixty feet in height:
this is incessantly undermined, a roof of crystal being formed over the
water, till at length the projecting mass, becoming too heavy for its
own rigidity, breaks and tumbles into the lake. Here, attacked by sun
and air, its blue surface is rendered dazzlingly white, and several
icebergs of this kind now floated in the sunlight; the water was of a
glassy smoothness, and in its blue depths each ice mass doubled itself
by reflection.[A]
THE ALETSCH GLACIER. 1858.
The Aletsch is the grandest glacier in the Alps: over it we now stood,
while the bounding mountains poured vast feeders into the noble stream.
The Jungfrau was in front of us without a cloud, and apparently so near
that I proposed to my guide to try it without further preparation. He
was enthusiastic at first, but caution afterwards got the better of his
courage. At some distance up the glacier the snow-line was distinctly
drawn, and from its edge upwards the mighty shoulders of the hills were
heavy laden with the still powdery material of the glacier.
Amid blocks and débris we descended to the ice: the portion of it which
bounded the lake had been sapped, and a space of a foot existed between
ice and water: numerous chasms were formed here, the mass being thus
broken, preparatory to being sent adrift upon the lake. We crossed the
glacier to its centre, and looking down it the grand peaks of the
Mischabel, the noble cone of the Weisshorn, and the dark and stern
obelisk of the Matterhorn, formed a splendid picture. Looking upwards, a
series of most singularly contorted dirt-bands revealed themselves upon
the surface of the ice. I sought to trace them to their origin, but was
frustrated by the snow which overspread the upper portion of the
glacier. Along this we marched for three hours, and came at length to
the junction of the four tributary valleys which pour their frozen
streams into the great trunk valley. The glory of the day, and that joy
of heart which perfect health confers, may have contributed to produce
the impression, but I thought I had never seen anything to rival in
magnificence the region in the heart of which we now found ourselves. We
climbed the mountain on the right-hand side of the glacier, where,
seated amid the riven and weather-worn crags, we fed our souls for hours
on the transcendent beauty of the scene.
A CHAMOIS DECEIVED. 1858.
We afterwards redescended to the glacier, which at this place was
intersected by large transverse crevasses, many of which were apparently
filled with snow, while over others a thin and treacherous roof was
thrown. In some cases the roof had broken away, and revealed rows of
icicles of great length and transparency pendent from the edges. We at
length turned our faces homewards, and looking down the glacier I saw
at a great distance something moving on the ice. I first thought it was
a man, though it seemed strange that a man should be there alone. On
drawing my guide's attention to it he at once pronounced it to be a
chamois, and I with my telescope immediately verified his statement. The
creature bounded up the glacier at intervals, and sometimes the vigour
of its spring showed that it had projected itself over a crevasse. It
approached us sometimes at full gallop: then would stop, look toward us,
pipe loudly, and commence its race once more. It evidently made the
reciprocal mistake to my own, imagining us to be of its own kith and
kin. We sat down upon the ice the better to conceal our forms, and to
its whistle our guide whistled in reply. A joyous rush was the
creature's first response to the signal; but it afterwards began to
doubt, and its pauses became more frequent. Its form at times was
extremely graceful, the head erect in the air, its apparent uprightness
being augmented by the curvature which threw its horns back. I watched
the animal through my glass until I could see the glistening of its
eyes; but soon afterwards it made a final pause, assured itself of its
error, and flew with the speed of the wind to its refuge in the
mountains.
MY GUIDE. 1858.
Since my arrival at the hotel on the 30th of July I had once or twice
spoken about ascending the Finsteraarhorn, and on the 2nd of August my
host advised me to avail myself of the promising weather. A guide, named
Bennen, was attached to the hotel, a remarkable-looking man, between 30
and 40 years old, of middle stature, but very strongly built. His
countenance was frank and firm, while a light of good-nature at times
twinkled in his eye. Altogether the man gave me the impression of
physical strength, combined with decision of character. The proprietor
had spoken to me many times of the strength and courage of this man,
winding up his praises of him by the assurance that if I were killed in
Bennen's company there would be two lives lost, for that the guide would
assuredly sacrifice himself in the effort to save his Herr.
He was called, and I asked him whether he would accompany me alone to
the top of the Finsteraarhorn. To this he at first objected, urging the
possibility of his having to render me assistance, and the great amount
of labour which this might entail upon him; but this was overruled by my
engaging to follow where he led, without asking him to render me any
help whatever. He then agreed to make the trial, stipulating, however,
that he should not have much to carry to the cave of the Faulberg, where
we were to spend the night. To this I cordially agreed, and sent on
blankets, provisions, wood, and hay, by two porters.
IRIDESCENT CLOUD. 1858.
My desire, in part, was to make a series of observations at the summit
of the mountain, while a similar series was made by Professor Ramsay in
the valley of the Rhone, near Viesch, with a view to ascertaining the
permeability of the lower strata of the atmosphere to the radiant heat
of the sun. During the forenoon of the 2nd I occupied myself with my
instruments, and made the proper arrangements with Ramsay. I tested a
mountain-thermometer which Mr. Casella had kindly lent me, and found the
boiling point of water on the dining-room table of the hotel to be
199.29° Fahrenheit. At about three o'clock in the afternoon we quitted
the hotel, and proceeded leisurely with our two guides up the slope of
the Æggischhorn. We once caught a sight of the topmost pinnacle of the
Finsteraarhorn; beside it was the Rothhorn, and near this again the
Oberaarhorn, with the Viescher glacier streaming from its shoulders. On
the opposite side we could see, over an oblique buttress of the mountain
on which we stood, the snowy summit of the Weisshorn; to the left of
this was the ever grim and lonely Matterhorn; and farther to the left,
with its numerous snow-cones, each with its attendant shadow, rose the
mighty Mischabel. We descended, and crossed the stream which flows from
the Märjelen See, into which a large mass of the glacier had recently
fallen, and was now afloat as an iceberg. We passed along the margin of
the lake, and at the junction of water and ice I bade Ramsay good-bye.
At the commencement of our journey upon the ice, whenever we crossed a
crevasse, I noticed Bennen watching me; his vigilance, however, soon
diminished, whence I gathered that he finally concluded that I was able
to take care of myself. Clouds hovered in the atmosphere throughout the
whole time of our ascent; one smoky-looking mass marred the glory of the
sunset, but at some distance was another which exhibited colours almost
as rich and varied as those of the solar spectrum. I took the glorious
banner thus unfurled as a sign of hope, to check the despondency which
its gloomy neighbour was calculated to produce.
EVENING NEAR THE JUNGFRAU. 1858.
Two hours' walking brought us near our place of rest; the porters had
already reached it, and were now returning. We deviated to the right,
and, having crossed some ice-ravines, reached the lateral moraine of the
glacier, and picked our way between it and the adjacent mountain-wall.
We then reached a kind of amphitheatre, crossed it, and climbing the
opposite slope, came to a triple grotto formed by clefts in the
mountain. In one of these a pine-fire was soon blazing briskly, and
casting its red light upon the surrounding objects, though but half
dispelling the gloom from the deeper portions of the cell. I left the
grotto, and climbed the rocks above it to look at the heavens. The sun
had quitted our firmament, but still tinted the clouds with red and
purple; while one peak of snow in particular glowed like fire, so vivid
was its illumination. During our journey upwards the Jungfrau never once
showed her head, but, as if in ill temper, had wrapped her vapoury veil
around her. She now looked more good-humoured, but still she did not
quite remove her hood; though all the other summits, without a trace of
cloud to mask their beautiful forms, pointed heavenward. The calmness
was perfect; no sound of living creature, no whisper of a breeze, no
gurgle of water, no rustle of débris, to break the deep and solemn
silence. Surely, if beauty be an object of worship, those glorious
mountains, with rounded shoulders of the purest white—snow-crested and
star-gemmed—were well calculated to excite sentiments of adoration.
THE CAVE OF THE FAULBERG. 1858.
I returned to the grotto, where supper was prepared and waiting for me.
The boiling point of water, at the level of the "kitchen" floor, I found
to be 196° Fahr. Nothing could be more picturesque than the aspect of
the cave before we went to rest. The fire was gleaming ruddily. I sat
upon a stone bench beside it, while Bennen was in front with the red
light glimmering fitfully over him. My boiling-water apparatus, which
had just been used, was in the foreground; and telescopes,
opera-glasses, haversacks, wine-keg, bottles, and mattocks, lay
confusedly around. The heavens continued to grow clearer, the thin
clouds, which had partially overspread the sky, melting gradually away.
The grotto was comfortable; the hay sufficient materially to modify the
hardness of the rock, and my position at least sheltered and warm. One
possibility remained that might prevent me from sleeping—the snoring of
my companion; he assured me, however, that he did not snore, and we lay
down side by side. The good fellow took care that I should not be
chilled; he gave me the best place, by far the best part of the clothes,
and may have suffered himself in consequence; but, happily for him, he
was soon oblivious of this. Physiologists, I believe, have discovered
that it is chiefly during sleep that the muscles are repaired; and ere
long the sound I dreaded announced to me at once the repair of Bennen's
muscles and the doom of my own. The hollow cave resounded to the
deep-drawn snore. I once or twice stirred the sleeper, breaking thereby
the continuity of the phenomenon; but it instantly pieced itself
together again, and went on as before. I had not the heart to wake him,
for I knew that upon him would devolve the chief labour of the coming
day. At half-past one he rose and prepared coffee, and at two o'clock I
was engaged upon the beverage. We afterwards packed up our provisions
and instruments. Bennen bore the former, I the latter, and at three
o'clock we set out.
"SHALL WE TRY THE JUNGFRAU?" 1858.
We first descended a steep slope to the glacier, along which we walked
for a time. A spur of the Faulberg jutted out between us and the
ice-laden valley through which we must pass; this we crossed in order to
shorten our way and to avoid crevasses. Loose shingle and boulders
overlaid the mountain; and here and there walls of rock opposed our
progress, and rendered the route far from agreeable. We then descended
to the Grünhorn tributary, which joins the trunk glacier at nearly a
right angle, being terminated by a saddle which stretches across from
mountain to mountain, with a curvature as graceful and as perfect as if
drawn by the instrument of a mathematician. The unclouded moon was
shining, and the Jungfrau was before us so pure and beautiful, that the
thought of visiting the "Maiden" without further preparation occurred to
me. I turned to Bennen, and said, "Shall we try the Jungfrau?" I think
he liked the idea well enough, though he cautiously avoided incurring
any responsibility. "If you desire it, I am ready," was his reply. He
had never made the ascent, and nobody knew anything of the state of the
snow this year; but Lauener had examined it through a telescope on the
previous day, and pronounced it dangerous. In every ascent of the
mountain hitherto made, ladders had been found indispensable, but we had
none. I questioned Bennen as to what he thought of the probabilities,
and tried to extract some direct encouragement from him; but he said
that the decision rested altogether with myself, and it was his business
to endeavour to carry out that decision. "We will attempt it, then," I
said, and for some time we actually walked towards the Jungfrau. A gray
cloud drew itself across her summit, and clung there. I asked myself why
I deviated from my original intention? The Finsteraarhorn was higher,
and therefore better suited for the contemplated observations. I could
in no wise justify the change, and finally expressed my scruples. A
moment's further conversation caused us to "right about," and front the
saddle of the Grünhorn.
MAGNIFICENT SCENE. 1858.
The dawn advanced. The eastern sky became illuminated and warm, and high
in the air across the ridge in front of us stretched a tongue of cloud
like a red flame, and equally fervid in its hue. Looking across the
trunk glacier, a valley which is terminated by the Lötsch saddle was
seen in a straight line with our route, and I often turned to look along
this magnificent corridor. The mightiest mountains in the Oberland form
its sides; still, the impression which it makes is not that of vastness
or sublimity, but of loveliness not to be described. The sun had not yet
smitten the snows of the bounding mountains, but the saddle carved out a
segment of the heavens which formed a background of unspeakable beauty.
Over the rim of the saddle the sky was deep orange, passing upwards
through amber, yellow, and vague ethereal green to the ordinary
firmamental blue. Right above the snow-curve purple clouds hung
perfectly motionless, giving depth to the spaces between them. There was
something saintly in the scene. Anything more exquisite I had never
beheld.
We marched upwards over the smooth crisp snow to the crest of the
saddle, and here I turned to take a last look along that grand corridor,
and at that wonderful "daffodil sky." The sun's rays had already smitten
the snows of the Aletschhorn; the radiance seemed to infuse a principle
of life and activity into the mountains and glaciers, but still that
holy light shone forth, and those motionless clouds floated beyond,
reminding one of that eastern religion whose essence is the repression
of all action and the substitution for it of immortal calm. The
Finsteraarhorn now fronted us; but clouds turbaned the head of the
giant, and hid it from our view. The wind, however, being north,
inspired us with a strong hope that they would melt as the day advanced.
I have hardly seen a finer ice-field than that which now lay before us.
Considering the névé which supplies it, it appeared to me that the
Viescher glacier ought to discharge as much ice as the Aletsch; but this
is an error due to the extent of névé which is here at once visible:
since a glance at the map of this portion of the Oberland shows at once
the great superiority of the mountain treasury from which the Aletsch
glacier draws support. Still, the ice-field before us was a most noble
one. The surrounding mountains were of imposing magnitude, and loaded to
their summits with snow. Down the sides of some of them the
half-consolidated mass fell in a state of wild fracture and confusion.
In some cases the riven masses were twisted and overturned, the ledges
bent, and the detached blocks piled one upon another in heaps; while in
other cases the smooth white mass descended from crown to base without a
wrinkle. The valley now below us was gorged by the frozen material thus
incessantly poured into it. We crossed it, and reached the base of the
Finsteraarhorn, ascended the mountain a little way, and at six o'clock
paused to lighten our burdens and to refresh ourselves.
THE MOUNTAIN ASSAILED. 1858.
The north wind had freshened, we were in the shade, and the cold was
very keen. Placing a bottle of tea and a small quantity of provisions in
the knapsack, and a few figs and dried prunes in our pockets, we
commenced the ascent. The Finsteraarhorn sends down a number of cliffy
buttresses, separated from each other by wide couloirs filled with ice
and snow. We ascended one of these buttresses for a time, treading
cautiously among the spiky rocks; afterwards we went along the snow at
the edge of the spine, and then fairly parted company with the rock,
abandoning ourselves to the névé of the couloir. The latter was steep,
and the snow was so firm that steps had to be cut in it. Once I paused
upon a little ledge, which gave me a slight footing, and took the
inclination. The slope formed an angle of 45° with the horizon; and
across it, at a little distance below me, a gloomy fissure opened its
jaws. The sun now cleared the summits which had before cut off his rays,
and burst upon us with great power, compelling us to resort to our
veils and dark spectacles. Two years before, Bennen had been nearly
blinded by inflammation brought on by the glare from the snow, and he
now took unusual care in protecting his eyes. The rocks looking more
practicable, we again made towards them, and clambered among them till a
vertical precipice, which proved impossible of ascent, fronted us.
Bennen scanned the obstacle closely as we slowly approached it, and
finally descended to the snow, which wound at a steep angle round its
base: on this the footing appeared to me to be singularly insecure, but
I marched without hesitation or anxiety in the footsteps of my guide.
THE CREST OF ROCKS. 1858.
We ascended the rocks once more, continued along them for some time, and
then deviated to the couloir on our left. This snow-slope is much
dislocated at its lower portion, and above its precipices and crevasses
our route now lay. The snow was smooth, and sufficiently firm and steep
to render the cutting of steps necessary. Bennen took the lead: to make
each step he swung his mattock once, and his hindmost foot rose exactly
at the moment the mattock descended; there was thus a kind of rhythm in
his motion, the raising of the foot keeping time to the swing of the
implement. In this manner we proceeded till we reached the base of the
rocky pyramid which caps the mountain.
THE SUMMIT GAINED. 1858.
One side of the pyramid had been sliced off, thus dropping down almost a
sheer precipice for some thousands of feet to the Finsteraar glacier. A
wall of rock, about 10 or 15 feet high, runs along the edge of the
mountain, and this sheltered us from the north wind, which surged with
the sound of waves against the tremendous barrier at the other side.
"Our hardest work is now before us," said my guide. Our way lay up the
steep and splintered rocks, among which we sought out the spikes which
were closely enough wedged to bear our weight. Each had to trust to
himself, and I fulfilled to the letter my engagement with Bennen to ask
no help. My boiling-water apparatus and telescope were on my back, much
to my annoyance, as the former was heavy, and sometimes swung awkwardly
round as I twisted myself among the cliffs. Bennen offered to take it,
but he had his own share to carry, and I was resolved to bear mine.
Sometimes the rocks alternated with spaces of ice and snow, which we
were at intervals compelled to cross; sometimes, when the slope was pure
ice and very steep, we were compelled to retreat to the highest cliffs.
The wall to which I have referred had given way in some places, and
through the gaps thus formed the wind rushed with a loud, wild, wailing
sound. Through these spaces I could see the entire field of Agassiz's
observations; the junction of the Lauteraar and Finsteraar glaciers at
the Abschwung, the medial moraine between them, on which stood the Hôtel
des Neufchâtelois, and the pavilion built by M. Dollfuss, in which
Huxley and myself had found shelter two years before. Bennen was
evidently anxious to reach the summit, and recommended all observations
to be postponed until after our success had been assured. I agreed to
this, and kept close at his heels. Strong as he was, he sometimes
paused, laid his head upon his mattock, and panted like a chased deer.
He complained of fearful thirst, and to quench it we had only my bottle
of tea: this we shared loyally, my guide praising its virtues, as well
he might. Still the summit loomed above us; still the angry swell of the
north wind, beating against the torn battlements of the mountain, made
wild music. Upward, however, we strained; and at last, on gaining the
crest of a rock, Bennen exclaimed, in a jubilant voice, "Die höchste
Spitze!"—the highest point. In a moment I was at his side, and saw the
summit within a few paces of us. A minute or two placed us upon the
topmost-pinnacle, with the blue dome of heaven above us, and a world of
mountains, clouds, and glaciers beneath.
A notion is entertained by many of the guides that if you go to sleep at
the summit of any of the highest mountains, you will
"Sleep the sleep that knows no waking."
THERMOMETER PLACED. 1858.
Bennen did not appear to entertain this superstition; and before
starting in the morning, I had stipulated for ten minutes' sleep on
reaching the summit, as part compensation for the loss of the night's
rest. My first act, after casting a glance over the glorious scene
beneath us, was to take advantage of this agreement; so I lay down and
had five minutes' sleep, from which I rose refreshed and brisk. The sun
at first beat down upon us with intense force, and I exposed my
thermometers; but thin veils of vapour soon drew themselves before the
sun, and denser mists spread over the valley of the Rhone, thus
destroying all possibility of concert between Ramsay and myself. I
turned therefore to my boiling-water apparatus, filled it with snow,
melted the first charge, put more in, and boiled it; ascertaining the
boiling point to be 187° Fahrenheit. On a sheltered ledge, about two or
three yards south of the highest point, I placed a minimum-thermometer,
in the hope that it would enable us in future years to record the lowest
winter temperatures at the summit of the mountain.[A]
SCENE FROM THE SUMMIT. 1858.
It is difficult to convey any just impression of the scene from the
summit of the Finsteraarhorn: one might, it is true, arrange the visible
mountains in a list, stating their heights and distances, and leaving
the imagination to furnish them with peaks and pinnacles, to build the
precipices, polish the snow, rend the glaciers, and cap the highest
summits with appropriate clouds. But if imagination did its best in this
way, it would hardly exceed the reality, and would certainly omit many
details which contribute to the grandeur of the scene itself. The
various shapes of the mountains, some grand, some beautiful, bathed in
yellow sunshine, or lying black and riven under the frown of impervious
cumuli; the pure white peaks, cornices, bosses, and amphitheatres; the
blue ice rifts, the stratified snow-precipices, the glaciers issuing
from the hollows of the eternal hills, and stretching like frozen
serpents through the sinuous valleys; the lower cloud field—itself an
empire of vaporous hills—shining with dazzling whiteness, while here
and there grim summits, brown by nature, and black by contrast, pierce
through it like volcanic islands through a shining sea,—add to this the
consciousness of one's position which clings to one unconsciously,
that undercurrent of emotion which surrounds the question of one's
personal safety, at a height of more than 14,000 feet above the sea, and
which is increased by the weird strange sound of the wind surging with
the full deep boom of the distant sea against the precipice behind, or
rising to higher cadences as it forces itself through the crannies of
the weatherworn rocks,—all conspire to render the scene from the
Finsteraarhorn worthy of the monarch of the Bernese Alps.
"HAVE NO FEAR." 1858.
My guide at length warned me that we must be moving; repeating the
warning more impressively before I attended to it. We packed up, and as
we stood beside each other ready to march he asked me whether we should
tie ourselves together, at the same time expressing his belief that it
was unnecessary. Up to this time we had been separate, and the thought
of attaching ourselves had not occurred to me till he mentioned it. I
thought it, however, prudent to accept the suggestion, and so we united
our destinies by a strong rope. "Now," said Bennen, "have no fear; no
matter how you throw yourself, I will hold you." Afterwards, on another
perilous summit, I repeated this saying of Bennen's to a strong and
active guide, but his observation was that it was a hardy untruth, for
that in many places Bennen could not have held me. Nevertheless a daring
word strengthens the heart, and, though I felt no trace of that
sentiment which Bennen exhorted me to banish, and was determined, as far
as in me lay, to give him no opportunity of trying his strength in
saving me, I liked the fearless utterance of the man, and sprang
cheerily after him.
DISCIPLINE. 1858.
Our descent was rapid, apparently reckless, amid
loose spikes, boulders, and vertical prisms of rock, where a false step
would assuredly have been attended with broken bones; but the
consciousness of certainty in our movements never forsook us, and proved
a source of keen enjoyment. The senses were all awake, the eye clear,
the heart strong, the limbs steady, yet flexible, with power of recovery
in store, and ready for instant action should the footing give way. Such
is the discipline which a perilous ascent imposes.
DESCENT BY GLISSADES. 1858.
