The Sun.
London, England, 1865-08-05 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNALS.

TIMES.—This year will be remarkable in the an-
nals of Alpine adventure. Another disastrous acci-
dent is added to that which has been the chief inci-
dent of the present summer. The frightful fall of
the three Englishmen and their guide down the
Matterhorn is now followed by another accident,
which, though it has not proceeded from any undue
rashness or culpable negligence, shows to the full
the dangers of mountaineering. We have the par-
ticulars from Mr. M'Cormick, the chaplain of Zer-
matt. Two Englishmen who were ascending Monte
Rosa with two guides and three porters were swept
away by an avalanche. The guides, as is usual,
did their work with skill and courage, and succeeded
in rescuing their employers, but one of the porters
perished, and his body was found the next day
buried six feet deep under the snow. Of course, it
is of no use to read a homily on this fresh disaster.
There is no likelihood that an end will be put to
accomplish such an object. We confessjhat in its
most ambitious forms we do not see the use of it.
To scale the highest and most difficult peaks of the
Alps does not add to human happiness or know-
ledge ; it does not contribute to health in any greater
degree than an ascent to more modest and safer
heights ; the most bracing air and the more strength-
ening exercise can be had at a less elevation than
from thirteen to fifteen thousand feet above the
sea. We do not esteem very highly the courage
which prompts these adventures, nor the skill which
enables men to prosecute them successfully. But
there will always be a certain number of people who
will take a pleasure in such enterprises. What
common sense seems to condemn will for that very
reason have an attraction, as raising the successful
climber out of the list of the staid and sober, and
surrounding him with the halo of adventure. Per-
haps it is necessary that there should be an order
of men to attempt what no one else will attempt,
to show what can be done, and the feats which
human courage and endurance can perform. We
have no desire, therefore, to interfere with professed
climbers, not one of whom, as we have been assured
by their spokesmen in these columns, is likely to be
turned from his pursuit by anything that can be
urged against it. But to the ordinary traveller who
may be tempted to attack the more arduous peaks,
passes, and glaciers of Switzerland, the narrative of
the chaplain at Zermatt may give a word of warn-
ing. One of the most successful and celebrated
of Alpine climbers wrote to us the other day depre-
cating the ascent of difficult peaks by mere novices
—that is, as he explained, by persons who have
spent only three or four seasons in mountaineering.
Such persons, he said, should accustom themselves
by degrees to the difficulties of the work, and should
graduate on Mont Blanc and Monte Rosa before
trying really difficult peaks. To most people
Monte Rosa, with the long ridge which leads to its
summit, will appear a rather difficult examination
for the degree of Bachelor of the Alps, and that
it requires practised mountaineers is evident from
this last accident. An avalanche is an enemy
from which on many occasions no skill or courage
can defend the climber. But there are ways of
receiving the charge even of an avalanche. The
guides were the first to extricate themselves, and it
was well for the two Englishmen that their con=
ductors were so successful, for one of our country-
men was wedged so tightly that he could not move,
and the other was buried in the snow with his head
downwards, and nothing visible but his heels. Of
the three porters one seems to have beengot at once,
the second was taken out nearly suffocated, while
the third was not found till next day, when of course
he was quite dead. We know not whether these
Englishmen were expert climbers, but, if they were,
the warning is all the more worthy of consideration
by the ordinary tourist. If it had not been for their
guides both theso young Englishmen would have
perished, and with nine out of ten who attempt the
-higher Alps it is the same. They cannot ascend, or
still more, descend, without the constant assistance
of the guide, who cuts their steps in the ice, and fits
in their feet, and by whom at times they are helped
in a manner more convenient than dignified. When,
therefore, the accounts of these perils inflame youth-
ful ambition and urge the stream of travellers to
follow in the steps of those who have so terribly
perished or so narrowly escaped, the adventurers
should have a due sense of their dependence on
others for their safety. It is only by long experi-
ence of the Alps, and by acute and practised obser-
vation, that the mountaineer can tell which path to
take, how he may most easily attain a point which
he has in full view, where he can put his foot with
the probability of finding a support, and how far he
can move his body without danger of a slip or an
overbalance. Not only must the unpractised tourist
—that is, the man who has not been spending sum-
mer after summer in the Alps—be dependent on his
guide for actually piloting him about the mountain,
but he must in almost every difficult ascent trust his
life wholly to him, for the ainateer himself is at
times wholly ignorant where he shall place hand or
foot. By all means let climbing flourish, and its
celebrities gain their due weed of honour ; but, as
the travellers in Switzerland increase in numbers
yearly, and Alpine ambition increases in a still
larger ratio, the crowd should understand what it is
they attempt, and the conditions under which alone
the feats they aspire to must be performed.
HERALD.—One might almost suppose that some
of our contemporaries desired nothing so much as
the failure of the Atlantic Cable. They watched its
manufacture with an anxious, not to say an evil
eye, and they were always ready with a sinister
augury while it was being coiled on board the Great
Eastern. Since the work of paying it out began
they have been far .more ready with the expression
of their fears than of their hopes. They have shown
a most laudable, but somewhat needless, anxiety to
prevent us from supposing our success will be com-
plete before 'communication with New York once
more becomes a fait accompli, and they have re-
minded us that even then we shall probably be only
at the beginning of our sorrows. In the same spirit
they have received the announcement that the trans-
mission of messages between the ship and shore has
now for some time been interrupted. With the best
possible wishes for thb success of the . enterprise,
they come forward with premature and most dismal
anticipations of its total failure. They would be
delighted to hear that everything is right, but they
have pretty nearly made up their minds that all is
wrong. The fact of a hitch is enough for them. So
long as they could receive half-a-dozen messages a
day from the operators on board they were not un-
willing to believe in the possibility of success, but
as soon as there is a cessation of continuity in the
transmission they are ready to assume tile certainty
of failure. Convince them by actual exchange of
intelligence between operators at either end of the
cable that the submersion is going on satisfactorily,
and they will not attempt to deny the evidence of
their senses. But let anything occur which May, or
may not, portend irreparable mischief, and imme-
diately they are down in dullest of doleful dumps.
