The News-Herald. [volume] (Hillsboro, Highland Co., Ohio) 1886-1973, 1889-05-02
DEATH AND DESTRUCTION.
The Terrible Effects Of an Avalanche De
scrlbed by an English Traveller.

The Terrible Effects Of an Avalanche De.
scrlbed by an English Traveller.
1 enjoyed an excellent opportunity
last March Of inspecting the interior
Of a Staub-Lawine, or snow-dust ava
lanche, which fell in the valley Of
Davos below the village Of Glarus.
At Its deepest point it lay about sixty
feet above the post road, aud gallery
had been bored through it with great
labor for the passage Of sledges. The
walls OF this tunnel were q compact
mass Of compressed snow. which the
workmen cut into with pickaxes. You
could make no impression on it with
your fingers, and the marks Of the
pick were as sharp as on block Of
marble. l noticed the following OBJ
jects imbedded in the portion Of the
avalanche exposed to view: Large
and small fragments OF gneiss and
limestone; occasionally large boul-
der; trunks of trees, mostly larch and
pine, sawn flush with the snow walls;
branches, innumerable twigs OF GEM
bra, larch. spruce, fir and alder, so
evenly distributed over the whole sur
face that the trees from which they
had been torn must have been stripped
by the whirl of wind and snow
dust; these fragments were so
firmly clutched that you could not
scoop them out; lastly, and most i'm
pressive. massive blocks of pure trans
parent 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
frozen waterfalls in the gullies OF tho
Rutschtobel. The avalanche prob
ably started at some three thousand
feet above the Landwasser, descend
ing from district known as tho
Ausserberg, which is dominated by
the two peaks Of tho Leidbachhorn and
Aelplihorn. It was clear on seeing
how stone, stems, branches, twigs,
blocks OF ice, ETC., were firmly
wrought into the snow mass that a
mans body would be inextricably
clasped by the same frozen substance.
Standing in the gallery and rejecting
on these things, l remembered with a
thrill Of awe that somehow or another,
ut no great distance, the corpse Of a
man lay actually imbedded there. He
was called Caspar Valar; and he had
been buried in the avalanche upon
February Z. Gangs of peasants to the
number OF fifty had dug necessarily
for seven days in the hopes OF
alighting on his body. Passing
along the road, we had seen them
at the stream side. sounding the snow
with poles, breaking it up with pick.
axes, and delving into it with spades
and their sad, resigned faces told how
they sorrowed for their comrade. His
fate might so easily be theirs, tool The
savage Alpine winter claims its vic.
Tins yearly. Therefore. hodie tiJt
cras mihi, quod eras sum quod es ere
| (to-day for thee, tomorrow for me
what thou vast ! am, what thou art
shall be) seemed written on. their earn.
est features. At last this labor of the
search, willingly and without wage
given by the men of Glarus. had to be
abandoned as impracticable. Caspai
Valar was left to slumber in his icy
sepulcher until the melting avalanche
relaxed its hold in spring-time. His
widow, meanwhile, with two young
children, went on living in their wood
en- chalet on the hill which overlook.
the dreadful thing which robbed hel
OF her husband. On the Sd of May sh,
gave birth to stillborn child, and OF
the same day her husbands corps,
was brought to light He had beer
carried across the stream by the rusl
of the Staub-Lawine and his body wa
in excellent preservation. .-Cornhil
! No oa1iuo