We finally quitted the crest of rocks, and got fairly upon the snow once
more. We first went downwards at a long swinging trot. The sun having
melted the crust which we were compelled to cut through in the morning,
the leg at each plunge sank deeply into the snow; but this sinking was
partly in the direction of the slope of the mountain, and hence assisted
our progress. Sometimes the crust was hard enough to enable us to glide
upon it for long distances while standing erect; but the end of these
glissades was always a plunge and tumble in the deeper snow. Once upon
a steep hard slope Bennen's footing gave way; he fell, and went down
rapidly, pulling me after him. I fell also, but turning quickly, drove
the spike of my hatchet into the ice, got good anchorage, and held both
fast; my success assuring me that I had improved as a mountaineer since
my ascent of Mont Blanc. We tumbled so often in the soft snow, and our
clothes and boots were so full of it, that we thought we might as well
try the sitting posture in gliding down. We did so, and descended with
extraordinary velocity, being checked at intervals by a bodily immersion
in the softer and deeper snow. I was usually in front of Bennen,
shooting down with the speed of an arrow and feeling the check of the
rope when the rapidity of my motion exceeded my guide's estimate of
what was safe. Sometimes I was behind him, and darted at intervals with
the swiftness of an avalanche right upon him; sometimes in the same
transverse line with him, with the full length of the rope between us;
and here I found its check unpleasant, as it tended to make me roll
over. My feet were usually in the air, and it was only necessary to turn
them right or left, like the helm of a boat, to change the direction of
motion and avoid a difficulty, while a vigorous dig of leg and hatchet
into the snow was sufficient to check the motion and bring us to rest.
Swiftly, yet cautiously, we glided into the region of crevasses, where
we at last rose, quite wet, and resumed our walking, until we reached
the point where we had left our wine in the morning, and where I
squeezed the water from my wet clothes, and partially dried them in the
sun.
THE VIESCH GLACIER. 1858.
We had left some things at the cave of the Faulberg, and it was Bennen's
first intention to return that way and take them home with him. Finding,
however, that we could traverse the Viescher glacier almost to the
Æggischhorn, I made this our highway homewards. At the place where we
entered it, and for an hour or two afterwards, the glacier was cut by
fissures, for the most part covered with snow. We had packed up our
rope, and Bennen admonished me to tread in his steps. Three or four
times he half disappeared in the concealed fissures, but by clutching
the snow he rescued himself and went on as swiftly as before. Once my
leg sank, and the ring of icicles some fifty feet below told me that I
was in the jaws of a crevasse; my guide turned sharply—it was the only
time that I had seen concern on his countenance:—
"Gott's Donner! Sie haben meine Tritte nicht gefolgt."
"Doch!" was my only reply, and we went on. He scarcely tried the snow
that he crossed, as from its form and colour he could in most cases
judge of its condition. For a long time we kept at the left-hand side of
the glacier, avoiding the fissures which were now permanently open. We
came upon the tracks of a herd of chamois, which had clambered from the
glacier up the sides of the Oberaarhorn, and afterwards crossed the
glacier to the right-hand side, my guide being perfect master of the
ground. His eyes went in advance of his steps, and his judgment was
formed before his legs moved. The glacier was deeply fissured, but there
was no swerving, no retreating, no turning back to seek more practicable
routes; each stride told, and every stroke of the axe was a profitable
investment of labour.
We left the glacier for a time, and proceeded along the mountain side,
till we came near the end of the Trift glacier, where we let ourselves
down an awkward face of rock along the track of a little cascade, and
came upon the glacier once more. Here again I had occasion to admire the
knowledge and promptness of my guide. The glacier, as is well known, is
greatly dislocated, and has once or twice proved a prison to guides and
travellers, but Bennen led me through the confusion without a pause. We
were sometimes in the middle of the glacier, sometimes on the moraine,
and sometimes on the side of the flanking mountain. Towards the end of
the day we crossed what seemed to be the consolidated remains of a great
avalanche; on this my foot slipped, there was a crevasse at hand, and a
sudden effort was necessary to save me from falling into it. In making
this effort the spike of my axe turned uppermost, and the palm of my
hand came down upon it, thus receiving a very ugly wound. We were soon
upon the green alp, having bidden a last farewell to the ice. Another
hour's hard walking brought us to our hotel. No one seeing us crossing
the alp would have supposed that we had laid such a day's work behind
us; the proximity of home gave vigour to our strides, and our progress
was much more speedy than it had been on starting in the morning. I was
affectionately welcomed by Ramsay, had a warm bath, dined, went to bed,
where I lay fast locked in sleep for eight hours, and rose next morning
as fresh and vigorous as if I had never scaled the Finsteraarhorn.
A ROTATING ICEBERG. 1858.
On the 6th of August there was a long fight between mist and sunshine,
each triumphing by turns, till at length the orb gained the victory and
cleansed the mountains from every trace of fog. We descended to the
Märjelen See, and, wishing to try the floating power of its icebergs, at
a place where masses sufficiently large approached near to the shore, I
put aside a portion of my clothes, and retaining my boots stepped upon
the floating ice. It bore me for a time, and I hoped eventually to be
able to paddle myself over the water. On swerving a little, however,
from the position in which I first stood, the mass turned over and let
me into the lake. I tried a second one, which served me in the same
manner; the water was too cold to continue the attempt, and there was
also some risk of being unpleasantly ground between the opposing
surfaces of the masses of ice. A very large iceberg which had been
detached some short time previously from the glacier lay floating at
some distance from us. Suddenly a sound like that of a waterfall drew
our attention towards it. We saw it roll over with the utmost
deliberation, while the water which it carried along with it rushed in
cataracts down its sides. Its previous surface was white, its present
one was of a lovely blue, the submerged crystal having now come to the
air. The summerset of this iceberg produced a commotion all over the
lake; the floating masses at its edge clashed together, and a mellow
glucking sound, due to the lapping of the undulations against the frozen
masses, continued long afterwards.
We subsequently spent several hours upon the glacier; and on this day I
noticed for the first time a contemporaneous exhibition of bedding and
structure to which I shall refer at another place. We passed finally
to the left bank of the glacier, at some distance below the base of the
Æggischhorn, and traced its old moraines at intervals along the flanks
of the bounding mountain. At the summit of the ridge we found several
fine old roches moutonnées, on some of which the scratchings of a
glacier long departed were well preserved; and from the direction of the
scratchings it might be inferred that the ice moved down the mountain
towards the valley of the Rhone. A plunge into a lonely mountain lake
ended the day's excursion.
END OF THE ALETSCH GLACIER. 1858.
On the 7th of August we quitted this noble station. Sending our guide on
to Viesch to take a conveyance and proceed with our luggage down the
valley, Ramsay and myself crossed the mountains obliquely, desiring to
trace the glacier to its termination. We had no path, but it was hardly
possible to go astray. We crossed spurs, climbed and descended pleasant
mounds, sometimes with the soft grass under our feet, and sometimes
knee-deep in rhododendrons. It took us several hours to reach the end of
the glacier, and we then looked down upon it merely. It lay couched like
a reptile in a wild gorge, as if it had split the mountain by its frozen
snout. We afterwards descended to Mörill, where we met our guide and
driver; thence down the valley to Visp; and the following evening saw us
lodged at the Monte Rosa hotel in Zermatt.
The boiling point of water on the table of the salle à manger, I found
to be 202.58° Fahr.
MEADOWS INVADED BY ICE. 1858.
On the following morning I proceeded without my friend to the Görner
glacier. As is well known, the end of this glacier has been steadily
advancing for several years, and when I saw it, the meadow in front of
it was partly shrivelled up by its irresistible advance. I was informed
by my host that within the last sixty years forty-four chalets had been
overturned by the glacier, the ground on which they stood being occupied
by the ice; at present there are others for which a similar fate seems
imminent. In thus advancing the glacier merely takes up ground which
belonged to it in former ages, for the rounded rocks which rise out of
the adjacent meadow show that it once passed over them.
I had arranged to meet Ramsay this morning on the road to the
Riffelberg. The meeting took place, but I then learned that a minute or
two after my departure he had received intelligence of the death of a
near relative. Thus was our joint expedition terminated, for he resolved
to return at once to England. At my solicitation he accompanied me to
the Riffel hotel. We had planned an ascent of Monte Rosa together, but
the arrangement thus broke down, and I was consequently thrown upon my
own resources. Lauener had never made the ascent, but he nevertheless
felt confident that we should accomplish it together.
THE RIFFELBERG. 1858.
On Monday, the 9th of August, we reached the Riffel, and, by good
fortune, on the evening of the same day, my guide's brother, the
well-known Ulrich Lauener, also arrived at the hotel on his return from
Monte Rosa. From him we obtained all the information possible respecting
the ascent, and he kindly agreed to accompany us a little way the next
morning, to put us on the right track. At three a.m. the door of my
bedroom opened, and Christian Lauener announced to me that the weather
was sufficiently good to justify an attempt. The stars were shining
overhead; but Ulrich afterwards drew our attention to some heavy clouds
which clung to the mountains on the other side of the valley of the
Visp; remarking that the weather might continue fair throughout the
day, but that these clouds were ominous. At four o'clock we were on our
way, by which time a gray stratus cloud had drawn itself across the neck
of the Matterhorn, and soon afterwards another of the same nature
encircled his waist. We proceeded past the Riffelhorn to the ridge above
the Görner glacier, from which Monte Rosa was visible from top to
bottom, and where an animated conversation in Swiss patois commenced.
Ulrich described the slopes, passes, and precipices, which were to guide
us; and Christian demanded explanations, until he was finally able to
declare to me that his knowledge was sufficient. We then bade Ulrich
good-bye, and went forward. All was clear about Monte Rosa, and the
yellow morning light shone brightly upon its uppermost snows. Beside the
Queen of the Alps was the huge mass of the Lyskamm, with a saddle
stretching from the one to the other; next to the Lyskamm came two
white rounded mounds, smooth and pure, the Twins Castor and Pollux, and
further to the right again the broad brown flank of the Breithorn.
Behind us Mont Cervin gathered the clouds more thickly round him, until
finally his grand obelisk was totally hidden. We went along the
mountain-side for a time, and then descended to the glacier.
SOUNDS ON THE GLACIER. 1858.
The surface
was hard frozen, and the ice crunched loudly under our feet. There was a
hollowness and volume in the sound which require explanation; and this,
I think, is furnished by the remarks of Sir John Herschel on those
hollow sounds at the Solfaterra, near Naples, from which travellers have
inferred the existence of cavities within the mountain. At the place
where these sounds are heard the earth is friable, and, when struck, the
concussion is reinforced and lengthened by the partial echoes from the
surfaces of the fragments. The conditions for a similar effect exist
upon the glacier, for the ice is disintegrated to a certain depth, and
from the innumerable places of rupture little reverberations are sent,
which give a length and hollowness to the sound produced by the crushing
of the fragments on the surface.
We looked to the sky at intervals, and once a meteor slid across it,
leaving a train of sparks behind. The blue firmament, from which the
stars shone down so brightly when we rose, was more and more invaded by
clouds, which advanced upon us from our rear, while before us the solemn
heights of Monte Rosa were bathed in rich yellow sunlight. As the day
advanced the radiance crept down towards the valleys; but still those
stealthy clouds advanced like a besieging army, taking deliberate
possession of the summits, one after the other, while gray skirmishers
moved through the air above us. The play of light and shadow upon Monte
Rosa was at times beautiful, bars of gloom and zones of glory shifting
and alternating from top to bottom of the mountain.
ADVANCE OF THE CLOUDS. 1858.
At five o'clock a gray cloud alighted on the shoulder of the Lyskamm,
which had hitherto been warmed by the lovely yellow light. Soon
afterwards we reached the foot of Monte Rosa, and passed from the
glacier to a slope of rocks, whose rounded forms and furrowed surfaces
showed that the ice of former ages had moved over them; the granite was
now coated with lichens, and between the bosses where mould could rest
were patches of tender moss. As we ascended, a peal to the right
announced the descent of an avalanche from the Twins; it came heralded
by clouds of ice-dust, which resembled the sphered masses of condensed
vapour which issue from a locomotive. A gentle snow-slope brought us to
the base of a precipice of brown rocks, round which we wound; the snow
was in excellent order, and the chasms were so firmly bridged by the
frozen mass that no caution was necessary in crossing them. Surmounting
a weathered cliff to our left, we paused upon the summit to look upon
the scene around us. The snow gliding insensibly from the mountains, or
discharged in avalanches from the precipices which it overhung, filled
the higher valleys with pure white glaciers, which were rifted and
broken here and there, exposing chasms and precipices from which gleamed
the delicate blue of the half-formed ice. Sometimes, however, the
névés spread over wide spaces without a rupture or wrinkle to break
the smoothness of the superficial snow. The sky was now for the most
part overcast, but through the residual blue spaces the sun at intervals
poured light over the rounded bosses of the mountain.
MONTE ROSA CAPPED. 1858.
At half-past seven o'clock we reached another precipice of rock, to the
left of which our route lay, and here Lauener proposed to have some
refreshment; after which we went on again. The clouds spread more and
more, leaving at length mere specks and patches of blue between them.
Passing some high peaks, formed by the dislocation of the ice, we came
to a place where the névé was rent by crevasses, on the walls of which
the stratification due to successive snow-falls was shown with great
beauty and definition. Between two of these fissures our way now lay:
the wall of one of them was hollowed out longitudinally midway down,
thus forming a roof above and a ledge below, and from roof to ledge
stretched a railing of cylindrical icicles, as if intended to bolt them
together. A cloud now for the first time touched the summit of Monte
Rosa, and sought to cling to it, but in a minute it dispersed in
shattered fragments, as if dashed to pieces for its presumption. The
mountain remained for a time clear and triumphant, but the triumph was
short-lived: like suitors that will not be repelled, the dusky vapours
came; repulse after repulse took place, and the sunlight gushed down
upon the heights, but it was manifest that the clouds gained ground in
the conflict.
Until about a quarter past nine o'clock our work was mere child's play,
a pleasant morning stroll along the flanks of the mountain; but steeper
slopes now rose above us, which called for more energy, and more care in
the fixing of the feet. Looked at from below, some of these slopes
appeared precipitous; but we were too well acquainted with the effect of
fore-shortening to let this daunt us. At each step we dug our bâtons
into the deep snow. When first driven in, the bâtons[A] dipped from
us, but were brought, as we walked forward, to the vertical, and finally
beyond it at the other side. The snow was thus forced aside, a rubbing
of the staff against it, and of the snow-particles against each other,
being the consequence. We had thus perpetual rupture and regelation;
while the little sounds consequent upon rupture, reinforced by the
partial echoes from the surfaces of the granules, were blended together
to a note resembling the lowing of cows. Hitherto I had paused at
intervals to make notes, or to take an angle; but these operations now
ceased, not from want of time, but from pure dislike; for when the eye
has to act the part of a sentinel who feels that at any moment the enemy
may be upon him; when the body must be balanced with precision, and legs
and arms, besides performing actual labour, must be kept in readiness
for possible contingencies; above all, when you feel that your safety
depends upon yourself alone, and that, if your footing gives way, there
is no strong arm behind ready to be thrown between you and destruction;
under such circumstances the relish for writing ceases, and you are
willing to hand over your impressions to the safe keeping of memory.
THE "COMB" OF THE MOUNTAIN. 1858.
From the vast boss which constitutes the lower portion of Monte Rosa
cliffy edges run upwards to the summit. Were the snow removed from these
we should, I doubt not, see them as toothed or serrated crags,
justifying the term "kamm," or "comb," applied to such edges by the
Germans. Our way now lay along such a kamm, the cliffs of which had,
however, caught the snow, and been completely covered by it, forming an
edge like the ridge of a house-roof, which sloped steeply upwards. On
the Lyskamm side of the edge there was no footing, and, if a human body
fell over here, it would probably pass through a vertical space of some
thousands of feet, falling or rolling, before coming to rest. On the
other side the snow-slope was less steep, but excessively
perilous-looking, and intersected by precipices of ice. Dense clouds now
enveloped us, and made our position far uglier than if it had been
fairly illuminated. The valley below us was one vast cauldron, filled
with precipitated vapour, which came seething at times up the sides of
the mountain. Sometimes this fog would partially clear away, and the
light would gleam upwards from the dislocated glaciers. My guide
continually admonished me to make my footing sure, and to fix at each
step my staff firmly in the consolidated snow. At one place, for a short
steep ascent, the slope became hard ice, and our position a very
ticklish one. We hewed our steps as we moved upwards, but were soon glad
to deviate from the ice to a position scarcely less awkward. The wind
had so acted upon the snow as to fold it over the edge of the kamm, thus
causing it to form a kind of cornice, which overhung the precipice on
the Lyskamm side of the mountain.
ASCENT ALONG A CORNICE. 1858.
This cornice now bore our weight: its
snow had become somewhat firm, but it was yielding enough to permit the
feet to sink in it a little way, and thus secure us at least against the
danger of slipping. Here also at each step we drove our bâtons firmly
into the snow, availing ourselves of whatever help they could render.
Once, while thus securing my anchorage, the handle of my hatchet went
right through the cornice on which we stood, and, on withdrawing it, I
could see through the aperture into the cloud-crammed gulf below. We
continued ascending until we reached a rock protruding from the snow,
and here we halted for a few minutes. Lauener looked upwards through the
fog. "According to all description," he observed, "this ought to be the
last kamm of the mountain; but in this obscurity we can see nothing."
Snow began to fall, and we recommenced our journey, quitting the rocks
and climbing again along the edge. Another hour brought us to a crest of
cliffs, at which, to our comfort, the kamm appeared to cease, and other
climbing qualities were demanded of us.
"DIE HÖCHSTE SPITZE." 1858.
On the Lyskamm side, as I have said, rescue would be out of the
question, should the climber go over the edge. On the other side of the
edge rescue seemed possible, though the slope, as stated already, was
most dangerously steep. I now asked Lauener what he would have done,
supposing my footing to have failed on the latter slope. He did not
seem to like the question, but said that he should have considered well
for a moment and then have sprung after me; but he exhorted me to drive
all such thoughts away. I laughed at him, and this did more to set his
mind at rest than any formal profession of courage could have done. We
were now among rocks: we climbed cliffs and descended them, and advanced
sometimes with our feet on narrow ledges, holding tightly on to other
ledges by our fingers; sometimes, cautiously balanced, we moved along
edges of rock with precipices on both sides. Once, in getting round a
crag, Lauener shook a book from his pocket; it was arrested by a rock
about sixty or eighty feet below us. He wished to regain it, but I
offered to supply its place, if he thought the descent too dangerous. He
said he would make the trial, and parted from me. I thought it useless
to remain idle. A cleft was before me, through which I must pass; so,
pressing my knees and back against its opposite sides, I gradually
worked myself to the top. I descended the other face of the rock, and
then, through a second ragged fissure, to the summit of another
pinnacle. The highest point of the mountain was now at hand, separated
from me merely by a short saddle, carved by weathering out of the crest
of the mountain. I could hear Lauener clattering after me, through the
rocks behind. I dropped down upon the saddle, crossed it, climbed the
opposite cliff, and "die höchste Spitze" of Monte Rosa was won.
GLOOM ON THE SUMMIT. 1858.
Lauener joined me immediately, and we mutually congratulated each other
on the success of the ascent. The residue of the bread and meat was
produced, and a bottle of tea was also appealed to. Mixed with a little
cognac, Lauener declared that he had never tasted anything like it. Snow
fell thickly at intervals, and the obscurity was very great;
occasionally this would lighten and permit the sun to shed a ghastly
dilute light upon us through the gleaming vapour. I put my
boiling-water apparatus in order, and fixed it in a corner behind a
ledge; the shelter was, however, insufficient, so I placed my hat above
the vessel. The boiling point was 184.92° Fahr., the ledge on which the
instrument stood being 5 feet below the highest point of the mountain.
The ascent from the Riffel hotel occupied us about seven hours, nearly
two of which were spent upon the kamm and crest. Neither of us felt in
the least degree fatigued; I, indeed, felt so fresh, that had another
Monte Rosa been planted on the first, I should have continued the climb
without hesitation, and with strong hopes of reaching the top. I
experienced no trace of mountain sickness, lassitude, shortness of
breath, heart-beat, or headache; nevertheless the summit of Monte Rosa
is 15,284 feet high, being less than 500 feet lower than Mont Blanc. It
is, I think, perfectly certain, that the rarefaction of the air at this
height is not sufficient of itself to produce the symptoms referred to;
physical exertion must be superadded.
"FROZEN FLOWERS." 1858.
After a few fitful efforts to dispel the gloom, the sun resigned the
dominion to the dense fog and the descending snow, which now prevented
our seeing more than 15 or 20 paces in any direction. The temperature of
the crags at the summit, which had been shone upon by the unclouded sun
during the earlier portion of the day, was 60° Fahr.; hence the snow
melted instantly wherever it came in contact with the rock. But some of
it fell upon my felt hat, which had been placed to shelter the
boiling-water apparatus, and this presented the most remarkable and
beautiful appearance. The fall of snow was in fact a shower of frozen
flowers. All of them were six-leaved; some of the leaves threw out
lateral ribs like ferns, some were rounded, others arrowy and serrated,
some were close, others reticulated, but there was no deviation from the
six-leaved type. Nature seemed determined to make us some compensation
for the loss of all prospect, and thus showered down upon us those
lovely blossoms of the frost; and had a spirit of the mountain inquired
my choice, the view, or the frozen flowers, I should have hesitated
before giving up that exquisite vegetation. It was wonderful to think
of, as well as beautiful to behold. Let us imagine the eye gifted with a
microscopic power sufficient to enable it to see the molecules which
composed these starry crystals; to observe the solid nucleus formed and
floating in the air; to see it drawing towards it its allied atoms, and
these arranging themselves as if they moved to music, and ended by
rendering that music concrete. Surely such an exhibition of power, such
an apparent demonstration of a resident intelligence in what we are
accustomed to call "brute matter," would appear perfectly miraculous.