They neither hope nor believe in the cable nor any-
thing connected with it. They refer to the disasters
of the past, the difficulties of the present, and the
potentialities of the future ; they calculate adverse
chances and make mostample allowance for possible
accidents ; and finally, shaking their heads and
looking wondrous wise, they give us to understand
that for this year at least the case of
the Atlantic Cable is hopeless. We can
but think that all these vaticinations are
rather premature. We are far from asserting that
the absence of intelligence from the Great Eastern
furnishes no cause of anxiety. With every good
wish for the enterprise, we must admit that its pre-
sent position is somewhat critical ; and with the
most cordial desire for the success of speculators
who have risked their money on so cosmopolitan an
object, we are not at all surprised to hear that in-
vestors look coldly upon the company's shares, and
that underwriters ask terms which practically amount
to a prohibition of insurance. Still, making every
allowance for all this, we are at a loss to see why
the hopeless breakage of the rope should be regarded
as a foregone conclusion. We thought that the
electricians and other scientific men connected with
the undertaking, regarded some contretemps of this
kind as exceedingly probable. We know that at an
early part of the voyage an accident, slight in it-_
self, interrupted the communication, and that the
work of remedying the defect occupied an amount of
time very much greater than had been anticipated.
The difficulty of this task would, of course, increase
with eviy additional mile the vessel steamed from
the harbour of Valentia ; and probably, at the pre-
sent point in the Great Eastern's course, to haul up
the cable would severely tax the patience of every
one on board. But the knowledge that this is so
should surely lead us to suspend our judgment until
we have materials for forming it. We know not
from what cause the present interruption has arisen;
and when half-a-dozen explanations are open to us,
it is scarcely reasonable to insist upon that particu-
lar one which gives us the least hope of the very re-
sult we most ardently desire. Let us suppose, as has
already happened, that some flaw in the submerged
cable has escaped notice till it has lain some little
time under water. The flaw may have been occa-
sioned by a fragment of wire which has penetrated
the gutta percha covering. A few air bubbles may
have left the coating weak, and this weakness may
have increased till the insulation ceased to be effec-
tive. A sudden strain, an unexpected abrasion, a jerk,
a kink, or fifty other circumstances may have oc-
curred, sufficient to account for the non-transmis-
sion of messages. To remedy these may be difficult
and tedious, but not impossible. The cable may
require " underrunning" for some miles ; or it may
have to be buoyed up and kept afloat in places while
endeavours are being made to repair its deficiencies ;
these endeavours may be successful at any moment,
and while all' are anxious and some are desponding,

we maybe surprised by a sudden telegram announc-
ing that all has been put right, and that the levia-
than vessel is again making towards the Western
hemisphere. We have hitherto spoken only of
breakage, or injury by mechanical violence, and the
chances of repair in the event of damage so sustained.
But in a work so delicate and novel we may have
to encounter agencies of which we have almost
forgotten to take account. Our readers will see, in a
letter which we publish from the Astronomer Royal,
that the instruments at Greenwich Observatory
showed the commencement of a magnetic storm at
the very time when the signals from the Great
Eastern first became unintelligible, and that there
was for some time sufficient strength in this pertur-
bation to confuse the signals passing to and from
the ship. This magnetic storm, however, ceased
about midday yesterday, and _the instruments at
Valentia, which are capable, we believe, of calculat-
ing with the utmost nicety, appear to indicate a loss
of insulation at a point about 1,250 miles from the
Irish coast. This may be due either to a rupture or
to an injury of the cable. In a stormy sea like the
Atlantic we know not but that sudden and severe
stress of weather may have compelled the temporary
abandonment of the submerged portion of the cable.
Should this be so there would be buoying power
on board sufficient to keep the end afloat, so that
it could be taken up and rejoined as soon as the
storm abated. And lastly, if the worst should
have happened ; if the cable should have snapped
in mid ocean, so as to necessitate the abandonment
of the attempt for this year, the shareholders
would do well to remember that a large portion
probably will be recoverable, and that if the
whole were lost, there would still remain funds in
hand sufficient, we believe, for the construction of.
a new cable. These last, however, are considera-
tions personal to those who have invested their
money in the undertaking. The public are chiefly
interested in the international aspect of the ques-
tion. Every one. who entertains a hope of our future
harmony and increasingly cordial communication
with the New World will desire the speedy and com-
plete realisation of that which has hitherto been to
us no more than a dream. We believe in the ten-
dency of regular telegraphic communication to soften
the asperity of controversy, to render cordial and
hearty the interchange of national courtesy, to
facilitate the operations of commerce between the
Old World and the New. Earnestly desiring the
complete success of the undertaking, we refuse even
to be wise in advance, at the bidding of those who
tell us that an absence of communication for a couple
of days is equivalent to an indefinite postponement
of the realisation of this grand idea. That there is
cause for anxiety we admit ; that the most dismal
anticipations may be realised we do not deny, but
our wishes for the successful laying of the cable are
too warm to allow us to abandon our hopes of its
success, until, by positive and irrefragable intelli-
gence, we are assured that all endeavours towards
the accomplishment of that object must for the pre-
sent season be regarded as having failed.