Green-Mountain freeman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1844-1884, 1846-01-29

air from the conclusion, forming a white volume
of heecy smoke, or misty light, from the bosom
of which tbunders forth the icy torrent in its
second prodigious fall over the rocky battlements.
The eye follows it delighted, as it plOughs through
the path which preceding avalanches have worn'
till it comes to the brink of a vast ridge OF bare
rock, perhaps more than two thousand ieet per-
pendicular. Then ponrs the whole cataract
over the gulf, with a still louder roar of echo
ing thunder, to which nothing but the noise of
Niagara in its sublimity is comparable.
Nevertheless, you may think Of the tramp Of
an army of elephants, Of the roar of multitude
nous cavalry marching to battle, Of the whlil-
wind tread of ten thousand bisons sweeping a.
cross the prairie, of the tempest surf of ocean
beating and shaking the continent, of the sound
of torrent floods or Of a numerous host, or OF
the voice of the Trumpet on Sinai, exceeding
loud, and waxing louder and louder, so that all
the people in the camp t%rembled, or of the roll
ling orbs of that fierce Chariot described by
Milton.
"Undcr whose burning wheels
The steadfast empyrean shook throughout"
1t is with such a mighty shaking tramp that the
Avalanche thunders down.
Another fall Of still greater depth ensues, over
a second similar castellated ridge or reef in the
face of the mountain, with an awful majestic
s~lowness, and a tremendous crash in its concus-
sion, awakening again the rcverberating peals OF
thunder. Then the torrent roars on to another
smaller fall, till at length it reaches a mighty
groove of snow and ice, like the slide down the
Pllatus, Of which Playfair has given so power
fully graphic description. Here its progress
is slower, and last of all you listen to the roar
of the falling fragments, as they drop ont of
sight, with a dead weight into the bottom of the
gulf, to rest there forever,
Now figure to yourself a cataract like that of
Niagara (for | should judge the volume of one
of these avalanches to be probably every way
superior in bulk to the whole of the Horseshoe
fall poured in foaming granduer, not merely
over one great precipice of 200 feet, but over
the successive ridgy precipices of two or three
thousand, in the face of a mountain eleven thou
sand feet high, and tumbling, crashing, thun-
dering down, with a continuous din of far great
err subIimity than the sound of the grandest cat.
aract, Placed on the slope Of the Wengern
Alp, right opposite the whole visible side Of the
J~ungfrau, we have enjoyed two of these mighty
spectacles, at about half an hours %interva! be-
tween them. The first was the most sublime,
The second the most beautiful. The roar of the
falling mass begins to be heard the moment it is
%loosened from the mountain; it pours on witt
the sound of a vast body of rushing water; then
comes the first great conclusion, a booming
crash of thunders, breaking on the still air in
mid heaven; your breath is suspended, as you
listen and look; the mighty g%llttering mass shoot:
headlong over the main preclpice, and the fal
is so great, that it produces to the eye that i'm
preston of dread majestic slowness, of which
| have spoken, though it is doubtless more rapid
than Niagara. But if you should see the cata
ract of Niagara itself coming down five thou
sand feet above you in the air, there would be
the same impression. The image remains in the
mind, and can never fade from it; it is as j
you had seen an alabaster cataract from heay.
en-.
The sound is far more sublime than that Of
Niagara, because of the preceding stiffness in
those awful Alpine solitudes, In the midst o
such silence aud solemnitY, from out the bosom
of those glorious glittering forms Of nature
comes that rushing, crashing thunder-burst O
sound. If it were not that your soul, through
the eye, is as filled and fixed with the sublimity
Of the vision, as through the sense Of hearing
with that Of the audible report, methinks you
would wish to bury your face in your hands.
and fall PROSTATE, as at the voice Of the Eternal.
But it is impossible to convey any adequate idea
of the combined impression made by these rush
ing masses and rolling thunders upon the soul.
When you see smaller avalanches, they are Of
the very extreme of beauty, like Jets of white
powder, or heavy white mist or smoke, poured
from crag to crag, like as if the Staubach itself
were shot fr ON the top of the J~unglrau. Trav-
elers do more frequently see only these smaller
c~ataracts, in which the beautiful predominates
over the sublime; and at the inn they told US it
was very rare to witness so mighty an avalanche
as that of which we had enjoyed the spectacle.
Lord Byron must have seen something like it,
when he and IIobhouse were on the mountain
together. His powerful descriptions in Manfred
could have been drawn from nothing but the re-
ality.
eye topping crags Of ice,
Ye avalanches, whom a breath draws down,
In mountainous Overwhelming, come and crush
me!
l hear ye momently, above, beneath,
Crush with a frequent conflict; but ye pass.
And only fall on things that still would live;
On the young aourishing forest, or the hut
And hamlet of the harmless villager.
The mists boil up around the glaciers; clouds
Rise curling far beneath me, white and sui
phury,
Like foam from the reused ocean of deep hell. "
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