And yet the reality would, if we could see it, transcend the fancy. If
the Houses of Parliament were built up by the forces resident in their
own bricks and lithologic blocks, and without the aid of hodman or
mason, there would be nothing intrinsically more wonderful in the
process than in the molecular architecture which delighted us upon the
summit of Monte Rosa.
STARTLING AVALANCHE. 1858.
Twice or thrice had my guide warned me that we must think of descending,
for the snow continued to fall heavily, and the loss of our track would
be attended with imminent peril. We therefore packed up, and clambered
downward among the crags of the summit. We soon left these behind us,
and as we stood once more upon the kamm, looking into the gloom beneath,
an avalanche let loose from the side of an adjacent mountain shook the
air with its thunder. We could not see it, could form no estimate of its
distance, could only hear its roar, which coming to us through the
darkness, had an undefinable element of horror in it. Lauener remarked,
"I never hear those things without a shudder; the memory of my brother
comes back to me at the same time." His brother, who was the best
climber in the Oberland, had been literally broken to fragments by an
avalanche on the slopes of the Jungfrau.
We had been separate coming up, each having trusted to himself, but the
descent was more perilous, because it is more difficult to fix the heel
of the boot than the toe securely in the ice. Lauener was furnished with
a rope, which he now tied round my waist, and forming a noose at the
other end, he slipped it over his arm. This to me was a new mode of
attachment. Hitherto my guides in dangerous places had tied the ropes
round their waists also. Simond had done it on Mont Blanc, and Bennen
on the Finsteraarhorn, proving thus their willingness to share my fate
whatever that might be. But here Lauener had the power of sending me
adrift at any moment, should his own life be imperilled. I told him that
his mode of attachment was new to me, but he assured me that it would
give him more power in case of accident. I did not see this at the time;
but neither did I insist on his attaching himself in the usual way. It
could neither be called anger nor pride, but a warm flush ran through me
as I remarked, that I should take good care not to test his power of
holding me. I believe I wronged my guide by the supposition that he made
the arrangement with reference to his own safety, for all I saw of him
afterwards proved that he would at any time have risked his life to save
mine. The flush however did me good, by displacing every trace of
anxiety, and the rope, I confess, was also a source of some comfort to
me. We descended the kamm, I going first. "Secure your footing before
you move," was my guide's constant exhortation, "and make your staff
firm at each step." We were sometimes quite close upon the rim of the
kamm on the Lyskamm side, and we also followed the depressions which
marked our track along the cornice. This I now tried intentionally, and
drove the handle of my axe through it once or twice. At two places in
descending we were upon the solid ice, and these were some of the
steepest portions of the kamm. They were undoubtedly perilous, and the
utmost caution was necessary in fixing the staff and securing the
footing. These however once past, we felt that the chief danger was
over. We reached the termination of the edge, and although the snow
continued to fall heavily, and obscure everything, we knew that our
progress afterwards was secure. There was pleasure in this feeling; it
was an agreeable variation of that grim mental tension to which I had
been previously wound up, but which in itself was by no means
disagreeable.
SPLENDID BLUE OF THE SNOW. 1858.
I have already noticed the colour of the fresh snow upon the summit of
the Stelvio pass. Since I observed it there it has been my custom to pay
some attention to this point at all great elevations. This morning, as I
ascended Monte Rosa, I often examined the holes made in the snow by our
bâtons, but the light which issued from them was scarcely perceptibly
blue. Now, however, a deep layer of fresh snow overspread the mountain,
and the effect was magnificent. Along the kamm I was continually
surprised and delighted by the blue gleams which issued from the broken
or perforated stratum of new snow; each hole made by the staff was
filled with a light as pure, and nearly as deep, as that of the
unclouded firmament. When we reached the bottom of the kamm, Lauener
came to the front, and tramped before me. As his feet rose out of the
snow, and shook the latter off in fragments, sudden and wonderful gleams
of blue light flashed from them. Doubtless the blue of the sky has much
to do with mountain colouring, but in the present instance not only was
there no blue sky, but the air was so thick with fog and descending
snow-flakes, that we could not see twenty yards in advance of us. A
thick fog, which wrapped the mountain quite closely, now added its gloom
to the obscurity caused by the falling snow. Before we reached the base
of the mountain the fog became thin, and the sun shone through it.
STIFLING HEAT. 1858.
There
was not a breath of air stirring, and, though we stood ankle-deep in
snow, the heat surpassed anything of the kind I had ever felt: it was
the dead suffocating warmth of the interior of an oven, which
encompassed us on all sides, and from which there seemed no escape. Our
own motion through the air, however, cooled us considerably. We found
the snow-bridges softer than in the morning, and consequently needing
more caution; but we encountered no real difficulty among them. Indeed
it is amusing to observe the indifference with which a snow-roof is
often broken through, and a traveller immersed to the waist in the jaws
of a fissure. The effort at recovery is instantaneous; half
instinctively hands and knees are driven into the snow, and rescue is
immediate. Fair glacier work was now before us; after which we reached
the opposite mountain-slope, which we ascended, and then went down the
flank of the Riffelberg to our hotel. The excursion occupied us eleven
and a half hours.
On the afternoon of the 11th I made an attempt alone to ascend the
Riffelhorn, and attained a considerable height; but I attacked it from
the wrong side, and the fading light forced me to retreat. I found some
agreeable people at the hotel on my return. One clergyman especially,
with a clear complexion, good digestion, and bad lungs—of free, hearty,
and genial manner—made himself extremely pleasant to us all. He
appeared to bubble over with enjoyment, and with him and others on the
morning of the 13th I walked to the Görner Grat, as it lay on the way to
my work. We had a glorious prospect from the summit: indeed the
assemblage of mountains, snow, and ice, here within view is perhaps
without a rival in the world.[A] I shouldered my axe, and saying
"good-bye" moved away from my companions.
"Are you going?" exclaimed the clergyman. "Give me one grasp of your
hand before we part."
This was the signal for a grasp all round; and the hearty human kindness
which thus showed itself contributed that day to make my work pleasant
to me.
A DIFFICULT DESCENT. 1858.
We proceeded along the ridge of the Rothe Kumme to a point which
commanded a fine view of the glacier. The ice had been over these
heights in ages past, for, although lichens covered the surfaces of the
old rocks, they did not disguise the grooves and scratchings. The
surface of the glacier was now about a thousand feet below us, and this
it was our desire to attain. To reach it we had to descend a succession
of precipices, which in general were weathered and rugged, but here and
there, where the rock was durable, were fluted and grooved. Once or
twice indeed we had nothing to cling to but the little ridges thus
formed. We had to squeeze ourselves through narrow fissures, and often
to get round overhanging ledges, where our main trust was in our feet,
but where these had only ledges an inch or so in width to rest upon.
These cases were to me the most unpleasant of all, for they compelled
the arms to take a position which, if the footing gave way, would
necessitate a wrench, for which I entertain considerable abhorrence.
We came at length to a gorge by which the mountain is rent from top to
bottom, and into which we endeavoured to descend. We worked along its
rim for a time, but found its smooth faces too deep. We retreated;
Lauener struck into another track, and while he tested it I sat down
near some grass tufts, which flourished on one of the ledges, and found
the temperature to be as follows:—
| Temperature of rock | 42° | C. |
| Of air an inch above the rock | 32 |
| Of air a foot from rock | 22 |
| Of grass | 25 |
The first of these numbers does not fairly represent the temperature of
the rock, as the thermometer could be in contact with it only at one
side at a time. It was differences such as these between grass and
stone, producing a mixed atmosphere of different densities, that
weakened the sound of the falls of the Orinoco, as observed and
explained by Humboldt.
SINGULAR ICE-CAVE. 1858.
By a process of "trial and error" we at length reached the ice, after
two hours had been spent in the effort to disentangle ourselves from the
crags. The glacier is forcibly thrust at this place against the
projecting base of the mountain, and the structure of the ice
correspondingly developed. Crevasses also intersect the ice, and the
blue veins cross them at right angles. I ascended the glacier to a
region where the ice was compressed and greatly contorted, and thought
that in some cases I could see the veins crossing the lines of
stratification. Once my guide drew my attention to what he called "ein
sonderbares Loch." On one of the slopes an archway was formed which
appeared to lead into the body of the glacier. We entered it, and
explored the cavern to its end. The walls were of transparent blue ice,
singularly free from air-bubbles; but where the roof of the cavern was
thin enough to allow the sun to shine feebly through it, the transmitted
light was of a pink colour. My guide expressed himself surprised at
"den röthlichen Schein." At one place a plate of ice had been placed
like a ceiling across the cavern; but owing to lateral squeezing it had
been broken so as to form a V. I found some air-bubbles in this ice, and
in all cases they were associated with blebs of water. A portion of the
"ceiling," indeed, was very full of bubbles, and was at some places
reduced, by internal liquefaction, to a mere skeleton of ice, with
water-cells between its walls.
STRUCTURE AND STRATA. 1858.
High up the glacier (towards the old Weissthor) the horizontal
stratification is everywhere beautifully shown. I drew my guide's
attention to it, and he made the remark that the perfection of the lower
ice was due to the pressure of the layers above it. "The snow by degrees
compressed itself to glacier." As we approached one of the tributaries
on the Monte Rosa side, where great pressure came into play, the
stratification appeared to yield and the true structure to cross it at
those places where it had yielded most. As the place of greatest
pressure was approached, the bedding disappeared more and more, and a
clear vertical structure was finally revealed.
At an early hour on Saturday, the 14th of August, I heard the servant
exclaim, "Das Wetter ist wunderschön!" which good news caused me to
spring from my bed and prepare to meet the morn. The range of summits at
the opposite side of the valley of St. Nicholas was at first quite
clear, but as the sun ascended light cumuli formed round them,
increasing in density up to a certain point; below these clouds the air
of the valley was transparent; above them the air of heaven was still
more so; and thus they swung midway between heaven and earth, ranging
themselves in a level line along the necks of the mountains.
GENERATION OF CLOUDS. 1858.
It might be supposed that the presence of the sun heating the air would
tend to keep it more transparent, by increasing its capacity to dissolve
all visible cloud; and this indeed is the true action of the sun. But it
is not the only action. His rays, as he climbed the eastern heaven, shot
more and more deeply into the valley of St. Nicholas, the moisture of
which rose as invisible vapour, remaining unseen as long as the air
possessed sufficient warmth to keep it in the vaporous state. High up,
however, the cold crags which had lost their heat by radiation the night
before, acted like condensers upon the ascending vapour, and caused it
to curdle into visible fog. The current, however, continued ascensional,
and the clouds were slowly lifted above the tallest peaks, where they
arranged themselves in fantastic forms, shifting and changing shape as
they gradually melted away. One peak stood like a field-officer with
his cap raised above his head, others sent straggling cloud-balloons
upwards; but on watching these outliers they were gradually seen to
disappear. At first they shone like snow in the sunlight, but as they
became more attenuated they changed colour, passing through a dull red
to a dusky purple hue, until finally they left no trace of their
existence.
THE ROCKS WARMED. 1858.
SCENE FROM THE GÖRNER GRAT. 1858.
As the day advanced, warming the rocks, the clouds wholly disappeared,
and a hyaline air formed the setting of both glaciers and mountains. I
climbed to the Görner Grat to obtain a general view of the surrounding
scene. Looking towards the origin of the Görner glacier the view was
bounded by a wide col, upon which stood two lovely rounded eminences
enamelled with snow of perfect purity. They shone like burnished silver
in the sunlight, as if their surfaces had been melted and recongealed to
frosted mirrors from which the rays were flung. To the right of these
were the bounding crags of Monte Rosa, and then the body of the mountain
itself, with its crest of crag and coat of snows. To the right of Monte
Rosa, and almost rivalling it in height, was the vast mass of the
Lyskamm, a rough and craggy mountain, to whose ledges clings the snow
which cannot grasp its steeper walls, sometimes leaning over them in
impending precipices, which often break, and send wild avalanches into
the space below. Between the Lyskamm and Monte Rosa lies a large wide
valley into which both mountains pour their snows, forming there the
Western glacier of Monte Rosa[A]—a noble ice stream, which from its
magnitude and permanence deserves to impose its name upon the trunk
glacier. It extends downwards from the col which unites the two
mountains; riven and broken at some places, but at others stretching
white and pure down to its snow-line, where the true glacier emerges
from the névé. From the rounded shoulders of the Twin Castor a glacier
descends, at first white and shining, then suddenly broken into faults,
fissures, and precipices, which are afterwards repaired, and the glacier
joins that of Monte Rosa before the junction of the latter with the
trunk stream. Next came a boss of rock, with a secondary glacier
clinging to it as if plastered over it, and after it the Schwarze
glacier, bounded on one side by the Breithorn, and on the other by the
Twin Pollux. This glacier is of considerable magnitude. Over its upper
portion rise the Twin eminences, pure and white; then follows a smooth
and undulating space, after passing which the névé is torn up into a
collection of peaks and chasms; these, however, are mended lower down,
and the glacier moves smoothly and calmly to meet its brothers in the
main valley. Next comes the Trifti glacier,[B] embraced on all sides by
the rocky arms of the Breithorn; its mass is not very great, but it
descends in a graceful sweep, and exhibits towards its extremity a
succession of beautiful bands. Afterwards we have the glacier of the
Petit Mont Cervin and those of St. Théodule, which latter are the last
that empty their frozen cargoes into the valley of the Görner. All the
glaciers here mentioned are welded together to a common trunk which
squeezes itself through the narrow defile at the base of the Riffelhorn.
Soon afterwards the moraines become confused, the glacier drops steeply
to its termination, and ploughs up the meadows in front of it with its
irresistible share.
In a line with the Riffelhorn, and rising over the latter so high as to
make it almost vanish by comparison, was the Titan obelisk of the
Matterhorn, from the base of which the Furgge glacier struggles
downwards. On the other side are the Zmutt glacier, the Schönbühl, and
the Hochwang, from the Dent Blanche; the Gabelhorn and Trift glaciers,
from the summits which bear those names. Then come the glaciers of the
Weisshorn. Describing a curve still farther to the right we alight on
the peaks of the Mischabel, dark and craggy precipices from this side,
though from the Æggischhorn they appear as cones of snow. Sweeping by
the Alphubel, the Allaleinhorn, the Rympfischorn, and Strahlhorn—all of
them majestic—we reach the pass of the Weissthor, and the Cima di
Jazzi. This completes the glorious circuit within the observer's view.
COMPASS AT FAULT. 1858.
I placed my compass upon a piece of rock to find the bearing of the
Görner glacier, and was startled at seeing the sun and it at direct
variance. What the sun declared to be north, the needle affirmed to be
south. I at first supposed that the maker had placed the S where the N
ought to be, and vice versâ. On shifting my position, however, the
needle shifted also, and I saw immediately that the effect was due to
the rock of the Grat. Sometimes one end of the needle dipped forcibly,
at other places it whirled suddenly round, indicating an entire change
of polarity. The rock was evidently to be regarded as an assemblage of
magnets, or as a single magnet full of "consequent points." A distance
of transport not exceeding an inch was, in some cases, sufficient to
reverse the position of the needle. I held the needle between the two
sides of a long fissure a foot wide. The needle set along the fissure
at some places, while at others it set across it. Sometimes a little
jutting knob would attract the north end of the needle, while a closely
adjacent little knob would forcibly repel it, and attract the south end.
One extremity of a ledge three feet long was north magnetic, the other
end was south magnetic, while a neutral point existed midway between the
two, the ledge having therefore the exact polar arrangement of an
ordinary bar-magnet. At the highest point of the rock the action
appeared to be most intense, but I also found an energetic polarity in a
mass at some distance below the summit.
MAGNETISM OF ROCKS. 1858.
Remembering that Professor Forbes had noticed some peculiar magnetic
effect upon the Riffelhorn, I resolved to ascend it. Descending from the
Grat we mounted the rocks which form the base of the horn; these are
soft and soapy from the quantity of mica which they contain; the higher
rocks of the horn are, however, very dense and hard. The ascent is a
pleasant bit of mountain practice. We climbed the walls of rock, and
wound round the ledges, seeking the assailable points. I tried the
magnetic condition of the rocks as we ascended, and found it in general
feeble. In other respects the Riffelhorn is a most remarkable mass. The
ice of the Görner glacier of former ages, which rose hundreds, perhaps
thousands of feet above its present level, encountered the horn in its
descent, and was split by the latter, a diversion of the ice along the
sides of the peak being the consequence. Portions of the vertical walls
of the horn are polished by this action as if they had come from the
hands of a lapidary, and the scratchings are as sharp and definite as if
drawn by points of steel. I never saw scratchings so perfectly
preserved: the finest lines are as clear as the deepest, a consequence
of the great density and durability of the rock. The latter evidently
contains a good deal of iron, and its surface near the summit is of the
rich brown red due to the peroxide of the metal. When we fairly got
among the precipices we left our hatchets behind us, trusting
subsequently to our hands and feet alone. Squeezing, creeping, clinging,
and climbing, in due time we found ourselves upon the summit of the
horn.
ASCENT OF THE RIFFELHORN. 1858.
A pile of stones had been erected near the point where we gained the
top. I examined the stones of this pile, and found them strongly polar.
The surrounding rocks also showed a violent action, the needle
oscillating quickly, and sometimes twirling swiftly round upon a slight
change of position. The fragments of rock scattered about were also
polar. Long ledges showed north magnetism for a considerable length, and
again for an equal length south magnetism. Two parallel masses separated
from each other by a fissure, showed the same magnetic distribution.
While I was engaged at one end of the horn, Lauener wandered to the
other, on which stood two or three hommes de pierres. He was about
disturbing some of the stones, when a yell from me surprised him. In
fact, the thought had occurred to me that the magnetism of the horn had
been developed by lightning striking upon it, and my desire was to
examine those points which were most exposed to the discharge of the
atmospheric electricity; hence my shout to my guide to let the stones
alone. I worked towards the other end of the horn, examining the rocks
in my way. Two weathered prominences, which seemed very likely
recipients of the lightning, acted violently upon the needle. I
sometimes descended a little way, and found that among the rocks below
the summit the action was greatly enfeebled. On reaching another very
prominent point, I found its extremity all north polar, but at a little
distance was a cluster of consequent points, among which the transport
of a few inches was sufficient to turn the needle round and round.
MAGNETISM OF THE HORN. 1858.
The piles of stone at the Zermatt end of the horn did not seem so
strongly polar as the pile at the other end, which was higher; still a
strong polar action was manifested at many points of the surrounding
rocks. Having completed the examination of the summit, I descended the
horn, and examined its magnetic condition as I went along. It seemed to
me that the jutting prominences always exhibited the strongest action. I
do not indeed remember any case in which a strong action did not
exhibit itself at the ends of the terraces which constitute the horn. In
all cases, however, the rock acted as a number of magnets huddled
confusedly together, and not as if its entire mass was endowed with
magnetism of one kind.
Fig. 8. Magnetic Boulder of the Riffelhorn.
On the evening of the same day I examined the lower spur of the
Riffelhorn. Amid its fissures and gullies one feels as if wandering
through the ruins of a vast castle or fortification; the precipices are
so like walls, and the scratching and polishing so like what might be
done by the hands of man. I found evidences of strong polar action in
some of the rocks low down. In the same continuous mass the action would
sometimes exhibit itself over an area of small extent, while the
remainder of the rock showed no appreciable action. Some of the boulders
cast down from the summit exhibited a strong and varied polarity. Fig. 8
is a sketch of one of these; the barbed end of each arrow represents the
north end of the needle, which assumed the various positions shown in
the figure. Midway down the spur I lighted upon a transverse wall of
rock, which formed in earlier ages the boundary of a lateral outlet of
the Görner glacier. It was red and hard, weathered rough at some places,
and polished smooth at others. The lines were drawn finely upon it, but
its outer surface appeared to be peeling off like a crust; the polished
layer rested upon the rock like a kind of enamel. The action of the
glacier appeared to resemble that of the break of a locomotive upon
rails, both being cases of exfoliation brought about by pressure and
friction. This wall measured twenty-eight yards across, and one end of
it, for a distance of ten or twelve yards, was all north polar; the
other end for a similar distance was south polar, but there was a pair
of consequent points at its centre.
THE MAGNETIC FORCE. 1868.
To meet the case of my young readers, I will here say a few words about
the magnetic force. The common magnetic needle points nearly north and
south; and if a bit of iron be brought near to either end of the needle,
they will mutually attract each other. A piece of lead will not show
this effect, nor will copper, gold, nor silver. Iron, in fact, is a
magnetic metal, which the others are not. It is to be particularly
observed, that the bit of iron attracts both ends of the needle when
it is presented to them in succession; and if a common steel sewing
needle be substituted for the iron it will be seen that it also has the
power of attracting both ends of the magnetic needle. But if the needle
be rubbed once or twice along one end of a magnet, it will be found that
one of its ends will afterwards repel a certain end of the magnetic
needle and attract the other. By rubbing the needle on the magnet, we
thus develop both attraction and repulsion, and this double action of
the magnetic force is called its polarity; thus the steel which was at
first simply magnetic, is now magnetic and polar.
It is the aim of persons making magnets, that each magnet should have
but two poles, at its two ends; it is, however, easy to develop in the
same piece of steel several pairs or poles; and if the magnetization be
irregular, this is sometimes done when we wish to avoid it. These
irregular poles are called consequent points.
Now I want my young reader to understand that it is not only because the
rocks of the Görner Grat and Riffelhorn contain iron, that they exhibit
the action which I have described. They are not only magnetic, as common
iron is, but, like the magnetized steel needle, they are magnetic and
polar. And these poles are irregularly distributed like the "consequent
points" to which I have referred, and this is the reason why I have used
the term.
BEARINGS FROM THE RIFFELHORN. 1858.
Professor Forbes, as I have already stated, was the first to notice the
effect of the Riffelhorn upon the magnetic needle, but he seems to have
supposed that the entire mass of the mountain exercised "a local
attraction" upon the needle; (upon which end he does not say). To enable
future observers to allow for this attraction, he took the bearing of
several of the surrounding mountains from the Riffelhorn; but it is very
probable that had he changed his position a few inches, and perfectly
certain had he changed it a few yards, he would have found a set of
bearings totally different from those which he has recorded. The close
proximity and irregular distribution of its consequent points would
prevent the Riffelhorn from exerting any appreciable influence on a
distant needle, as in this case the local poles would effectually
neutralize each other.
