Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1889-06-27
rFFECIs Of An AVALANCHE,
The Force OF the Irresistible Body Of Snow and
Ice.

The Force OF the Irresistible Body Of Snow and
Ice.
A writer in the Cornhill Magazine says;
erioyed an excellent opportunity last
March OF inspecting the interior of q
Starh Tgeine or snowiug avalanche
which fell In the valley of Davos, below
the village of Glsrus. At its deepest
noipt it Law about so feet above the post
road. and gallery had been bored
through 1t with great labor for the
massage of sledges. The walls of the
tupueI were a compact mass of compress
cd ,nag. which the workmen cut into With
picka1es. You could make no lDpreA-
SION IN it with your Singers, and the
marks of the pick were az sharp as on a
block OF marble.
Noticed the following objects embed
ded in the portion of the avalanche ex-
posed to view: Large and small frag-
ments Of gneiss and limestone, occasion
ally huge bowlder, trunks of trees,
mostly l8reh and pine, sawed flush with
the snow walls; branches, innumerable
twigs Of cembra, larch, fir, spruce and
alder so evenly distributed over the whole
surface that the trees from which they
had been torn must have been ripped by
the whir of wind and snowdust; these
fragments we're so firmly clutohed that
you could lot scoop them out; lastly, but
most i'm pressIve, massive blocks of pure
transparent ice, one OF them six feet in
length, three feet in depth and how
broad do not know.
This ice must have been torn by the
blast from waterfalls in the gullles OF
Rutchtobel. The avalanche probably
started at some 5000 feet above the Land
wasser, descending from a district known
as the Au-serberg, which is dominated
by the two peaks of the Liedbachorn and
AeIphlhorn. 1t was clear on seeing how
stones, stems, branches, twigs, blocks of
ice, etc, were firmly wrought into the
snow mess that mans body would be
intXttioably clasped by the same frozen
substance. Standing in the gallery and
rejecting on these things l remembered
with thrill of awe that somewhere or
another, at no great distance, the corpse
Of man lay actually imbedded there.
He was called Caspar Valer, and he had
been buried in the avalanche upon Feb.
ruary 7.
Gangs of peasants to the number of 80
bad tug necessarily for seven days in
tat hopes OF alighting on his body. Pass
iug along the road We had seen them at
The stream side sounding the snow with
poles, breaking it up with pioksIes, and
de.ylg into il with spades, and their sad,
IT lgned faces told how they sorrowed for
their comrade. His fate might be 80
easily theirs, too!
ne savage Alpine winter claims it's
victims yearly. Therefore, "holdie tibi
oras mihi Guod eras sum quod es ero'
io day for thee, to morrow for me; what
7. vast ! am, what thou ert | shall
b. seemed written on their earnest fea-
turts
AZ la7t this labor of the search, will
lnsly and without wage given ny the
men of Garus had to be abandoned as
'n p'aelcabie. Casper Waller was left to
7'1Ioef IN his icy sepulchre until the
Ht.AhR avalanche relaxed it's hold in
7PHhg time His widow, meanwhile, with
.To young children, went on living ID
,9ei5 chalet on the hill which overlooks
'"- Dreadful thing which robbed her of
her husband.
'l 'he Sd of May her husbands corpse
Wa brought 10 light He had been car
.'s1 a'ro-7 The stream by the rush of the
= HN0 Lawiue and HE body was in ex-
e-aelt Preservation.