MONT CERVIN AS CLOUD-MAKER. 1858.
On the morning of the 15th the Riffelberg was swathed in a dense fog,
through which heavy rain showered incessantly. Towards one o'clock the
continuity of the gray mass was broken, and sky-gleams of the deepest
blue were seen through its apertures; these would close up again, and
others open elsewhere, as if the fog were fighting for existence with
the sun behind it. The sun, however, triumphed, the mountains came more
and more into view, and finally the entire air was swept clear. I went
up to the Görner Grat in the afternoon, and examined more closely the
magnetism of its rocks; here, as on the Riffelhorn, I found it most
pronounced at the jutting prominences of the Grat. Can it be that the
superior exposure is more favourable to the formation of the magnetic
oxide of iron? I secured a number of fragments, which I still possess,
and which act forcibly upon a magnetic needle. The sun was near the
western horizon, and I remained alone upon the Grat to see his last
beams illuminate the mountains, which, with one exception, were without
a trace of cloud. This exception was the Matterhorn, the appearance of
which was extremely instructive. The obelisk appeared to be divided in
two halves by a vertical line drawn from its summit half way down, to
the windward of which we had the bare cliffs of the mountain; and to the
left of it a cloud which appeared to cling tenaciously to the rocks. In
reality, however, there was no clinging; the condensed vapour
incessantly got away, but it was ever renewed, and thus a river of cloud
had been sent from the mountain over the valley of Aosta. The wind in
fact blew lightly up the valley of St. Nicholas charged with moisture,
and when the air that held it rubbed against the cold cone of the
Matterhorn the vapour was chilled and precipitated in his lee. The
summit seemed to smoke sometimes like a burning mountain; for
immediately after its generation, the fog was drawn away in long
filaments by the wind. As the sun sank lower the ruddiness of his light
augmented, until these filaments resembled streamers of flame. The sun
sank deeper, the light was gradually withdrawn, and where it had
entirely vanished it left the mountain like a desolate old man whose
"hoary hair
Stream'd like a meteor in the troubled air."
For a moment after the sun had disappeared the scene was amazingly
grand. The distant west was ruddy, copious gray smoke-wreaths were
wafted from the mountains, while high overhead, in an atmospheric region
which seemed perfectly motionless, floated a broad thin cloud, dyed with
the richest iridescences. The colours were of the same character as
those which I had seen upon the Aletschhorn, being due to interference,
and in point of splendour and variety far exceeded anything ever
produced by the mere coloured light of the setting sun.
CELLS IN THE ICE. 1858.
On the 16th I was early upon the glacier. It had frozen hard during the
night, and the partially liberated streams flowed, in many cases, over
their own ice. I took some clear plates from under the water, and found
in them numerous liquid cells, each associated with an air-bubble or a
vacuous spot. The most common shape of the cells was a regular hexagon,
but there were all forms between the perfect hexagon and the perfect
circle. Many cells had also crimped borders, intimating that their
primitive form was that of a flower with six leaves. A plate taken from
ice which was defended from the sunbeams by the shadow of a rock had no
such cells; so that those that I observed were probably due to solar
radiation.
My first aim was to examine the structure of the Görnerhorn glacier,[A]
which descends the breast of Monte Rosa until it is abruptly cut off by
the great Western glacier of the mountain.[B] Between them is a moraine
which is at once terminal as regards the former, and lateral as regards
the latter. The ice is veined vertically along the moraine, the
direction of the structure being parallel to the latter. I ascended the
glacier, and found, as I retreated from the place where the thrust was
most violent, that the structure became more feeble. From the glacier I
passed to the rocks called "auf der Platte," so as to obtain a general
view of its terminal portion. The gradual perfecting of the structure as
the region of pressure was approached was very manifest: the ice at the
end seemed to wrinkle up in obedience to the pressure, the structural
furrows, from being scarcely visible, became more and more decided, and
the lamination underneath correspondingly pronounced, until it finally
attained a state of great perfection.
STRUCTURE OF THE ICE. 1858.
I now quitted the rocks and walked straight across the Western glacier
of Monte Rosa to its centre, where I found the structure scarcely
visible. I next faced the Görner Grat, and walked down the glacier
towards the moraine which divides it from the Görner glacier. The
mechanical conditions of the ice here are quite evident; each step
brought me to a place of greater pressure, and also to a place of more
highly developed structure, until finally near to the moraine itself,
and running parallel to it, a magnificent lamination was developed. Here
the superficial groovings could be traced to great distances, and beside
the moraine were boulders poised on pedestals of ice through which the
blue veins ran. At some places the ice had been weathered into laminæ
not more than a line in thickness.
I now recrossed the Monte Rosa glacier to its junction with the
Schwartze glacier, which descends between the Twins and Breithorn. The
structure of the Monte Rosa glacier is here far less pronounced than at
the other side, and the pressure which it endures is also manifestly
less; the structure of the Schwartze glacier is fairly developed, being
here parallel to its moraine. The cliffs of the Breithorn are much
exposed to weathering action, and boulders are copiously showered down
upon the adjacent ice. Between the Schwartze glacier and the glacier
which descends from the breast of the Breithorn itself these blocks ride
upon a spine of ice, and form a moraine of grand proportions. From it a
fine view of the glacier is attainable, and the gradual development of
its structure as the region of maximum pressure is approached is very
plain. A number of gracefully curved undulations sweep across the
Breithorn glacier, which are squeezed more closely together as the
moraine is approached. All the glaciers that descend from the flanking
mountains of the Görner valley are suddenly turned aside where they meet
the great trunk stream, and are reduced by the pressure to narrow
stripes of ice separated from each other by parallel moraines.
TRIBUTARIES EXPLORED. 1858.
I ascended the Breithorn glacier to the base of an ice-fall, on one side
of which I found large crumples produced by the pressure, the veined
structure being developed at right angles to the direction of the
latter. No such structure was visible above this place. The crumples
were cut by fissures, perpendicular to which the blue veins ran. I now
quitted the glacier, and clambered up the adjacent alp, from which a
fine view of the general surface was attainable. As in the case of the
Görnerhorn glacier, the gradual perfecting of the structure was very
manifest; the dirt, which first irregularly scattered over the surface,
gradually assumed a striated appearance, and became more and more
decided as the moraine was approached. Descending from the alp, I
endeavoured to measure some of the undulations; proceeding afterwards to
the junction of the Breithorn glacier with that of St. Théodule. The end
of the latter appears to be crumpled by its thrust against the former,
and the moraine between them, instead of being raised, runs along a
hollow which is flanked by the crumples on either side. The Breithorn
glacier became more and more attenuated, until finally it actually
vanished under its own moraines. On the sides of the crevasses, by which
the Théodule glacier is here intersected, I thought I could plainly see
two systems of veins cutting each other at an angle of fifteen or twenty
degrees. Reaching the Görner glacier, at a place where its dislocation
was very great, I proceeded down it past the Riffelhorn, to a point
where it seemed possible to scale the opposite mountain wall. Here I
crossed the glacier, treading with the utmost caution along the combs of
ice, and winding through the entanglement of crevasses until the spur of
the Riffelhorn was reached; this I climbed to its summit, and afterwards
crossed the green alp to our hotel.
TEMPTATION. 1858.
The foregoing good day's work was rewarded by a sound sleep at night.
The tourists were called in succession next morning, but after each call
I instantly subsided into deep slumber, and thus healthily spaced out
the interval of darkness. Day at length dawned and gradually brightened.
I looked at my watch and found it twenty minutes to six. My guide had
been lent to a party of gentlemen who had started at three o'clock for
the summit of Monte Rosa, and he had left with me a porter who undertook
to conduct me to one of the adjacent glaciers. But as I looked from my
window the unspeakable beauty of the morning filled me with a longing to
see the world from the top of Monte Rosa. I was in exceedingly good
condition—could I not reach the summit alone? Trained and indurated as
I had been, I felt that the thing was possible; at all events I could
try, without attempting anything which was not clearly within my power.
A LIGHT SCRIP. 1858.
Whether my exercise be mental or bodily, I am always most vigorous when
cool. During my student life in Germany, the friends who visited me
always complained of the low temperature of my room, and here among the
Alps it was no uncommon thing for me to wander over the glaciers from
morning till evening in my shirt-sleeves. My object now was to go as
light as possible, and hence I left my coat and neckcloth behind me,
trusting to the sun and my own motion to make good the calorific waste.
After breakfast I poured what remained of my tea into a small glass
bottle, an ordinary demi-bouteille, in fact; the waiter then provided me
with a ham sandwich, and, with my scrip thus frugally furnished, I
thought the heights of Monte Rosa might be won. I had neither brandy nor
wine, but I knew the immense amount of mechanical force represented by
four ounces of bread and ham, and I therefore feared no failure from
lack of nutriment. Indeed, I am inclined to think that both guides and
travellers often impair their vigour and render themselves cowardly and
apathetic by the incessant "refreshing" which they deem it necessary to
indulge in on such occasions.
THE GUIDE EXPOSTULATES. 1858.
The guide whom Lauener intended for me was at the door; I passed him and
desired him to follow me. This he at first refused to do, as he did not
recognise me in my shirt-sleeves; but his companions set him right, and
he ran after me. I transferred my scrip to his shoulders, and led the
way upward. Once or twice he insinuated that that was not the way to the
Schwarze-See, and was probably perplexed by my inattention. From the
summit of the ridge which bounds the Görner glacier the whole grand
panorama revealed itself, and on the higher slopes of Monte Rosa—so
high, indeed, as to put all hope of overtaking them, or even coming near
them, out of the question—a row of black dots revealed the company
which had started at three o'clock from the hotel. They had made
remarkably good use of their time, and I was afterwards informed that
the cause of this was the intense cold, which compelled them to keep up
the proper supply of heat by increased exertion. I descended swiftly to
the glacier, and made for the base of Monte Rosa, my guide following at
some distance behind me. One of the streams, produced by superficial
melting, had cut for itself a deep wide channel in the ice; it was not
too wide for a spring, and with the aid of a run I cleared it and went
on. Some minutes afterwards I could hear the voice of my companion
exclaiming, in a tone of expostulation, "No, no, I won't follow you
there." He however made a circuit, and crossed the stream; I waited for
him at the place where the Monte Rosa glacier joins the rock, "auf der
Platte," and helped him down the ice-slope. At the summit of these
rocks I again waited for him. He approached me with some excitement of
manner, and said that it now appeared plain to him that I intended to
ascend Monte Rosa, but that he would not go with me.
THE GUIDE HALTS. 1858.
I asked him to
accompany me to the summit of the next cliff, which he agreed to do; and
I found him of some service to me. He discovered the faint traces of the
party in advance, and, from his greater experience, could keep them
better in view than I could. We lost them, however, near the base of the
cliff at which we aimed, and I went on, choosing as nearly as I could
remember the route followed by Lauener and myself a week previously,
while my guide took another route, seeking for the traces. The glacier
here is crevassed, and I was among the fissures some distance in advance
of my companion. Fear was manifestly getting the better of him, and he
finally stood still, exclaiming, "No man can pass there." At the same
moment I discovered the trace, and drew his attention to it; he
approached me submissively, said that I was quite right, and declared
his willingness to go on. We climbed the cliff, and discovered the trace
in the snow above it. Here I transferred the scrip and telescope to my
own shoulders, and gave my companion a cheque for five francs. He
returned, and I went on alone.
The sun and heaven were glorious, but the cold was nevertheless intense,
for it had frozen bitterly the night before. The mountain seemed more
noble and lovely than when I had last ascended it; and as I climbed the
slopes, crossed the shining cols, and rounded the vast snow-bosses of
the mountain, the sense of being alone lent a new interest to the
glorious scene. I followed the track of those who preceded me, which was
that pursued by Lauener and myself a week previously. Once I deviated
from it to obtain a glimpse of Italy over the saddle which stretches
from Monte Rosa to the Lyskamm. Deep below me was the valley, with its
huge and dislocated névé, and the slope on which I hung was just
sufficiently steep to keep the attention aroused without creating
anxiety. I prefer such a slope to one on which the thought of danger
cannot be entertained. I become more weary upon a dead level, or in
walking up such a valley as that which stretches between Visp and
Zermatt, than on a steep mountain side. The sense of weariness is often
no index to the expenditure of muscular force: the muscles may be
charged with force, and, if the nervous excitant be feeble, the strength
lies dormant, and we are tired without exertion. But the thought of
peril keeps the mind awake, and spurs the muscles into action; they move
with alacrity and freedom, and the time passes swiftly and pleasantly.
LEFT ALONE. 1858.
Occupied with my own thoughts as I ascended, I sometimes unconsciously
went too quickly, and felt the effects of the exertion. I then slackened
my pace, allowing each limb an instant of repose as I drew it out of the
snow, and found that in this way walking became rest. This is an
illustration of the principle which runs throughout nature—to
accomplish physical changes, time is necessary. Different positions of
the limb require different molecular arrangements; and to pass from one
to the other requires time. By lifting the leg slowly and allowing it to
fall forward by its own gravity, a man may get on steadily for several
hours, while a very slight addition to this pace may speedily exhaust
him. Of course the normal pace differs in different persons, but in all
the power of endurance may be vastly augmented by the prudent outlay of
muscular force.
The sun had long shone down upon me with intense fervour, but I now
noticed a strange modification of the light upon the slopes of snow. I
looked upwards, and saw a most gorgeous exhibition of
interference-colours. A light veil of clouds had drawn itself between me
and the sun, and this was flooded with the most brilliant dyes. Orange,
red, green, blue—all the hues produced by diffraction were exhibited in
the utmost splendour. There seemed a tendency to form circular zones of
colour round the sun, but the clouds were not sufficiently uniform to
permit of this, and they were consequently broken into spaces, each
steeped with the colour due to the condition of the cloud at the place.
Three times during my ascent similar veils drew themselves across the
sun, and at each passage the splendid phenomena were renewed. As I
reached the middle of the mountain an avalanche was let loose from the
sides of the Lyskamm; the thunder drew my eyes to the place; I saw the
ice move, but it was only the tail of the avalanche; still the volume of
sound told me that it was a huge one. Suddenly the front of it appeared
from behind a projecting rock, hurling its ice-masses with fury into the
valley, and tossing its rounded clouds of ice-dust high into the
atmosphere. A wild long-drawn sound, multiplied by echoes, now descended
from the heights above me. It struck me at first as a note of
lamentation, and I thought that possibly one of the party which was now
near the summit had gone over the precipice. On listening more
attentively I found that the sound shaped itself into an English
"hurrah!" I was evidently nearing the party, and on looking upwards I
could see them, but still at an immense height above me. The summit
still rose before them, and I therefore thought the cheer premature. A
precipice of ice was now in front of me, around which I wound to the
right, and in a few minutes found myself fairly at the bottom of the
Kamm.
GIDDINESS ON THE KAMM. 1858.
I paused here for a moment, and reflected on the work before me. My head
was clear, my muscles in perfect condition, and I felt just sufficient
fear to render me careful. I faced the Kamm, and went up slowly but
surely, and soon heard the cheer which announced the arrival of the
party at the summit of the mountain. It was a wild, weird, intermittent
sound, swelling or falling as the echoes reinforced or enfeebled it. In
getting through the rocks which protrude from the snow at the base of
the last spur of the mountain, I once had occasion to stoop my head,
and, on suddenly raising it, my eyes swam as they rested on the unbroken
slope of snow at my left. The sensation was akin to giddiness, but I
believe it was chiefly due to the absence of any object upon the snow
upon which I could converge the axes of my eyes. Up to this point I had
eaten nothing. I now unloosed my scrip, and had two mouthfuls of
sandwich and nearly the whole of the tea that remained. I found here
that my load, light as it was, impeded me.
SCRIP LEFT BEHIND. 1858.
When fine balancing is
necessary, the presence of a very light load, to which one is
unaccustomed, may introduce an element of danger, and for this reason I
here left the residue of my tea and sandwich behind me. A long, long
edge was now in front of me, sloping steeply upwards. As I commenced the
ascent of this, the foremost of those whose cheer had reached me from
the summit some time previously, appeared upon the top of the edge, and
the whole party was seen immediately afterwards dangling on the Kamm. We
mutually approached each other. Peter Bohren, a well-known Oberland
guide, came first, and after him came the gentleman in his immediate
charge. Then came other guides with other gentlemen, and last of all my
guide, Lauener, with his strong right arm round the youngest of the
party. We met where a rock protruded through the snow. The cold smote my
naked throat bitterly, so to protect it I borrowed a handkerchief from
Lauener, bade my new acquaintances good bye, and proceeded upwards. I
was soon at the place where the snow-ridge joins the rocks which
constitute the crest of the mountain; through these my way lay, every
step I took augmenting my distance from all life, and increasing my
sense of solitude. I went up and down the cliffs as before, round
ledges, through fissures, along edges of rock, over the last deep and
rugged indentation, and up the rocks at its opposite side, to the
summit.
ALONE ON THE SUMMIT. 1858.
A world of clouds and mountains lay beneath me. Switzerland, with its
pomp of summits, was clear and grand; Italy was also grand, but more
than half obscured. Dark cumulus and dark crag vied in savagery, while
at other places white snows and white clouds held equal rivalry. The
scooped valleys of Monte Rosa itself were magnificent, all gleaming in
the bright sunlight—tossed and torn at intervals, and sending from
their rents and walls the magical blue of the ice. Ponderous névés lay
upon the mountains, apparently motionless, but suggesting
motion—sluggish, but indicating irresistible dynamic energy, which
moved them slowly to their doom in the warmer valleys below. I thought
of my position: it was the first time that a man had stood alone upon
that wild peak, and were the imagination let loose amid the surrounding
agencies, and permitted to dwell upon the perils which separated the
climber from his kind, I dare say curious feelings might have been
engendered. But I was prompt to quell all thoughts which might lessen my
strength, or interfere with the calm application of it. Once indeed an
accident made me shudder.
THE AXE SLIPS. 1858.
While taking the cork from a bottle which is
deposited on the top, and which contains the names of those who have
ascended the mountain, my axe slipped out of my hand, and slid some
thirty feet away from me. The thought of losing it made my flesh creep,
for without it descent would be utterly impossible. I regained it, and
looked upon it with an affection which might be bestowed upon a living
thing, for it was literally my staff of life under the circumstances.
One look more over the cloud-capped mountains of Italy, and I then
turned my back upon them, and commenced the descent.
The brown crags seemed to look at me with a kind of friendly
recognition, and, with a surer and firmer feeling than I possessed on
ascending, I swung myself from crag to crag and from ledge to ledge with
a velocity which surprised myself. I reached the summit of the Kamm, and
saw the party which I had passed an hour and a half before, emerging
from one of the hollows of the mountain; they had escaped from the edge
which now lay between them and me. The thought of the possible loss of
my axe at the summit was here forcibly revived, for without it I dared
not take a single step. My first care was to anchor it firmly in the
snow, so as to enable it to bear at times nearly the whole weight of my
body. In some places, however, the anchor had but a loose hold; the
"cornice" to which I have already referred became granular, and the
handle of the axe went through it up to the head, still, however,
remaining loose. Some amount of trust had thus to be withdrawn from the
staff and placed in the limbs. A curious mixture of carelessness and
anxiety sometimes fills the mind on such occasions. I often caught
myself humming a verse of a frivolous song, but this was mechanical, and
the substratum of a man's feelings under such circumstances is real
earnestness. The precipice to my left was a continual preacher of
caution, and the slope to my right was hardly less impressive. I looked
down the former but rarely, and sometimes descended for a considerable
time without looking beyond my own footsteps. The power of a thought was
illustrated on one of these occasions. I had descended with extreme
slowness and caution for some time, when looking over the edge of the
cornice I saw a row of pointed rocks at some distance below me. These I
felt must receive me if I slipped over, and I thought how before
reaching them I might so break my fall as to arrive at them unkilled.
This thought enabled me to double my speed, and as long as the spiky
barrier ran parallel to my track I held my staff in one hand, and
contented myself with a slight pressure upon it.
I came at length to a place where the edge was solid ice, which rose to
the level of the cornice, the latter appearing as if merely stuck
against it. A groove ran between the ice and snow, and along this groove
I marched until the cornice became unsafe, and I had to betake myself to
the ice. The place was really perilous, but, encouraging myself by the
reflection that it would not last long, I carefully and deliberately
hewed steps, causing them to dip a little inward, so as to afford a
purchase for the heel of my boot, never forsaking one till the next was
ready, and never wielding my hatchet until my balance was secured. I was
soon at the bottom of the Kamm, fairly out of danger, and full of glad
vigour I bore swiftly down upon the party in advance of me. It was an
easy task to me to fuse myself amongst them as if I had been an old
acquaintance, and we joyfully slid, galloped, and rolled together down
the residue of the mountain.
ACCIDENT ON THE KAMM. 1858.
The only exception was the young gentleman in Lauener's care. A day or
two previously he had, I believe, injured himself in crossing the Gemmi,
and long before he reached the summit of Monte Rosa his knee swelled,
and he walked with great difficulty. But he persisted in ascending, and
Lauener, seeing his great courage, thought it a pity to leave him
behind. I have stated that a portion of the Kamm was solid ice. On
descending this, Mr. F.'s footing gave way, and he slipped forward.
Lauener was forced to accompany him, for the place was too steep and
slippery to permit of their motion being checked. Both were on the point
of going over the Lyskamm side of the mountain, where they would have
indubitably been dashed to pieces. "There was no escape there," said
Lauener, in describing the incident to me subsequently, "but I saw a
possible rescue at the other side, so I sprang to the right, forcibly
swinging my companion round; but in doing so, the bâton tripped me up;
we both fell, and rolled rapidly over each other down the incline. I
knew that some precipices were in advance of us, over which we should
have gone, so, releasing myself from my companion, I threw myself in
front of him, stopped myself with my axe, and thus placed a barrier
before him." After some vain efforts at sliding down the slopes on a
bâton, in which practice I was fairly beaten by some of my new friends,
I attached myself to the invalid, and walked with him and Lauener
homewards. Had I gone forward with the foremost of the party, I should
have completed the expedition to the summit and back in a little better
than nine hours.
DANGER OF CLIMBING ALONE. 1858.
I think it right to say one earnest word in connexion with this ascent;
and the more so as I believe a notion is growing prevalent that half
what is said and written about the dangers of the Alps is mere humbug.
No doubt exaggeration is not rare, but I would emphatically warn my
readers against acting upon the supposition that it is general. The
dangers of Mont Blanc, Monte Rosa, and other mountains, are real, and,
if not properly provided against, may be terrible. I have been much
accustomed to be alone upon the glaciers, but sometimes, even when a
guide was in front of me, I have felt an extreme longing to have a
second one behind me. Less than two good ones I think an arduous climber
ought not to have; and if climbing without guides were to become
habitual, deplorable consequences would assuredly sooner or later ensue.
The 18th of August I spent upon the Furgge glacier at the base of Mont
Cervin, and what it taught me shall be stated in another place. The
evening of this day was signalised by the pleasant acquaintances which
it gave me. It was my intention to cross the Weissthor on the morning of
the 19th, but thunder, lightning, and heavy rain opposed the project,
and with two friends I descended, amid pitiless rain, to Zermatt. Next
day I walked by way of Stalden to Saas, where I made the acquaintance of
Herr Imseng, the Curé, and on the 21st ascended to the Distel Alp. Near
to this place the Allalein glacier pushes its huge terminus right across
the valley and dams up the streams descending from the mountains higher
up, thus giving birth to a dismal lake. At one end of this stands the
Mattmark hotel, which was to be my headquarters for a few days.
ASCENT OF A BOULDER. 1858.
I reached the place in good company. Near to the hotel are two
magnificent boulders of green serpentine, which have been lodged there
by one of the lateral glaciers; and two of the ladies desiring to ascend
one of these rocks, a friend and myself helped them to the top. The
thing was accomplished in a very spirited way. Indeed the general
contrast, in regard to energy, between the maidens of the British Isles
and those of the Continent and of America is extraordinary. Surely those
who talk of this country being in its old age overlook the physical
vigour of its sons and daughters. They are strong, but from a
combination of the greatest forces we may obtain a small resultant,
because the forces may act in opposite directions and partly neutralize
each other. Herein, in fact, lies Britain's weakness; it is strength
ill-directed; and is indicative rather of the perversity of young blood
than of the precision of mature years.
DISMAL QUARTERS. 1858.
Immediately after this achievement I was forsaken by my friends, and
remained the only visitor in the hotel. A dense gray cloud gradually
filled the entire atmosphere, from which the rain at length began to
gush in torrents. The scene from the windows of the hotel was of the
most dismal character; the rain also came through the roof, and dripped
from the ceiling to the floor. I endeavoured to make a fire, but the air
would not let the smoke of the pine-logs ascend, and the biting of the
hydrocarbons was excruciating to the eyes. On the whole, the cold was
preferable to the smoke. During the night the rain changed to snow, and
on the morning of the 22nd all the mountains were thickly covered. The
gray delta through which a river of many arms ran into the Mattmark See
was hidden; against some of the windows of the salle à manger the snow
was also piled, obscuring more than half their light. I had sent my
guide to Visp, and two women and myself were the only occupants of the
place. It was extremely desolate—I felt, moreover, the chill of Monte
Rosa in my throat, and the conditions were not favourable to the cure of
a cold.
On the 23rd the Allalein glacier was unfit for work; I therefore
ascended to the summit of the Monte Moro, and found the Valaisian side
of the pass in clear sunshine, while impenetrable fog met us on the
Italian side. I examined the colour of the freshly fallen snow; it was
not an ordinary blue, and was even more transparent than the blue of the
firmament. When the snow was broken the light flashed forth; when the
staff was dug into the snow and withdrawn, the blue gleam appeared; when
the staff lay in a hole, although there might be a sufficient space all
round it, the coloured light refused to show itself.
My cough kept me awake on the night of the 23rd, and my cold was worse
next day. I went upon the Allalein glacier, but found myself by no means
so sure a climber as usual. The best guides find that their powers vary;
they are not equally competent on all days. I have heard a celebrated
Chamouni guide assert that a man's morale is different on different
days. The morale in my case had a physical basis, and it probably has so
in all. The Allalein glacier, as I have said, crosses the valley and
abuts against the opposite mountain; here it is forced to turn aside,
and in consequence of the thrust and bending it is crumpled and
crevassed. The wall of the Mattmark See is a fine glacier section:
looked at from a distance, the ridges and fissures appear arranged like
a fan. The structure of the crumpled ice varies from the vertical to the
horizontal, and the ridges are sometimes split along the planes of
structure. The aspect of this portion of the glacier from some of the
adjacent heights is exceedingly interesting.
THE VAULT OF THE ALLALEIN. 1858.
On the morning of the 25th I had two hours' clambering over the
mountains before breakfast, and traced the action of ancient glaciers to
a great height. The valley of Saas in this respect rivals that of Hasli;
the flutings and polishings being on the grandest scale. After breakfast
I went to the end of the Allalein glacier, where the Saas Visp river
rushes from it: the vault was exceedingly fine, being composed of
concentric arches of clear blue ice. I spent several hours here
examining the intimate structure of the ice, and found the vacuum disks
which I shall describe at another place, of the greatest service to me.
As at Rosenlaui and elsewhere, they here taught me that the glacier was
composed of an aggregate of small fragments, each of which had a
definite plane of crystallization. Where the ice was partially weathered
the surfaces of division between the fragments could be traced through
the coherent mass, but on crossing these surfaces the direction of the
vacuum disks changed, indicating a similar change of the planes of
crystallization. The blue veins of the glacier went through its
component fragments irrespective of these planes. Sometimes the vacuum
disks were parallel to the veins, sometimes across them, sometimes
oblique to them.
Several fine masses of ice had fallen from the arch upon its floor, and
these were disintegrated to the core. A kick, or a stroke of an axe,
sufficed to shake masses almost a cubic yard in size into fragments
varying not much on either side of a cubic inch. The veining was finely
preserved on the concentric arches of the vault, and some of them
apparently exhibited its abolition, or at least confusion, and fresh
development by new conditions of pressure. The river being deep and
turbulent this day, to reach its opposite side I had to climb the
glacier and cross over the crown of its highest arch; this enabled me
to get quite in front of the vault, to enter it, and closely inspect
those portions where the structure appeared to change. I afterwards
ascended the steep moraine which lies between the Allalein and the
smaller glacier to the left of it; passing to the latter at intervals to
examine its structure. I was at length stopped by the dislocated ice;
and from the heights I could count a system of seven dirt-bands, formed
by the undulations on the surface of the glacier. On my return to the
hotel I found there a number of well-known Alpine men who intended to
cross the Adler pass on the following day. Herr Imseng was there: he
came to me full of enthusiasm, and asked me whether I would join him in
an ascent of the Dom: we might immediately attack it; and he felt sure
that we should succeed. The Dom is the highest of the Mischabel peaks,
and is one of the grandest of the Alps. I agreed to join the Curé, and
with this understanding we parted for the night.
AVALANCHE AT SAAS. 1858.
Thursday, 26th August.—A wild stormy morning after a wild and rainy
night: the Adler pass being impassable, the mountaineers returned, and
Imseng informed me that the Dom must be abandoned. He gave me the
statistics of an avalanche which had fallen in the valley some years
before. Within the memory of man Saas had never been touched by an
avalanche, but a tradition existed that such a catastrophe had once
occurred. On the 14th of March, 1848, at eight o'clock in the morning,
the Curé was in his room; when he heard the cracking of pine-branches,
and inferred from the sound that an avalanche was descending upon the
village. It dashed in the windows of his house and filled his rooms with
snow; the sound it produced being sufficient to mask the crashing of the
timbers of an adjacent house. Three persons were killed. On the 3rd of
April, 1849, heavy snow fell at Saas; the Curé waited until it had
attained a depth of four feet, and then retreated to Fée. That night an
avalanche descended, and in the line of its rush was a house in which
five or six and twenty people had collected for safety: nineteen of them
were killed. The Curé afterwards showed me the site of the house, and
the direction of the avalanche. It passed through a pine wood; and on
expressing my surprise that the trees did not arrest it, he replied that
the snow was "quite like dust," and rushed among the trees like so much
water. To return from Fée to Saas on the day following he found it
necessary to carry two planks. Kneeling upon one of them, he pushed the
other forward, and transferred his weight to it, drawing the other after
him and repeating the same act. The snow was like flour, and would not
otherwise bear his weight. Seeing no prospect of fine weather, I
descended to Saas on the afternoon of the 26th. I was the only guest at
the hotel; but during the evening I was gratified by the unexpected
arrival of my friend Hirst, who was on his way over the Monte Moro to
Italy.
THE FÉE GLACIER. 1858.
For the last five days it had been a struggle between the north wind and
the south, each edging the other by turns out of its atmospheric bed,
and producing copious precipitation; but now the conflict was
decided—the north had prevailed, and an almost unclouded heaven
overspread the Alps. The few white fleecy masses that remained were good
indications of the swift march of the wind in the upper air. My friend
and I resolved to have at least one day's excursion together, and we
chose for it the glacier of the Fée. Ascending the mountain by a
well-beaten path, we passed a number of "Calvaries" filled with tattered
saints and Virgins, and soon came upon the rim of a flattened bowl quite
clasped by the mountains. In its centre was the little hamlet of Fée,
round which were fresh green pastures, and beyond it the perpetual ice
and snow. It was exceedingly picturesque—a scene of human beauty and
industry where savagery alone was to be expected. The basin had been
scooped by glaciers, and as we paused at its entrance the rounded and
fluted rocks were beneath our feet. The Alphubel and the Mischabel
raised their crowns to heaven in front of us; the newly fallen snow
clung where it could to the precipitous crags of the Mischabel, but on
the summits it was the sport of the wind. Sometimes it was borne
straight upwards in long vertical striæ; sometimes the fibrous columns
swayed to the right, sometimes to the left; sometimes the motion on one
of the summits would quite subside; anon the white peak would appear
suddenly to shake itself to dust, which it yielded freely to the wind.
SNOW, VAPOUR AND CLOUD. 1858.
I
could see the wafted snow gradually melt away, and again curdle up into
true white cloud by precipitation; this in its turn would be pulled
asunder like carded wool, and reduced a second time to transparent
vapour.
In the middle of the ice of the Fée stands a green alp, not unlike the
Jardin; up this we climbed, halting at intervals upon its grassy knolls
to inspect the glacier. I aimed at those places where on à priori
grounds I should have thought the production of the veined structure
most likely, and reached at length the base of a wall of rock from the
edge of which long spears of ice depended. Here my friend halted, while
Lauener and myself climbed the precipice, and ascended to the summit of
the alp. The snow was deep at many places, and our immersions in unseen
holes very frequent. From the peak of the Fée Alp a most glorious view
is obtained; in point of grandeur it will bear comparison with any in
the Alps, and its seclusion gives it an inexpressible charm. We remained
for half an hour upon the warm rock, and then descended. It was our
habit to jump from the higher ledges into the deep snow below them, in
which we wallowed as if it were flour; but on one of these occasions I
lighted on a stone, and the shock produced a curious effect upon my
hearing. I appeared suddenly to lose the power of appreciating deep
sounds, while the shriller ones were comparatively unimpaired. After I
rejoined my friend it required attention on my part to hear him when he
spoke to me. This continued until I approached the end of the glacier,
when suddenly the babblement of streams, and a world of sounds to which
I had been before quite deaf burst in upon me. The deafness was probably
due to a strain of the tympanum, such as we can produce artificially,
and thus quench low sounds, while shrill ones are scarcely affected.
"A TERRIBLE HOLE." 1858.
I was anxious to quit Saas early next morning, but the Curé expressed so
strong a wish to show us what he called a schauderhaftes Loch—a
terrible hole—which he had himself discovered, that I consented to
accompany him. We were joined by his assistant and the priest of Fée.
The stream from the Fée glacier has cut a deep channel through the
rocks, and along the right-hand bank of the stream we ascended. It was
very rough with fallen crags and fallen pines amid which we once or
twice lost our way. At length we came to an aperture just sufficient to
let a man's body through, and were informed by our conductor that our
route lay along the little tunnel: he lay down upon his stomach and
squeezed himself through it like a marmot. I followed him; a second
tunnel, in which, however, we could stand upright, led into a spacious
cavern, formed by the falling together of immense slabs of rock which
abutted against each other so as to form a roof. It was the very type of
a robber den; and when I remarked this, it was at once proposed to sing
a verse from Schiller's play. The young priest had a powerful voice—he
led and we all chimed in.
SONG OF THE ROBBERS. 1858.
"Ein frohes Leben führen wir,
Ein Leben voller Wonne.
Der Wald ist unser Nachtquartier,
Bei Sturm und Wind hanthieren wir,
Der Mond ist unsre Sonne."
Herr Imseng wore his black coat; the others had taken theirs off, but
they wore their clerical hats, black breeches and stockings. We formed a
singular group in a singular place, and the echoed voices mingled
strangely with the gusts of the wind and the rush of the river.
Soon afterwards I parted from my friend, and descended the valley to
Visp, where I also parted with my guide. He had been with me from the
22nd of July to the 29th of August, and did his duty entirely to my
satisfaction. He is an excellent iceman, and is well acquainted both
with the glaciers of the Oberland and of the Valais. He is strong and
good-humoured, and were I to make another expedition of the kind I don't
think that I should take any guide in the Oberland in preference to
Christian Lauener.
CLIMBERS AND SCIENCE. 1858.
It is a singular fact that as yet we know absolutely nothing of the
winter temperature of any one of the high Alpine summits. No doubt it is
a sufficient justification of our Alpine men, as regards their climbing,
that they like it. This plain reason is enough; and no man who ever
ascended that "bad eminence" Primrose Hill, or climbed to Hampstead
Heath for the sake of a freer horizon, can consistently ask a better. As
regards physical science, however, the contributions of our mountaineers
have as yet been nil, and hence, when we hear of the scientific value
of their doings, it is simply amusing to the climbers themselves. I do
not fear that I shall offend them in the least by my frankness in
stating this. Their pleasure is that of overcoming acknowledged
difficulties, and of witnessing natural grandeur. But I would venture to
urge that our Alpine men will not find their pleasure lessened by
embracing a scientific object in their doings. They have the strength,
the intelligence, and let them add to these the accuracy which physical
science now demands, and they may contribute work of enduring value. Mr.
Casella will gladly teach them the use of his minimum-thermometers; and
I trust that the next seven years will not pass without making us
acquainted with the winter temperature of every mountain of note in
Switzerland.[A]
I had thought of this subject since I first read the conjectures of De
Saussure on the temperature of Mont Blanc; but in 1857 I met Auguste
Balmat at the Jardin, and there learned from him that he entertained the
idea of placing a self-registering thermometer at the summit of the
mountain. Balmat was personally a stranger to me at the time, but
Professor Forbes's writings had inspired me with a respect for him,
which this unprompted idea of his augmented. He had procured a
thermometer, the graduation of which, however, he feared was not low
enough. As an encouragement to Balmat, and with the view of making his
laudable intentions known, I communicated them to the Royal Society, and
obtained from the Council a small grant of money to purchase
thermometers and to assist in the expenses of an ascent. I had now the
thermometers in my possession; and having completed my work at Zermatt
and Saas, my next desire was to reach Chamouni and place the instruments
on the top of Mont Blanc. I accordingly descended the valley of the
Rhone to Martigny, crossed the Tête Noire, and arrived at Chamouni on
the 29th of August, 1858.
DIFFICULTIES AT CHAMOUNI. 1858.
Balmat was engaged at this time as the guide of Mr. Alfred Wills, who,
however, kindly offered to place him at my disposal; and also expressed
a desire to accompany me himself and assist me in my observations. I
gladly accepted a proposal which gave me for companion so determined a
climber and so estimable a man. But Chamouni was rife with difficulties.
In 1857 the Guide Chef had the good sense to give me considerable
liberty of action. Now his mood was entirely changed: he had been
"molested" for giving me so much freedom. I wished to have a boy to
carry a small instrument for me up the Mer de Glace—he would not allow
it; I must take a guide. If I ascended Mont Blanc he declared that I
must take four guides; that, in short, I must in all respects conform to
the rules made for ordinary tourists. I endeavoured to explain to him
the advantages which Chamouni had derived from the labours of men of
science; it was such men who had discovered it when it was unknown, and
it was by their writings that the attention of the general public had
been called towards it. It was a bad recompense, I urged, to treat a man
of science as he was treating me. This was urged in vain; he shrugged
his shoulders, was very sorry, but the thing could not be changed. I
then requested to know his superior, that I might apply to him; he
informed me that there were a President and Commission of guides at
Chamouni, who were the proper persons to decide the question, and he
proposed to call them together on the 31st of August, at seven p.m., on
condition that I was to be present to state my own case. To this I
agreed.
I spent that day quite alone upon the Mer de Glace, and climbed amid a
heavy snow-storm to the Cleft station over Trélaporte. When I reached
the Montanvert I was wet and weary, and would have spent the night there
were it not for my engagement with the Guide Chef. I descended amid the
rain, and at the appointed hour went to his bureau. He met me with a
polite sympathetic shrug; explained to me that he had spoken to the
Commission, but that it could not assemble pour une chose comma ça;
that the rules were fixed, and I must abide by them. "Well," I
responded, "you think you have done your duty; it is now my turn to
perform mine. If no other means are available I will have this
transaction communicated to the Sardinian Government, and I don't think
that it will ratify what you have done." The Guide Chef evidently did
not believe a word of it.
Previous to taking any further step I thought it right to see the
President of the Commission of Guides, who was also Syndic of the
commune. I called upon him on the morning of the 1st of September, and,
assuming that he knew all about the transaction, spoke to him
accordingly. He listened to me for a time, but did not seem to
understand me, which I ascribed partly to my defective French
pronunciation. I expressed a hope that he did comprehend me; he said
he understood my words very well, but did not know their purport. In
fact he had not heard a single word about me or my request. He stated
with some indignation that, so far from its being a subject on which the
Commission could not assemble, it was one which it was their especial
duty to take into consideration. Our conference ended with the
arrangement that I was to write him an official letter stating the case,
which he was to forward to the Intendant of the province of Faucigny
resident at Bonneville. All this was done.
THE INTENDANT MEMORIALISED. 1858.
I subsequently memorialised the Intendant himself; and Balmat visited
him to secure his permission to accompany me. I have to record, that
from first to last the Intendant gave me his sympathy and support. He
could not alter laws, but he deprecated a "judaical" interpretation of
them. His final letter to myself was as follows:—
THE INTENDANT'S RESPONSE. 1858.
"Intendance Royale de la Province de Faucigny,
"Bonneville, 11 Septembre, 1858.
"Monsieur,—
"J'apprends avec une véritable peine les difficultés que vous
rencontrez de la part de M. le Guide Chef pour l'effectuation
de votre périlleuse entreprise scientifique, mais je dois vous
dire aussi avec regret que ces difficultés résident dans un
règlement fait en vue de la sécurité des voyageurs, quel que
puisse être le but de leurs excursions.
"Désireux néanmoins de vous être utile, notamment en la
circonstance, j'invite aujourd'hui même M. le Guide Chef à
avoir égard à votre projet, à faire en sa faveur une exception
au règlement ci-devant eu, tant qu'il n'y aura aucun danger
pour votre sûreté et celle des personnes qui vous
accompagneront, et enfin de se prêter dans les limites de ses
moyens et attributions pour l'heureux succès de l'expédition,
dont les conséquences et résultats n'intéressent pas seulement
la science, mais encore la vallée de Chamounix en particulier.
"Agréez, Monsieur,
"l'assurance de ma consideration très-distinguée.
"Pour l'Intendant en congé,
"Le Secrétaire,
"Deléglise."
While waiting for this permission I employed myself in various ways. On
the 2nd of September I ascended the Brévent, from which Mont Blanc is
seen to great advantage. From Chamouni its vast slopes are so
foreshortened that one gets a very imperfect idea of the extent to be
traversed to reach the summit. What, however, struck me most on the
Brévent was the changed relation of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille
Verte. From Montanvert the former appears a most imposing mass, while
the peak of the latter appears rather dwarfed behind it; but from the
Brévent the Aiguille du Dru is a mere pinnacle stuck in the breast of
the grander pyramid of the Aiguille Verte.
THE "SÉRACS" REVISITED. 1858.
On the 4th I rose early, and, strapping on my telescope, ascended to the
Montanvert, where I engaged a youth to accompany me up the glacier. The
heavens were clear and beautiful:—blue over the Aiguille du Dru, blue
over the Jorasse and Mont Mallet, deep blue over the pinnacles of
Charmoz, and the same splendid tint stretched grandly over the Col du
Géant and its Aiguille. No trace of condensation appeared till towards
eleven o'clock, when a little black balloon of cloud swung itself over
the Aiguilles Rouges. At one o'clock there were two large masses and a
little one between them; while higher up a white veil, almost too thin
to be visible, spread over a part of the heavens. At the zenith,
however, and south, north, and west, the blue seemed to deepen as the
day advanced. I visited the ice-wall at the Tacul, which seemed lower
than it was last year; the cascade of le Géant appeared also far less
imposing. Only in the early part of summer do we see the ice in its true
grandeur: its edges and surfaces are then sharp and clear, but
afterwards its nobler masses shrink under the influence of sun and air.
The séracs now appeared wasted and dirty, and not the sharp angular
ice-castles which rose so grandly when I first saw them. Thirteen men
had crossed the Col du Géant on the day previous, and left an ample
trace behind them. This I followed nearly to the summit of the fall. The
condition of the glacier was totally different from that of the opposite
side on the previous year. The ice was riven, burrowed, and honeycombed,
but the track amid all was easy: a vigorous English maiden might have
ascended the fall without much difficulty. My object now was to examine
the structure of the fall; but the ice was not in a good condition for
such an examination: it was too much broken. Still a definite structure
was in many places to be traced, and some of them apparently showed
structure and bedding at a high angle to each other, but I could not be
certain of it. I paused at every commanding point of view and examined
the ice through my opera-glass; but the result was inconclusive. I
observed that the terraces which compose the fall do not front the
middle of the glacier, but turn their foreheads rather towards its
eastern side, and the consequence is that the protuberances lower down,
which are the remains of these terraces, are highest at the same side.
Standing at the base of the Aiguille Noire, and looking downwards where
the Glacier des Périades pushes itself against the Géant, a series of
fine crumples is formed on the former, cut across by crevasses, on the
walls of which a forward and backward dipping of the blue veins is
exhibited. Huge crumples are also formed by the Glacier du Géant, which
are well seen from a point nearly opposite the lowest lateral moraine of
the Glacier des Périades. In some cases the upper portions of the
crumples had scaled off so as to form arches of ice—a consequence
doubtless of the pressure.
THERMOMETER AT THE JARDIN. 1858.
The beauty of some Alpine skies is treacherous; in fact the deepest blue
often indicates an atmosphere charged almost to saturation with aqueous
vapour. This was the case on the present occasion. Soon after reaching
Chamouni in the evening, rain commenced and continued with scarcely any
intermission until the afternoon of the 8th. I had given up all hopes of
being able to ascend Mont Blanc; and hence resolved to place the
thermometers in some more accessible position. On the 9th accordingly,
accompanied by Mr. Wills, Balmat, and some other friends, I ascended to
the summit of the Jardin, where we placed two thermometers: one in the
ice, at a depth of three feet below the surface; another on a ledge of
the highest rock.[B] The boiling point of water at this place was
194.6° Fahr.
Deep snow was upon the Talèfre, and the surrounding precipices were also
heavily laden. Avalanches thundered incessantly from the Aiguille Verte
and the other mountains. Scarcely five minutes on an average intervened
between every two successive peals; and after the direct shock of each
avalanche had died away the air of the basin continued to be shaken by
the echoes reflected from its bounding walls.
EVENING RED. 1858.
The day was far spent before we had completed our work. All through the
weather had been fine, and towards evening augmented to magnificence. As
we descended the glacier from the Couvercle the sun was just
disappearing, and the western heaven glowed with crimson, which crept
gradually up the sky until finally it reached the zenith itself. Such
intensity of colouring is exceedingly rare in the Alps; and this fact,
together with the known variations in the intensity of the firmamental
blue, justify the conclusion that the colouring must, in a great
measure, be due to some variable constituent of the atmosphere. If
the air were competent to produce these magnificent effects they would
be the rule instead of the exception.
FINISHED WORK. 1858.
No sooner had the thermometers been thus disposed of than the weather
appeared to undergo a permanent change. On the 10th it was perfectly
fine—not the slightest mist upon Mont Blanc; on the 11th this was also
the case. Balmat still had the old thermometer to which I have already
referred; it might not do to show the minimum temperature of the air,
but it might show the temperature at a certain depth below the surface.
I find in my own case that the finishing of work has a great moral
value: work completed is a safe fulcrum for the performance of other
work; and even though in the course of our labours experience should
show us a better means of accomplishing a given end, it is often far
preferable to reach the end, even by defective means, than to swerve
from our course. The habits which this conviction had superinduced no
doubt influenced me when I decided on placing Balmat's thermometer on
the summit of Mont Blanc.
SHADOWS OF THE AIGUILLES. 1858.
On the 12th of September, at 51/2 a.m. the sunbeams had already fallen
upon the mountain; but though the sky above him, and over the entire
range of the Aiguilles, was without a cloud, the atmosphere presented an
appearance of turbidity resembling that produced by the dust and thin
smoke mechanically suspended in a London atmosphere on a dry summer's
day. At 20 minutes past 7 we quitted Chamouni, bearing with us the good
wishes of a portion of its inhabitants.
INTERFERENCE-SPECTRA. 1858.
A lady accompanied us on horseback to the point where the path to the
Grands Mulets deviates from that to the Plan des Aiguilles; here she
turned to the left, and we proceeded slowly upwards, through woods of
pine, hung with fantastic lichens: escaping from the gloom of these, we
emerged upon slopes of bosky underwood, green hazel, and green larch,
with the red berries of the mountain-ash shining brightly between them.
Through the air above us, like gnomons of a vast sundial, the Aiguilles
cast their fanlike shadows, which moved round as the day advanced.
Slopes of rhododendrons with withered flowers next succeeded, but the
colouring of the bilberry-leaves was scarcely less exquisite than the
freshest bloom of the Alpine rose. For a long time we were in the cool
shadow of the mountain, catching, at intervals, through the twigs in
front of us, glimpses of the sun surrounded by coloured spectra. On one
occasion a brow rose in front of me; behind it was a lustrous space of
heaven, adjacent to the sun, which, however, was hidden behind the brow;
against this space the twigs and weeds upon the summit of the brow shone
as if they were self-luminous, while some bits of thistle-down floating
in the air appeared, where they crossed this portion of the heavens,
like fragments of the sun himself. Once the orb appeared behind a
rounded mass of snow which lay near the summit of the Aiguille du Midi.
Looked at with the naked eyes, it seemed to possess a billowy motion,
the light darting from it in dazzling curves,—a subjective effect
produced by the abnormal action of the intense light upon the eye. As
the sun's disk came more into view, its rays however still grazing the
summit of the mountain, interference-spectra darted from it on all
sides, and surrounded it with a glory of richly-coloured bars. Mingling
however with the grandeur of nature, we had the anger and obstinacy of
man. With a view to subsequent legal proceedings, the Guide Chef sent a
spy after us, who, having satisfied himself of our delinquency, took his
unpleasant presence from the splendid scene.
Strange to say, though the luminous appearance of bodies projected
against the sky adjacent to the rising sun is a most striking and
beautiful phenomenon, it is hardly ever seen by either guides or
travellers; probably because they avoid looking towards a sky the
brightness of which is painful to the eyes. In 1859 Auguste Balmat had
never seen the effect; and the only written description of it which we
possess is one furnished by Professor Necker, in a letter to Sir David
Brewster, which is so interesting that I do not hesitate to reproduce it
here:—
PROFESSOR NECKER'S LETTER. 1858.
"I now come to the point," writes M. Necker, "which you particularly
wished me to describe to you; I mean the luminous appearance of trees,
shrubs, and birds, when seen from the foot of a mountain a little before
sunrise. The wish I had to see again the phenomenon before attempting to
describe it made me detain this letter a few days, till I had a fine day
to go to see it at the Mont Salève; so yesterday I went there, and
studied the fact, and in elucidation of it I made a little drawing, of
which I give you here a copy: it will, with the explanation and the
annexed diagram (Fig. 9), impart to you, I hope, a correct idea of the
phenomenon. You must conceive the observer placed at the foot of a hill
interposed between him and the place where the sun is rising, and thus
entirely in the shade; the upper margin of the mountain is covered with
woods or detached trees and shrubs, which are projected as dark objects
on a very bright and clear sky, except at the very place where the sun
is just going to rise, for there all the trees and shrubs bordering the
margin are entirely,—branches, leaves, stem and all,—of a pure and
brilliant white, appearing extremely bright and luminous, although
projected on a most brilliant and luminous sky, as that part of it which
surrounds the sun always is. All the minutest details, leaves, twigs,
&c., are most delicately preserved, and you would fancy you saw these
trees and forests made of the purest silver, with all the skill of the
most expert workman. The swallows and other birds flying in those
particular spots appear like sparks of the most brilliant white.
Unfortunately, all these details, which add so much to the beauty of
this splendid phenomenon, cannot be represented in such small sketches.
Fig. 9. Luminous Trees projected against the sky at
sunrise.
"Neither the hour of the day nor the angle which the object makes with
the observer appears to have any effect; for on some occasions I have
seen the phenomenon take place at a very early hour in the morning.
Yesterday it was 10 a.m., when I saw it as represented in Fig. 10. I saw
it again on the same day at 5 p.m., at a different place of the same
mountain, for which the sun was just setting. At one time the angle of
elevation of the lighted white shrubs above the horizon of the spectator
was about 20°, while at another place it was only 15°. But the extent of
the field of illumination is variable, according to the distance at
which the spectator is placed from it. When the object behind which the
sun is just going to rise, or has just been setting, is very near, no
such effect takes place. In the case represented in Fig. 9 the distance
was about 194 mètres, or 636 English feet, from the spectator in a
direct line, the height above his level being 60 mètres, or 197 English
feet, and the horizontal line drawn from him to the horizontal
projection of these points on the plane of his horizon being 160 mètres,
or 525 English feet, as will be seen in the following diagram, Fig. 10.
SILVER TREES AT SUNRISE. 1858.
Fig. 10. Luminous Trees projected against the sky at
sunrise.
"In this case only small shrubs and the lower half of the stem of a tree
are illuminated white, and the horizontal extent of this effect is also
comparatively small; while at other places when I was near the edge
behind which the sun was going to rise no such effect took place. But on
the contrary, when I have witnessed the phenomenon at a greater distance
and at a greater height, as I have seen it other times on the same and
on other mountains of the Alps, large tracts of forests and immense
spruce-firs were illuminated white throughout their whole length, as I
have attempted to represent in Fig. 11, and the corresponding diagram,
Fig. 12.
BIRDS AS SPARKS OR STARS. 1858.
Nothing can be finer than these silver-looking spruce-forests.
At the same time, though at a distance of more than a thousand mètres, a
vast number of large swallows or swifts (Cypselus alpinus), which
inhabit these high rocks, were seen as small brilliant stars or sparks
moving rapidly in the air. From these facts it appears to me obvious
that the extent of the illuminated spots varies in a direct ratio of
their distance; but at the same time that there must be a constant
angular space, corresponding probably to the zone, a few minutes of a
degree wide, around the sun's disk, which is a limit to the occurrence
of the appearance. This would explain how the real extent which it
occupies on the earth's surface varies with the relative distance of the
spot from the eye of the observer, and accounts also for the phenomenon
being never seen in the low country, where I have often looked for it in
vain. Now that you are acquainted with the circumstances of the fact, I
have no doubt you will easily observe it in some part or other of your
Scotch hills; it may be some long heather or furze will play the part
of our Alpine forests, and I would advise you to try and place a
bee-hive in the required position, and it would perfectly represent our
swallows, sparks, and stars."
Fig. 11. Luminous Trees projected against the sky at
sunrise.
Fig. 12. Luminous Trees projected against the sky at
sunrise.
THE LADDER CONDEMNED. 1858.
Our porters, with one exception, reached the Pierre à l'Echelle as soon
as ourselves; and here having refreshed themselves, and the due exchange
of loads having been made, we advanced upon the glacier, which we
crossed, until we came nearly opposite to the base of the Grands Mulets.
The existence of one wide crevasse, which was deemed impassable, had
this year introduced the practice of assailing the rocks at their base,
and climbing them to the cabin, an operation which Balmat wished to
avoid. At Chamouni, therefore, he had made inquiries regarding the width
of the chasm, and acting on his advice I had had a ladder constructed in
two pieces, which, united together by iron attachments, was supposed to
be of sufficient length to span the fissure. On reaching the latter, the
pieces were united, and the ladder thrown across, but the bridge was so
frail and shaky at the place of junction, and the chasm so deep, that
Balmat pronounced the passage impracticable.
CROSSING CREVASSES. 1858.
The porters were all grouped beside the crevasse when this announcement
was made, and, like hounds in search of the scent, the group instantly
broke up, seeking in all directions for a means of passage. The talk was
incessant and animating; attention was now called in one direction, anon
in another, the men meanwhile throwing themselves into the most
picturesque groups and attitudes. All eyes at length were directed upon
a fissure which was spanned at one point by an arch of snow, certainly
under two feet deep at the crown. A stout rope was tied round the waist
of one of our porters, and he was sent forward to test the bridge. He
approached it cautiously, treading down the snow to give it compactness,
and thus make his footing sure as he advanced; bringing regelation into
play, he gave the mass the necessary continuity, and crossed in safety.
The rope was subsequently stretched over the pont, and each of us
causing his right hand to slide along it, followed without accident.
Soon afterwards, however, we met with a second and very formidable
crevasse, to cross which we had but half of our ladder, which was
applied as follows:—The side of the fissure on which we stood was lower
than the opposite one; over the edge of the latter projected a cornice
of snow, and a ledge of the same material jutted from the wall of the
crevasse, a little below us. The ladder was placed from ledge to
cornice, both of its ends being supported by snow. I could hardly
believe that so frail a bearing could possibly support a man's weight;
but a porter was tied as before, and sent up the ladder, while we
followed protected by the rope. We were afterwards tied together, and
thus advanced in an orderly line to the Grands Mulets.
GORGEOUS SUNSET. 1858.
The cabin was wet and disagreeable, but the sunbeams fell upon the brown
rocks outside, and thither Mr. Wills and myself repaired to watch the
changes of the atmosphere. I took possession of the flat summit of a
prism of rock, where, lying upon my back, I watched the clouds forming,
and melting, and massing themselves together, and tearing themselves
like wool asunder in the air above. It was nature's language addressed
to the intellect; these clouds were visible symbols which enabled us to
understand what was going on in the invisible air. Here unseen currents
met, possessing different temperatures, mixing their contents both of
humidity and motion, producing a mean temperature unable to hold their
moisture in a state of vapour. The water-particles, obeying their mutual
attractions, closed up, and a visible cloud suddenly shook itself out,
where a moment before we had the pure blue of heaven. Some of the clouds
were wafted by the air towards atmospheric regions already saturated
with moisture, and along their frontal borders new cloudlets ever piled
themselves, while the hinder portions, invaded by a drier or a warmer
air, were dissipated; thus the cloud advanced, with gain in front and
loss behind, its permanence depending on the balance between them. The
day waned, and the sunbeams began to assume the colouring due to their
passage through the horizontal air. The glorious light, ever deepening
in colour, was poured bounteously over crags, and snows, and clouds, and
suffused with gold and crimson the atmosphere itself. I had never seen
anything grander than the sunset on that day. Clouds with their central
portions densely black, denying all passage to the beams which smote
them, floated westward, while the fiery fringes which bordered them were
rendered doubly vivid by contrast with the adjacent gloom. The smaller
and more attenuated clouds were intensely illuminated throughout. Across
other inky masses were drawn zigzag bars of radiance which resembled
streaks of lightning. The firmament between the clouds faded from a
blood-red through orange and daffodil into an exquisite green, which
spread like a sea of glory through which those magnificent argosies
slowly sailed. Some of the clouds were drawn in straight chords across
the arch of heaven, these being doubtless the sections of layers of
cloud whose horizontal dimensions were hidden from us. The cumuli around
and near the sun himself could not be gazed upon, until, as the day
declined, they gradually lost their effulgence and became tolerable to
the eyes. All was calm—but there was a wildness in the sky like that of
anger, which boded evil passions on the part of the atmosphere. The sun
at length sank behind the hills, but for some time afterwards carmine
clouds swung themselves on high, and cast their ruddy hues upon the
mountain snows. Duskier and colder waxed the west, colder and sharper
the breeze of evening upon the Grands Mulets, and as twilight deepened
towards night, and the stars commenced to twinkle through the chilled
air, we retired from the scene.
STORM ON THE GRANDS MULETS. 1858.
The anticipated storm at length gave notice of its coming. The
sea-waves, as observed by Aristotle, sometimes reach the shore before
the wind which produces them is felt; and here the tempest sent out its
precursors, which broke in detached shocks upon the cabin before the
real storm arrived. Billows of air, in ever quicker succession, rolled
over us with a long surging sound, rising and falling as crest succeeded
trough and trough succeeded crest. And as the pulses of a vibrating
body, when their succession is quick enough, blend to a continuous note,
so these fitful gusts linked themselves finally to a storm which made
its own wild music among the crags. Grandly it swelled, carrying the
imagination out of doors, to the clouds and darkness, to the loosened
avalanches and whirling snow upon the mountain heads. Moored to the rock
on two sides, the cabin stood firm, and its manifest security allowed
the mind the undisturbed enjoyment of the atmospheric war. We were
powerfully shaken, but had no fear of being uprooted; and a certain
grandeur of the heart rose responsive to the grandeur of the storm.
Mounting higher and higher, it at length reached its maximum strength,
from which it lowered fitfully, until at length, with a melancholy wail,
it bade our rock farewell.
A little before half-past one we issued from the cabin. The night being
without a moon, we carried three lanterns. The heavens were crowded with
stars, among which, however, angry masses of cloud here and there still
wandered. The storm, too, had left a rear-guard behind it; and strong
gusts rolled down upon us at intervals, at one time, indeed, so violent
as to cause Balmat to express doubts of our being able to reach the
summit. With a thick handkerchief bound around my hat and ears I enjoyed
the onset of the wind. Once, turning my head to the left, I saw what
appeared to me to be a huge mass of stratus cloud, at a great distance,
with the stars shining over it. In another instant a precipice of névé
loomed upon us; we were close to its base, and along its front the
annual layers were separated from each other by broad dark bands.
Through the gloom it appeared like a cloud, the lines of bedding giving
to it the stratus character.
A COMET DISCOVERED. 1858.
Immediately before lying down on the previous evening I had opened the
little window of the cabin to admit some air. In the sky in front of me
shone a curious nodule of misty light with a pale train attached to it.
In 1853, on the side of the Brocken, I had observed, without previous
notice, a comet discovered a few days previously by a former fellow
student, and here was another "discovery" of the same kind. I inspected
the stranger with my telescope, and assured myself that it was a comet.
Mr. Wills chanced to be outside at the time, and made the same
observation independently. As we now advanced up the mountain its
ominous light gleamed behind us, while high up in heaven to our left the
planet Jupiter burned like a lamp of intense brightness. The Petit
Plateau forms a kind of reservoir for the avalanches of the Dôme du
Goûter, and this year the accumulation of frozen débris upon it was
enormous. We could see nothing but the ice-blocks on which the light of
the lanterns immediately fell; we only knew that they had been
discharged from the séracs, and that similar masses now rose threatening
to our right, and might at any moment leap down upon us. Balmat
commanded silence, and urged us to move across the plateau with all
possible celerity. The warning of our guide, the wild and rakish
appearance of the sky, the spent projectiles at our feet, and the comet
with its "horrid hair" behind, formed a combination eminently calculated
to excite the imagination.
DAWN ON THE GRAND PLATEAU. 1858.
And now the sky began to brighten towards dawn, with that deep and calm
beauty which suggests the thought of adoration to the human mind. Helped
by the contemplation of the brightening east, which seemed to lend
lightness to our muscles, we cheerily breasted the steep slope up to the
Grand Plateau. The snow here was deep, and each of our porters took the
lead in turn. We paused upon the Grand Plateau and had breakfast;
digging, while we halted, our feet deeply into the snow. Thence up to
the corridor, by a totally different route from that pursued by Mr.
Hirst and myself the year previously; the slope was steep, but it had
not a precipice for its boundary. Deep steps were necessary for a time,
but when we reached the summit our ascent became more gentle. The
eastern sky continued to brighten, and by its illumination the Grand
Plateau and its bounding heights were lovely beyond conception. The snow
was of the purest white, and the glacier, as it pushed itself on all
sides into the basin, was riven by fissures filled with a cœrulean
light, which deepened to inky gloom as the vision descended into them.
The edges were overhung with fretted cornices, from which depended long
clear icicles, tapering from their abutments like spears of crystal. The
distant fissures, across which the vision ranged obliquely without
descending into them, emitted that magical firmamental shimmer which,
contrasted with the pure white of the snow, was inexpressibly lovely.
Near to us also grand castles of ice reared themselves, some erect, some
overturned, with clear cut sides, striped by the courses of the annual
snows, while high above the séracs of the plateau rose their still
grander brothers of the Dôme du Goûter. There was a nobility in this
glacier scene which I think I have never seen surpassed;—a strength of
nature, and yet a tenderness, which at once raised and purified the
soul. The gush of the direct sunlight could add nothing to this heavenly
beauty; indeed I thought its yellow beams a profanation as they crept
down from the humps of the Dromedary, and invaded more and more the
solemn purity of the realm below.
BALMAT IN DANGER. 1858.
Our way lay for a time amid fine fissures with blue walls, until at
length we reached the edge of one which elicited other sentiments than
those of admiration. It must be crossed. At the opposite side was a high
and steep bank of ice which prolonged itself downwards, and ended in a
dependent eave of snow which quite overhung the chasm, and reached to
within about a yard of our edge of the crevasse. Balmat came forward
with his axe, and tried to get a footing on the eave: he beat it gently,
but the axe went through the snow, forming an aperture through which the
darkness of the chasm was rendered visible. Our guide was quite free,
without rope or any other means of security; he beat down the snow so as
to form a kind of stirrup, and upon this he stepped. The stirrup gave
way, it was right over the centre of the chasm, but with wonderful tact
and coolness he contrived to get sufficient purchase from the yielding
mass to toss himself back to the side of the chasm. The rope was now
brought forward and tied round the waist of one of the porters; another
step was cautiously made in the eave of snow, the man was helped across,
and lessened his own weight by means of his hatchet. He gradually got
footing on the face of the steep, which he mounted by escaliers; and on
reaching a sufficient height he cut two large steps in which his feet
might rest securely. Here he laid his breast against the sloping wall,
and another person was sent forward, who drew himself up by the rope
which was attached to the leader. Thus we all passed, each of us in turn
bearing the strain of his successor upon the rope; it was our last
difficulty, and we afterwards slowly plodded through the snow of the
corridor towards the base of the Mur de la Côte.
STORM ON MONT BLANC. 1858.
Climbing zigzag, we soon reached the summit of the Mur, and immediately
afterwards found ourselves in the midst of cold drifting clouds, which
obscured everything. They dissolved for a moment and revealed to us the
sunny valley of Chamouni; but they soon swept down again and completely
enveloped us. Upon the Calotte, or last slope, I felt no trace of the
exhaustion which I had experienced last year, but enjoyed free lungs and
a quiet heart. The clouds now whirled wildly round us, and the fine
snow, which was caught by the wind and spit bitterly against us, cut off
all visible communication between us and the lower world. As we
approached the summit the air thickened more and more, and the cold,
resulting from the withdrawal of the sunbeams, became intense. We
reached the top, however, in good condition, and found the new snow
piled up into a sharp arête, and the summit of a form quite different
from that of the Dos d'un Ane, which it had presented the previous
year. Leaving Balmat to make a hole for the thermometer, I collected a
number of bâtons, drove them into the snow, and, drawing my plaid round
them, formed a kind of extempore tent to shelter my boiling-water
apparatus. The covering was tightly held, but the snow was as fine and
dry as dust, and penetrated everywhere: my lamp could not be secured
from it, and half a box of matches was consumed in the effort to ignite
it. At length it did flame up, and carried on a sputtering combustion.
The cold of the snow-filled boiler condensing the vapour from the lamp
gradually produced a drop, which, when heavy enough to detach itself
from the vessel, fell upon the flame and put it out. It required much
patience and the expenditure of many matches to relight it. Meanwhile
the absence of muscular action caused the cold to affect our men
severely. My beard and whiskers were a mass of clotted ice. The bâtons
were coated with ice, and even the stem of my thermometer, the bulb of
which was in hot water, was covered by a frozen enamel. The clouds
whirled, and the little snow granules hit spitefully against the skin
wherever it was exposed. The temperature of the air was 20° Fahr. below
the freezing point. I was too intent upon my work to heed the cold much,
but I was numbed; one of my fingers had lost sensation, and my right
heel was in pain: still I had no thought of forsaking my observation
until Mr. Wills came to me and said that we must return speedily, for
Balmat's hands were gelées. I did not comprehend the full significance
of the word; but, looking at the porters, they presented such an aspect
of suffering that I feared to detain them longer. They looked like worn
old men, their hair and clothing white with snow, and their faces blue,
withered, and anxious-looking.
THERMOMETER BURIED. 1858.
The hole being ready, I asked Balmat for
the magnet to arrange the index of the thermometer: his hands seemed
powerless. I struck my tent, deposited the instrument, and, as I watched
the covering of it up, some of the party, among whom were Mr. Wills and
Balmat, commenced the descent.[A]
BALMAT FROSTBITTEN. 1858.
I followed them speedily. Midway down the Calotte I saw Balmat, who was
about a hundred yards in advance of me, suddenly pause and thrust his
hands into the snow, and commence rubbing them vigorously. The
suddenness of the act surprised me, but I had no idea at the time of its
real significance: I soon came up to him; he seemed frightened, and
continued to beat and rub his hands, plunging them, at quick intervals,
into the snow. Still I thought the thing would speedily pass away, for
I had too much faith in the man's experience to suppose that he would
permit himself to be seriously injured. But it did not pass as I hoped
it would, and the terrible possibility of his losing his hands presented
itself to me. He at length became exhausted by his own efforts,
staggered like a drunken man, and fell upon the snow. Mr. Wills and
myself took each a hand, and continued the process of beating and
rubbing. I feared that we should injure him by our blows, but he
continued to exclaim, "N'ayez pas peur, frappez toujours, frappez
fortement!" We did so, until Mr. Wills became exhausted, and a porter
had to take his place. Meanwhile Balmat pinched and bit his fingers at
intervals, to test their condition; but there was no sensation. He was
evidently hopeless himself; and, seeing him thus, produced an effect
upon me that I had not experienced since my boyhood—my heart swelled,
and I could have wept like a child. The idea that I should be in some
measure the cause of his losing his hands was horrible to me; schemes
for his support rushed through my mind with the usual swiftness of such
speculations, but no scheme could restore to him his lost hands. At
length returning sensation in one hand announced itself by excruciating
pain. "Je souffre!" he exclaimed at intervals—words which, from a man
of his iron endurance, had a more than ordinary significance. But pain
was better than death, and, under the circumstances, a sign of
improvement. We resumed our descent, while he continued to rub his hands
with snow and brandy, thrusting them at every few paces into the mass
through which we marched. At Chamouni he had skilful medical advice, by
adhering to which he escaped with the loss of six of his nails—his
hands were saved.
I cannot close this recital without expressing my admiration of the
dauntless bearing of our porters, and of the cheerful and efficient
manner in which they did their duty throughout the whole expedition.
Their names are Edouard Bellin, Joseph Favret, Michel Payot, Joseph
Folliguet, and Alexandre Balmat.
PROCÈS-VERBAL. 1858.
The hostility of the chief guide to the expedition was not diminished by
the letter of the Intendant; and he at once entered a procès-verbal
against Balmat and his companions on their return to Chamouni. I felt
that the power thus vested in an unlettered man to arrest the progress
of scientific observations was so anomalous, that the enlightened and
liberal Government of Sardinia would never tolerate such a state of
things if properly represented to it. The British Association met at
Leeds that year, and to it, as a guardian of science, my thoughts
turned. I accordingly laid the case before the Association, and obtained
its support: a resolution was unanimously passed "that application be
made to the Sardinian authorities for increased facilities for making
scientific observations in the Alps."
Considering the arduous work which Balmat had performed in former years
in connexion with the glaciers, and especially his zeal in determining,
under the direction of Professor Forbes, their winter motion—for which,
as in the case above recorded, he refused all personal remuneration—I
thought such services worthy of some recognition on the part of the
Royal Society. I suggested this to the Council, and was met by the same
cordial spirit of co-operation which I had previously experienced at
Leeds. A sum of five-and-twenty guineas was at once voted for the
purchase of a suitable testimonial; and a committee, consisting of Sir
Roderick Murchison, Professor Forbes, and myself, was appointed to
carry the thing out. Balmat was consulted, and he chose a photographic
apparatus, which, with a suitable inscription, was duly presented to
him.
BRITISH ASSOCIATION. 1858.
Thus fortified, I drew up an account of what had occurred at Chamouni
during my last visit, accompanied by a brief statement of the changes
which seemed desirable. This was placed in the hands of the President of
the British Association, to whose prompt and powerful co-operation in
this matter every Alpine explorer who aspires to higher ground than
ordinary is deeply indebted. The following letter assured me that the
facility applied for by the British Association would be granted by the
Sardinian Government, and that future men of science would find in the
Alps a less embarrassed field of operations than had fallen to my lot in
the summer of 1858.
THE PRESIDENT'S LETTER. 1858.
"12, Hertford-street, Mayfair, W.,
"February 18th, 1859.
"My dear Sir,—
"Having, as I informed you in my last note, communicated with
the Sardinian Minister Plenipotentiary the day after receiving
your statement relative to the guides at Chamouni, I have been
favoured by replies from the Minister, of the 4th and 17th
February. In the first the Marquis d'Azeglio assures me that he
will bring the subject before the competent authorities at
Turin, accompanying the transmission 'd'une récommandation
toute spéciale.' In the second letter the Marquis informs me
that 'the preparation of new regulations for the guides at
Chamouni had for some time occupied the attention of the
Minister of the Interior, and that these regulations will be in
rigorous operation, in all probability, at the commencement of
the approaching summer.' The Marquis adds that, 'as the
regulations will be based upon a principle of much greater
liberty, he has every reason to believe that they will satisfy
all the desires of travellers in the interests of science.'
"With much pleasure at the opportunity of having been in any
degree able to bring about the fulfilment of your wishes on the
subject,
"I remain, my dear Sir,
"Faithfully yours,
"Richard Owen.
"Pres. Brit. Association.
It ought to be stated that, previous to my arrival at Chamouni in 1858,
an extremely cogent memorial drawn up by Mr. John Ball had been
presented to the Marquis d'Azeglio by a deputation from the Alpine Club.
It was probably this memorial which first directed the attention of the
Sardinian Minister of the Interior to the subject.
Having ten days at my disposal last Christmas, I was anxious to employ
them in making myself acquainted with the winter aspects and phenomena
of the Mer de Glace. On Wednesday, the 21st of December, I accordingly
took my place to Paris, but on arriving at Folkestone found the sea so
tempestuous that no boat would venture out.
FIRST DEFEAT, AND FRESH ATTEMPT. 1859.
The loss of a single day was more than I could afford, and this failure
really involved the loss of two. Seeing, therefore, the prospect of any
practical success so small, I returned to London, purposing to give the
expedition up. On the following day, however, the weather lightened, and
I started again, reaching Paris on Friday morning. On that day it was
not possible to proceed beyond Macon, where, accordingly, I spent the
night, and on the following day reached Geneva.
Much snow had fallen; at Paris it still cumbered the streets, and round
about Macon it lay thick, as if a more than usually heavy cloud had
discharged itself on that portion of the country. Between Macon and
Roussillon it was lighter, but from the latter station onwards the
quantity upon the ground gradually increased.
GENEVA TO CHAMOUNI. 1859.
On Christmas morning, at 8 o'clock, I left Geneva by the diligence for
Sallenches. The dawn was dull, but the sky cleared as the day advanced,
and finally a dome of cloudless blue stretched overhead. The mountains
were grand; their sunward portions of dazzling whiteness, while the
shaded sides, in contrast with the blue sky behind them, presented a
ruddy, subjective tint. The brightness of the day reached its maximum
towards one o'clock, after which a milkiness slowly stole over the
heavens, and increased in density until finally a drowsy turbidity
filled the entire air. The distant peaks gradually blended with the
white atmosphere above them and lost their definition. The black pine
forests on the slopes of the mountains stood out in strong contrast to
the snow; and, when looked at through the spaces enclosed by the tree
branches at either side of the road, they appeared of a decided
indigo-blue. It was only when thus detached by a vista in front that the
blue colour was well seen, the air itself between the eye and the
distant pines being the seat of the colour. Goethe would have regarded
it as an excellent illustration of his 'Farbenlehre.'
We reached Sallenches a little after 4 p.m., where I endeavoured to
obtain a sledge to continue my journey. A fit one was not to be found,
and a carriage was therefore the only resort. We started at five; it was
very dark, but the feeble reflex of the snow on each side of the road
was preferred by the postilion to the light of lamps. Unlike the
enviable ostrich, I cannot shut my eyes to danger when it is near: and
as the carriage swayed towards the precipitous road side, I could not
fold myself up, as it was intended I should, but, quitting the interior
and divesting my limbs of every encumbrance, I took my seat beside the
driver, and kept myself in readiness for the spring, which in some cases
appeared imminent. My companion however was young, strong, and
keen-eyed; and though we often had occasion for the exercise of the
quality last mentioned, we reached Servoz without accident.
DESOLATION. 1859.
Here we baited, and our progress afterwards was slow and difficult. The
snow on the road was deep and hummocky, and the strain upon the horses
very great. Having crossed the Arve at the Pont-Pelissier, we both
alighted, and I went on in advance. The air was warm, and not a whisper
disturbed its perfect repose. There was no moon, and the heavy clouds,
which now quite overspread the heavens, cut off even the feeble light of
the stars. The sound of the Arve, as it rushed through the deep valley
to my left, came up to me through crags and trees with a sad murmur.
Sometimes on passing an obstacle, the sound was entirely cut off, and
the consequent silence was solemn in the extreme. It was a churchyard
stillness, and the tall black pines, which at intervals cast their
superadded gloom upon the road, seemed like the hearse-plumes of a dead
world. I reached a wooden hut, where a lame man offers bâtons, minerals,
and eau de vie, to travellers in summer. It was forsaken, and half
buried in the snow. I leaned against the door, and enjoyed for a time
the sternness of the surrounding scene. My conveyance was far behind,
and the intermittent tinkle of the horses' bells, which augmented
instead of diminishing the sense of solitude, informed me of the
progress and the pauses of the vehicle. At the summit of the road I
halted until my companion reached me; we then both remounted, and
proceeded slowly towards Les Ouches. We passed some houses, the aspect
of which was even more dismal than that of Nature; their roofs were
loaded with snow, and white buttresses were reared against the walls.
There was no sound, no light, no voice of joy to indicate that it was
the pleasant Christmas time. We once met the pioneer of a party of four
drunken peasants: he came right against us, and the coachman had to pull
up. Planting his feet in the snow and propping himself against the
leader's shoulder, the bacchanal exhorted the postilion to drive on; the
latter took him at his word, and overturned him in the snow. After this
we encountered no living thing. The horses seemed seized by a kind of
torpor, and leaned listlessly against each other; vainly the postilion
endeavoured to rouse them by word and whip; they sometimes essayed to
trot down the slopes, but immediately subsided to their former
monotonous crawl. As we ascended the valley, the stillness of the air
was broken at intervals by wild storm-gusts, sent down against us from
Mont Blanc himself. These chilled me, so I quitted the carriage, and
walked on. Not far from Chamouni, the road, for some distance, had been
exposed to the full action of the wind, and the snow had practically
erased it. Its left wall was completely covered, while a few detached
stones, rising here and there above the surface, were the only
indications of the presence and direction of the right-hand wall. I
could not see the state of the surface, but I learned by other means
that the snow had been heaped in oblique ridges across my path. I
staggered over four or five of these in succession, sinking knee-deep,
and finally found myself immersed to the waist. This made me pause; I
thought I must have lost the road, and vainly endeavoured to check
myself by the positions of surrounding objects.
A HORSE IN THE SNOW. 1859.
I turned back and met
the carriage: it had stuck in one of the ridges; one horse was down, his
hind legs buried to the haunches, his left fore leg plunged to the
shoulder in snow, and the right one thrown forward upon the surface.
C'est bien la route? demanded my companion. I went back exploring, and
assured myself that we were over the road; but I recommended him to
release the horses and leave the carriage to its fate. He, however,
succeeding in extricating the leader, and while I went on in advance
seeking out the firmer portions of the road, he followed, holding his
horses by their heads; and half an hour's struggle of this kind brought
us to Chamouni.
CHAMOUNI ON CHRISTMAS NIGHT. 1859.
It also was a little "city of the dead." There was no living thing in
the streets, and neither sound nor light in the houses. The fountain
made a melancholy gurgle, one or two loosened window-shutters creaked
harshly in the wind, and banged against the objects which limited their
oscillations. The Hôtel de l'Union, so bright and gay in summer, was
nailed up and forsaken; and the cross in front of it, stretching its
snow-laden arms into the dim air, was the type of desolation. We rang
the bell at the Hôtel Royal, but the bay of a watch-dog resounding
through the house was long our only reply. The bell appeared powerless
to wake the sleepers, and its sound mingled dismally with that of the
wind howling through the deserted passages. The noise of my boot-heel,
exerted long on the front door, was at length effective; it was
unbarred, and the physical heat of a good stove soon added itself to the
warmth of the welcome with which my hostess greeted me.
December 26th.—The snow fell heavily, at frequent intervals, throughout
the entire day. Dense clouds draped all the mountains, and there was not
the least prospect of my being able to see across the Mer de Glace. I
walked out alone in the dim light, and afterwards traversed the streets
before going to bed. They were quite forsaken. Cold and sullen the Arve
rolled under its wooden bridge, while the snow fell at intervals with
heavy shock from the roofs of the houses, the partial echoes from the
surfaces of the granules combining to render the sound loud and hollow.
Thus were the concerns of this little hamlet changed and fashioned by
the obliquity of the earth's axis, the chain of dependence which runs
throughout creation, linking the roll of a planet alike with the
interests of marmots and of men.
ASCENT OF THE MOUNTAIN. 1859.
Tuesday, 27th December.—I rose at six o'clock, having arranged with my
men to start at seven, if the weather at all permitted. Edouard Simond,
my old assistant of 1857, and Joseph Tairraz were the guides of the
party; the porters were Edouard Balmat, Joseph Simond (fils d'Auguste),
François Ravanal, and another. They came at the time appointed; it was
snowing heavily, and we agreed to wait till eight o'clock and then
decide. They returned at eight, and finding them disposed to try the
ascent to the Montanvert, it was not my place to baulk them. Through the
valley the work was easy, as the snow had been partially beaten down,
but we soon passed the habitable limits, and had to break ground for
ourselves. Three of my men had tried to reach the Montanvert by la
Filia on the previous Thursday, but their experience of the route had
been such as to deter them from trying it again. We now chose the
ordinary route, breasting the slope until we reached the cluster of
chalets, under the projecting eave of one of which the men halted and
applied "pattens" to their feet. These consisted of planks about sixteen
inches long and ten wide, which were firmly strapped to the feet. My
first impression was that they were worse than useless, for though they
sank less deeply than the unarmed feet, on being raised they carried
with them a larger amount of snow, which, with the leverage of the leg,
appeared to necessitate an enormous waste of force. I stated this
emphatically, but the men adhered to their pattens, and before I reached
the Montanvert I had reason to commend their practice as preferable to
my theory. I was however guided by the latter, and wore no pattens. The
general depth of the snow along the track was over three feet; the
footmarks of the men were usually rigid enough to bear my weight, but in
many cases I went through the crust which their pressure had produced,
and sank suddenly in the mass. The snow became softer as we ascended,
and my immersions more frequent, but the work was pure enjoyment, and
the scene one of extreme beauty.
SNOW ON THE PINES. 1859.
The previous night's snow had descended
through a perfectly still atmosphere, and had loaded all the branches of
the pines; the long arms of the trees drooped under the weight, and
presented at their extremities the appearance of enormous talons turned
downwards. Some of the smaller and thicker trees were almost entirely
covered, and assumed grotesque and beautiful forms; the upper part of
one in particular resembled a huge white parrot with folded wings and
drooping head, the slumber of the bird harmonizing with the torpor of
surrounding nature. I have given a sketch of it in Fig. 13.
Fig. 13. Snow on the Pines.
SOUND OF BREAKING SNOW. 1859.
Previous to reaching the half-way spring, where the peasant girls offer
strawberries to travellers in summer, we crossed two large couloirs
filled with the débris of avalanches which had fallen the night before.
Between these was a ridge forty or fifty yards wide on which the snow
was very deep, the slope of the mountain also adding a component to the
fair thickness of the snow. My shoulder grazed the top of the embankment
to my right as I crossed the ridge, and once or twice I found myself
waist deep in a vertical shaft from which it required a considerable
effort to escape. Suddenly we heard a deep sound resembling the dull
report of a distant gun, and at the same moment the snow above us broke
across, forming a fissure parallel to our line of march. The layer of
snow had been in a state of strain, which our crossing brought to a
crisis: it gave way, but having thus relieved itself it did not descend.
Several times during the ascent the same phenomenon occurred. Once,
while engaged upon a very steep slope, one of the men cried out to the
leader, "Arrêtez!" Immediately in front of the latter the snow had
given way, forming a zigzag fissure across the slope. We all paused,
expecting to see an avalanche descend. Tairraz was in front; he struck
the snow with his bâton to loosen it, but seeing it indisposed to
descend he advanced cautiously across it, and was followed by the
others. I brought up the rear. The steepness of the mountain side at
this place, and the absence of any object to which one might cling,
would have rendered a descent with the snow in the last degree perilous,
and we all felt more at ease when a safe footing was secured at the
further side of the incline.
At the spring, which showed a little water, the men paused to have a
morsel of bread. The wind had changed, the air was clearing, and our
hopes brightening. As we ascended the atmosphere went through some
extraordinary mutations. Clouds at first gathered round the Aiguille and
Dôme du Goûter, casting the lower slopes of the mountain into intense
gloom. After a little time all this cleared away, and the beams of the
sun striking detached pieces of the slopes and summits produced an
extraordinary effect. The Aiguille and Dôme were most singularly
illumined, and to the extreme left rose the white conical hump of the
Dromedary, from which a long streamer of snow-dust was carried southward
by the wind. The Aiguille du Dru, which had been completely mantled
during the earlier part of the day, now threw off its cloak of vapour
and rose in most solemn majesty before us; half of its granite cone was
warmly illuminated, and half in shadow. The wind was high in the upper
regions, and, catching the dry snow which rested on the asperities and
ledges of the Aiguille, shook it out like a vast banner in the air. The
changes of the atmosphere, and the grandeur which they by turns revealed
and concealed, deprived the ascent of all weariness. We were usually
flanked right and left by pines, but once between the fountain and the
Montanvert we had to cross a wide unsheltered portion of the mountain
which was quite covered with the snow of recent avalanches. This was
lumpy and far more coherent than the undisturbed snow. We took advantage
of this, and climbed zigzag over the avalanches for three-quarters of an
hour, thus reaching the opposite pines at a point considerably higher
than the path. This, though not the least dangerous, was the least
fatiguing part of the ascent.
COLOUR OF SNOW. 1859.
I frequently examined the colour of the snow: though fresh, its blue
tint was by no means so pronounced as I have seen it on other occasions;
still it was beautiful. The colour is, no doubt, due to the optical
reverberations which occur within a fissure or cavity formed in the
snow. The light is sent from side to side, each time plunging a little
way into the mass; and being ejected from it by reflection, it thus
undergoes a sifting process, and finally reaches the eye as blue light.
The presence of any object which cuts off this cross-fire of the light
destroys the colour. I made conical apertures in the snow, in some cases
three feet deep, a foot wide at the mouth, and tapering down to the
width of my bâton. When the latter was placed along the axis of such a
cone, the blue light which had previously filled the cavity disappeared;
on the withdrawal of the bâton it was followed by the light, and thus by
moving the staff up and down its motions were followed by the alternate
appearance and extinction of the light. I have said that the holes made
in the snow seemed filled with a blue light, and it certainly appeared
as if the air contained in the cavities had itself been coloured, and
thereby rendered visible, the vision plunging into it as into a blue
medium. Another fact is perhaps worth notice: snow rarely lies so smooth
as not to present little asperities at its surface; little ridges or
hillocks, with little hollows between them. Such small hollows resemble,
in some degree, the cavities which I made in the snow, and from them, in
the present instance, a delicate light was sent to the eye, faintly
tinted with the pure blue of the snow-crystals. In comparison with the
spots thus illuminated, the little protuberances were gray. The portions
most exposed to the light seemed least illuminated, and their defect in
this respect made them appear as if a light-brown dust had been strewn
over them.
THE MONTANVERT IN WINTER. 1859.
After five hours and a half of hard work we reached the Montanvert. I
had often seen it with pleasure. Often, having spent the day alone amid
the séracs of the Col du Géant, on turning the promontory of
Trélaporte on my way home, the sight of the little mansion has gladdened
me, and given me vigour to scamper down the glacier, knowing that
pleasant faces and wholesome fare were awaiting me. This day, also, the
sight of it was most welcome, despite its desolation. The wind had swept
round the auberge, and carried away its snow-buttresses, piling the mass
thus displaced against the adjacent sheds, to the roofs of which one
might step from the surface of the snow. The floor of the little château
in which I lodged in 1857 was covered with snow, and on it were the
fresh footmarks of a little animal—a marmot might have made such marks,
had not the marmots been all asleep—what the creature was I do not
know.
CRYSTAL CURTAIN. 1859.
In the application of her own principles, Nature often transcends the
human imagination; her acts are bolder than our predictions. It is thus
with the motion of glaciers; it was thus at the Montanvert on the day
now referred to. The floors, even where the windows appeared well
closed, were covered with a thin layer of fine snow; and some of the
mattresses in the bedrooms were coated to the depth of half an inch with
this fine powder. Given a chink through which the finest dust can pass,
dry snow appears competent to make its way through the same fissure. It
had also been beaten against the windows, and clung there like a ribbed
drapery. In one case an effect so singular was exhibited, that I doubted
my eyes when I first saw it. In front of a large pane of glass, and
quite detached from it, save at its upper edge, was a festooned curtain
formed entirely of minute ice-crystals. It appeared to be as fine as
muslin; the ease of its curves and the depth of its folds being such as
could not be excelled by the intentional arrangement of ordinary gauze.
The frost-figures on some of the window-panes were also of the most
extraordinary character: in some cases they extended over large spaces,
and presented the appearance which we often observe in London; but on
other panes they occurred in detached clusters, or in single flowers,
these grouping themselves together to form miniature bouquets of
inimitable beauty. I placed my warm hand against a pane which was
covered by the crystallization, and melted the frostwork which clung to
it. I then withdrew my hand and looked at the film of liquid through a
pocket-lens. The glass cooled by contact with the air, and after a time
the film commenced to move at one of its edges; atom closed with atom,
and the motion ran in living lines through the pellicle, until finally
the entire film presented the beauty and delicacy of an organism. The
connexion between such objects and what we are accustomed to call the
feelings may not be manifest, but it is nevertheless true that, besides
appealing to the pure intellect of man, these exquisite productions can
also gladden his heart and moisten his eyes.
THE MER DE GLACE IN WINTER. 1859.
The glacier excited the admiration of us all: not as in summer, shrunk
and sullied like a spent reptile, steaming under the influence of the
sun; its frozen muscles were compact, strength and beauty were
associated in its aspect. At some places it was pure and smooth; at
others frozen fins arose from it, high, steep, and sharply crested. Down
the opposite mountain side arrested streams set themselves erect in
successive terraces, the fronts of which were fluted pillars of ice.
There was no sound of water; even the Nant Blanc, which gushes from a
spring, and which some describe as permanent throughout the winter,
showed no trace of existence. From the Montanvert to Trélaporte the Mer
de Glace was all in shadow; but the sunbeams pouring down the corridor
of the Géant ruled a beam of light across the glacier at its upper
portion, smote the base of the Aiguille du Moine, and flooded the
mountain with glory to its crest. At the opposite side of the valley was
the Aiguille du Dru, with a banneret of snow streaming from its mighty
cone. The Grande Jorasse, and the range of summits between it and the
Aiguille du Géant, were all in view, and the Charmoz raised its
precipitous cliffs to the right, and pierced with its splinter-like
pinnacles the clear cold air. As the night drew on, the mountains seemed
to close in upon us; and on looking out before retiring to rest, a scene
so solemn had never before presented itself to my eyes or affected my
imagination.
THE FIRST NIGHT. 1859.
My men occupied the afternoon of the day of our arrival in making a
preliminary essay upon the glacier while I prepared my instruments. To
the person whom I intended to fix my stations, three others were
attached by sound ropes of considerable length. Hidden crevasses we
knew were to be encountered, and we had made due preparation for them.
Throughout the afternoon the weather remained fine, and at night the
stars shone out, but still with a feeble lustre. I could notice a
turbidity gathering in the air over the range of the Brévent, which
seemed disposed to extend itself towards us. At night I placed a chair
in the middle of the snow, at some distance from the house, and laid on
it a registering thermometer. A bountiful fire of pine logs was made in
the salle à manger; a mattress was placed with its foot towards the
fire, its middle line bisecting the right angle in which the fireplace
stood; this being found by experiment to be the position in which the
draughts from the door and from the windows most effectually neutralized
each other. In this region of calms I lay down, and covering myself with
blankets and duvets, listened to the crackling of the logs, and watched
their ruddy flicker upon the walls, until I fell asleep.
The wind rose during the night, and shook the windows: one pane in
particular seemed set in unison to the gusts, and responded to them by a
loud and melodious vibration. I rose and wedged it round with sous and
penny pieces, and thus quenched its untimely music.
December 28th.—We were up before the dawn. Tairraz put my fire in
order, and I then rose. The temperature of the room at a distance of
eight feet from the fire was two degrees of Centigrade below zero; the
lowest temperature outside was eleven degrees of Centigrade below
zero,—not at all an excessive cold. The clouds indeed had, during the
night, thrown vast diaphragms across the sky, and thus prevented the
escape of the earth's heat into space.
While my assistants were preparing breakfast I had time to inspect the
glacier and its bounding heights. On looking up the Mer de Glace, the
Grande Jorasse meets the view, rising in steep outline from the wall of
cliffs which terminates the Glacier de Léchaud. Behind this steep
ascending ridge, which is shown on the frontispiece, and upon it, a
series of clouds had ranged themselves, stretching lightly along the
ridge at some places, and at others collecting into ganglia. A string of
rosettes was thus formed which were connected together by gauzy
filaments. The portion of the heavens behind the ridge was near the
domain of the rising sun, and when he cleared the horizon his red light
fell upon the clouds, and ignited them to ruddy flames. Some of the
lighter clouds doubled round the summit of the mountain, and swathed its
black crags with a vestment of transparent red. The adjacent sky wore a
strange and supernatural air; indeed there was something in the whole
scene which baffled analysis, and the words of Tennyson rose to my lips
as I gazed upon it:—
A "ROSE OF DAWN." 1859.
"God made Himself an awful rose of dawn."
I have spoken several times of the cloud-flag which the wind wafted from
the summit of the Aiguille du Dru. On the present occasion this grand
banner reached extraordinary dimensions. It was brindled in some places
as if whipped into curds by the wind; but through these continuous
streamers were drawn, which were bent into sinuosities resembling a
waving flag at a mast-head. All this was now illuminated with the sun's
red rays, which also fringed with fire the exposed edges and pinnacles
both of the Aiguille du Dru and the Aiguille Verte. Thus rising out of
the shade of the valley the mountains burned like a pair of torches, the
flames of which were blown half a mile through the air. Soon afterwards
the summits of the Aiguilles Rouges were illuminated, and day declared
itself openly among the mountains.
THE STAKES FIXED. 1859.
But these red clouds of the morning, magnificent though they were,
suggested thoughts which tended to qualify the pleasure which they gave:
they did not indicate good weather. Sometimes, indeed, they had to fight
with denser masses, which often prevailed, swathing the mountains in
deep neutral tint, but which, again yielding, left the glory of the
sunrise augmented by contrast with their gloom. Between eight and nine
a.m. we commenced the setting out of our first line, one of whose
termini was a point about a hundred yards higher up than the Montanvert
hotel; a withered pine on the opposite mountain side marking the other
terminus. The stakes made use of were four feet long. With the selfsame
bâton which I had employed upon the Mer de Glace in 1857, and which
Simond had preserved, the worthy fellow now took up the line. At some
places the snow was very deep, but its lower portions were sufficiently
compact to allow of a stake being firmly fixed in it. At those places
where the wind had removed the snow or rendered it thin, the ice was
pierced with an auger and the stake driven into it. The greatest caution
was of course necessary on the part of the men; they were in the midst
of concealed crevasses, and sounding was essential at every step. By
degrees they withdrew from me, and approached the eastern boundary of
the glacier, where the ice was greatly dislocated, and the labour of
wading through the snow enormous. Long détours were sometimes necessary
to reach a required point; but they were all accomplished, and we at
length succeeded in fixing eleven stakes along this line, the most
distant of which was within about eighty yards of the opposite side of
the glacier.
STORM ON THE GLACIER. 1859.
The men returned, and I consulted them as to the possibility of getting
a line across at the Ponts; but this was judged to be impossible in
the time. We thought, however, that a second line might be staked out at
some distance below the Montanvert. I took the theodolite down the
mountain-slope, wading at times breast-deep in snow, and having
selected a line, the men tied themselves together as before, and
commenced the staking out. The work was slowly but steadily and
steadfastly done. The air darkened; angry clouds gathered around the
mountains, and at times the glacier was swept by wild squalls. The men
were sometimes hidden from me by the clouds of snow which enveloped
them, but between those intermittent gusts there were intervals of
repose, which enabled us to prosecute our work. This line was more
difficult than the first one; the glacier was broken into sharp-edged
chasms; the ridges to be climbed were steep, and the snow which filled
the depressions profound. The oblique arrangement of the crevasses also
magnified the labour by increasing the circuits. I saw the leader of the
party often shoulder-deep in snow, treading the soft mass as a swimmer
walks in water, and I felt a wish to be at his side to cheer him and to
share his toil. Each man there, however, knew my willingness to do this
if occasion required it, and wrought contented. At length the last stake
being fixed, the faces of the men were turned homeward. The evening
became wilder, and the storm rose at times to a hurricane. On the more
level portions of the glacier the snow lay deep and unsheltered; among
its frozen waves and upon its more dislocated portions it had been
partially engulfed, and the residue was more or less in shelter. Over
the former spaces dense clouds of snow rose, whirling in the air and
cutting off all view of the glacier. The whole length of the Mer de
Glace was thus divided into clear and cloudy segments, and presented an
aspect of wild and wonderful turmoil. A large pine stood near me, with
its lowest branch spread out upon the surface of the snow; on this
branch I seated myself, and, sheltered by the trunk, waited until I saw
my men in safety. The wind caught the branches of the trees, shook down
their loads of snow, and tossed it wildly in the air. Every mountain
gave a quota to the storm. The scene was one of most impressive
grandeur, and the moan of the adjacent pines chimed in noble harmony
with the picture which addressed the eyes.
At length we all found ourselves in safety within doors. The windows
shook violently. The tempest was however intermittent throughout, as if
at each effort it had exhausted itself, and required time to recover its
strength. As I heard its heralding roar in the gullies of the mountains,
and its subsequent onset against our habitation, I thought wistfully of
my stations, not knowing whether they would be able to retain their
positions in the face of such a blast. That night however, as if the
storm had sung our lullaby, we all slept profoundly, having arranged to
commence our measurements as early as light permitted on the following
day.
HEAVY SNOW. 1859.
Thursday, 29th December.—"Snow, heavy snow: it must have descended
throughout the entire night; the quantity freshly fallen is so great;
the atmosphere at seven o'clock is thick with the descending flakes." At
eight o'clock it cleared up a little, and I proceeded to my station,
while the men advanced upon the glacier; but I had scarcely fixed my
theodolite when the storm recommenced. I had a man to clear away the
snow and otherwise assist me; he procured an old door from the hotel,
and by rearing it upon its end sheltered the object-glass of the
instrument. Added to the flakes descending from the clouds was the
spitting snow-dust raised by the wind, which for a time so blinded me
that I was unable to see the glacier. The measurement of the first stake
was very tedious, but practice afterwards enabled me to take advantage
of the brief lulls and periods of partial clearness with which the storm
was interfused.
A MAN IN A CREVASSE. 1859.
At nine o'clock my telescope happened to be directed upon the men as
they struggled through the snow; all evidence of the deep track which
they had formed yesterday having been swept away. I saw the leader sink
and suddenly disappear. He had stood over a concealed fissure, the roof
of which had given way and he had dropped in. I observed a rapid
movement on the part of the remaining three men: they grouped themselves
beside the fissure, and in a moment the missing man was drawn from
between its jaws. His disappearance and reappearance were both
extraordinary. We had, as I have stated, provided for contingencies of
this kind, and the man's rescue was almost immediate.
SIX-RAYED CRYSTALS. 1859.
My attendant brought two poles from the hotel which we thrust obliquely
into the snow, causing the free ends to cross each other; over these a
blanket was thrown, behind which I sheltered myself from the storm as
the men proceeded from stake to stake. At 9.30 the storm was so thick
that I was unable to see the men at the stake which they had reached at
the time; the flakes sped wildly in their oblique course across the
field of the telescope. Some time afterwards the air became quite still,
and the snow underwent a wonderful change. Frozen flowers similar to
those I had observed on Monte Rosa fell in myriads. For a long time the
flakes were wholly composed of these exquisite blossoms entangled
together. On the surface of my woollen dress they were soft as down; the
snow itself on which they fell seemed covered by a layer of down; while
my coat was completely spangled with six-rayed stars. And thus prodigal
Nature rained down beauty, and had done so here for ages unseen by man.
And yet some flatter themselves with the idea that this world was
planned with strict reference to human use; that the lilies of the field
exist simply to appeal to the sense of the beautiful in man. True, this
result is secured, but it is one of a thousand all equally important in
the eyes of Nature. Whence those frozen blossoms? Why for æons wasted?
The question reminds one of the poet's answer when asked whence was the
Rhodora:—
"Why wert thou there, O rival of the rose?
I never thought to ask, I never knew;
But in my simple ignorance suppose
The selfsame power that brought me there brought you!"[A]
I sketched some of the crystals, but, instead of reproducing these
sketches, which were rough and hasty, I have annexed two of the forms
drawn with so much skill and patience by Mr. Glaisher.
Fig. 14. Snow Crystals.
Fig. 15. Snow Crystals.
We completed the measurement of the first line before eleven o'clock,
and I felt great satisfaction in the thought that I possessed something
of which the weather could not deprive me. As I closed my note-book and
shifted the instrument to the second station, I felt that my expedition
was already a success.
At a quarter past eleven I had my theodolite again fixed, and ranging
the telescope along the line of pickets, I saw them all standing.
Crossing the ice wilderness, and suggesting the operation of
intelligence amid that scene of desolation, their appearance was
pleasant to me. Just before I commenced, a solitary jay perched upon the
summit of an adjacent pine and watched me. The air was still at the
time, and the snow fell heavily. The flowers moreover were magnificent,
varying from about the twentieth of an inch to two lines in diameter,
while, falling through the quiet air, their forms were perfect. Adjacent
to my theodolite was a stump of pine, from which I had the snow removed,
in order to have something to kick my toes against when they became
cold; and on the stump was placed a blanket to be used as a screen in
case of need. While I remained at the station a layer of snow an inch
thick fell upon this blanket, the whole layer being composed of these
exquisite flowers. The atmosphere also was filled with them. From the
clouds to the earth Nature was busy marshalling her atoms, and putting
to shame by the beauty of her structures the comparative barbarities of
Art.
SOUND THROUGH THE SNOW-STORM. 1859.
My men at length reached the first station, and the measurement
commenced. The storm drifted up the valley, thickening all the air as it
approached. Denser and denser the flakes fell; but still, with care and
tact I was able to follow my party to a distance of 800 yards. I had not
thought it possible to see so far through so dense a storm. At this
distance also my voice could be heard, and my instructions understood;
for once, as the man who took up the line stood behind his bâton and
prevented its projection against the white snow, I called out to him to
stand aside, and he promptly did so. Throughout the entire measurement
the snow never ceased falling, and some of the illusions which it
produced were extremely singular. The distant boundary of the glacier
appeared to rise to an extraordinary height, and the men wading through
the snow appeared as if climbing up a wall. The labour along this line
was still greater than on the former; on the steeper slopes especially
the toil was great; for here the effort of the leader to lift his own
body added itself to that of cutting his way through the snow. His
footing I could see often yielded, and he slid back, checking his
recession, however, by still plunging forward; thus, though the limbs
were incessantly exerted, it was, for a time, a mere motion of vibration
without any sensible translation. At the last stake the men shouted,
"Nous avons finis!" and I distinctly heard them through the falling
snow. By this time I was quite covered with the crystals which clung to
my wrapper. They also formed a heap upon my theodolite, rising over the
spirit-levels and embracing the lower portion of the vertical arc. The
work was done; I struck my theodolite and ascended to the hotel; the
greatest depth of snow through which I waded reaching, when I stood
erect, to within three inches of my breast.
SWIFT DESCENT. 1859.
The men returned; dinner was prepared and consumed; the disorder which
we had created made good; the rooms were swept, the mattresses replaced,
and the shutters fastened, where this was possible. We locked up the
house, and with light hearts and lithe limbs commenced the descent. My
aim now was to reach the source of the Arveiron, to examine the water
and inspect the vault. With this view we went straight down the
mountain. The inclinations were often extremely steep, and down these we
swept with an avalanche-velocity; indeed usually accompanied by an
avalanche of our own creation. On one occasion Balmat was for a moment
overwhelmed by the descending mass: the guides were startled, but he
emerged instantly. Tairraz followed him, and I followed Tairraz, all of
us rolling in the snow at the bottom of the slope as if it were so much
flour. My practice on the Finsteraarhorn rendered me at home here. One
of the porters could by no means be induced to try this flying mode of
descent. Simond carried my theodolite box, tied upon a crotchet on his
back; and once, while shooting down a slope, he incautiously allowed a
foot to get entangled; his momentum rolled him over and over down the
incline, the theodolite emerging periodically from the snow during his
successive revolutions. A succession of glissades brought us with
amazing celerity to the bottom of the mountain, whence we picked our way
amid the covered boulders and over the concealed arms of the stream to
the source of the Arveiron.
The quantity of water issuing from the vault was considerable, and its
character that of true glacier water. It was turbid with suspended
matter, though not so turbid as in summer; but the difference in force
and quantity would, I think, be sufficient to account for the greater
summer turbidity. This character of the water could only be due to the
grinding motion of the glacier upon its bed; a motion which seems not to
be suspended even in the depth of winter. The temperature of the water
was the tenth of a degree Centigrade above zero; that of the ice was
half a degree below zero: this was also the temperature of the air,
while that of the snow, which in some places covered the ice-blocks, was
a degree and a quarter below zero.
VAULT OF THE ARVEIRON. 1859.
The entrance to the vault was formed by an arch of ice which had
detached itself from the general mass of the glacier behind: between
them was a space through which we could look to the sky above. Beyond
this the cave narrowed, and we found ourselves steeped in the blue light
of the ice. The roof of the inner arch was perforated at one place by a
shaft about a yard wide, which ran vertically to the surface of the
glacier. Water had run down the sides of this shaft, and, being
re-frozen below, formed a composite pillar of icicles at least twenty
feet high and a yard thick, stretching quite from roof to floor. They
were all united to a common surface at one side, but at the other they
formed a series of flutings of exceeding beauty. This group of columns
was bent at its base as if it had yielded to the forward motion of the
glacier, or to the weight of the arch overhead. Passing over a number of
large ice-blocks which partially filled the interior of the vault, we
reached its extremity, and here found a sloping passage with a perfect
arch of crystal overhead, and leading by a steep gradient to the air
above. This singular gallery was about seventy feet long, and was
floored with snow. We crept up it, and from the summit descended by a
glissade to the frontal portion of the cavern. To me this crystal cave,
with the blue light glistening from its walls, presented an aspect of
magical beauty. My delight, however, was tame compared with that of my
companions.
MAJESTIC SCENE. 1859.
Looking from the blue arch westwards, the heavens were seen filled by
crimson clouds, with fiery outliers reaching up to the zenith. On
quitting the vault I turned to have a last look at those noble sentinels
of the Mer de Glace, the Aiguille du Dru, and the Aiguille Verte. The
glacier below the mountains was in shadow, and its frozen precipices of
a deep cold blue. From this, as from a basis, the mountain cones sprang
steeply heavenward, meeting half way down the fiery light of the sinking
sun. The right-hand slopes and edges of both pyramids burned in this
light, while detached protuberant masses also caught the blaze, and
mottled the mountains with effulgent spaces. A range of minor peaks ran
slanting downwards from the summit of the Aiguille Verte; some of these
were covered with snow, and shone as if illuminated with the deep
crimson of a strontian flame. I was absolutely struck dumb by the
extraordinary majesty of this scene, and watched it silently till the
red light faded from the highest summits. Thus ended my winter
expedition to the Mer de Glace.
Next morning, starting at three o'clock, I was driven by my two guides
in an open sledge to Sallenches. The rain was pitiless and the road
abominable. The distance, I believe, is only six leagues, but it took us
five hours to accomplish it. The leading mule was beyond the reach of
Simond's whip, and proved a mere obstructive; during part of the way it
was unloosed, tied to the sledge, and dragged after it. Simond
afterwards mounted the hindmost beast and brought his whip to bear upon
the leader, the jerking he endured for an hour and a half seemed almost
sufficient to dislocate his bones. We reached Sallenches half an hour
late, but the diligence was behind its time by this exact interval. We
met it on the Pont St. Martin, and I transferred myself from the sledge
to the interior. This was the morning of the 30th of December, and on
the evening of the 1st of January I was in London.
MY ASSISTANTS. 1859.
I cannot finish this recital without saying one word about my men. Their
behaviour was admirable throughout. The labour was enormous, but it was
manfully and cheerfully done. I know Simond well; he is intelligent,
truthful, and affectionate, and there is no guide of my acquaintance for
whom I have a stronger regard. Joseph Tairraz is an extremely
intelligent and able guide, and on this trying occasion proved himself
worthy of my highest praise and commendation. Their two companions upon
the glacier, Edouard Balmat (le Petit Balmat) and Joseph Simond (fils
d'Auguste), acquitted themselves admirably; and it also gives me
pleasure to bear testimony to the willing and efficient service of
François Ravanal, who attended upon me during the observations.
