New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1892-07-24
THE ST. GERVAIS CALAMITY.
HUNDREDS ROUSED FROM SLUMBER ONLY
TO BE SWEPT AWAY BY THE FLOOD.

TO BE SWEPT AWAY By TIE FLOOD.
Geneva, July Is.
While all Switzerland is still lamenting the
dreadful accident the boiler explosion which oc-
Cured few DAYS ago on the Lake al Lausanne
bv which no fewer than tweEtyslN persons per
shed miserably, there comes f,om the slopes OF
the Mont Blanc Intelligence OF "a catastrophe ON
even more appalling scale II is Impossible 10
know as yet the number of lives that hay" been
sacrificed by the extraordinary disaster ~ II ter
vais It little place in French territory. close - ~"
Swiss frontier. but il is feared that n" reports
which plact il at somewhere between one and two
hundred ale far below the actual los Fog Two
entire villages. tose,Lcr with a number Of hotels
and boarding houses in the mountainous 2orge OF
Mont oic co-e under Mont Blanc appear e. hav"
Ieen completely obteratrd. \ portion Of the
Bonnassv glacier appears 20 have fallen into the
small mountain torrent called the Bio~s~i, whIrn
flows down the gorge on which 81 Gervais. with
rs hotels and ts great thermal establishment. CO.
sabe of holding 400 visitors and H. cluster of
cottages AMI pensions, is situated. TIE immediAi"
result Of the fall of this mas, of mingled ic" AMI
rock was {, block up the passage Of the stream
and TO form II huge dam across ~ course. Then
the arrested waters slowly gathered together into
II lake. until they reached the top OF the dam.
when they burst forth mpctuou~lv on their career
Of destruction Down tie narrow gorge this hue
torrent OF water descended. carrying block. Of
ice and powders with il, which must have actci
W. 50 many batternc-ra against the walls of the
frail dwellings encountered in it, cour~e
Possibly the destruction would not have been
nearly so great or complete rs il il had the event
occurred in the DAYTIME. Then the mrrr fact
ilat the river he'd ceased 10 run. OF had hceu -
iuced TO II tiny tricc. would have served {,
some degree a. a warning bat the fol Of part
Of the glacier and the consequent stoppase Of
the stream happonel at night. II wa- "hen
everybody was asleep about o'clock ia tie
morning. that tie cam burst aud the toncnt
swept down the Val de Montoic. The de-cIip' ,n
given by one Of the survivors, q LEADING citizen
Of Geneva. who was Shaving q, an hotel ~ 81
Gervais clearly shows what happened II" was
aroused in me middle Of Tie niLht br Il terrific
noise and the shaking OF The walls Of The hot"
as by an earthquake, Looking Oh: lac could
dinly zee in the obscurity torrent OF slshln4
seething wafer" tearing past IA" walls i Wa
evidently rising fast. ard th- visitor hai only
inst nine 10 escape over some roofs when tie hotel
in which he had been sleeping collapse On
the other side OF the gorge he could sec that III"
rush Of water undermining the bindings dotted
along the face Of the rock, and prc-cntly thrc"
Of these carried away. while the -hri"lis Of
the roar Of the food itself. II j. reported that
out of the five establishment, for visitor. in NJ
Gervais two arc left standing thou2i badly
damaged. while the other three have been de-
stroyed.
The region visited by this di.ast,- lies on the
northwestern side Of the central and highest
peak OF Mont Blanc southweStward Of Chamounl\.
As all visitors TO the scene are aware, the hug"
Of the highest mountain in Europe is hankcd
all hands by deep. rugged and most picturesque
valleys. carved by ancient glaciers in lis mar
vellously contortcd limestone and granite. one
Of these rivers of ice is the Glacier dc Bennassay,
the cau~. Of the present calamity II il fed
direct by the SHOWS OF Mont Blanc and the Dom
and Aiguilles dn Coulter, whose lofty peaks aud
massive bosses are familiar 10 all VINO climb Mont
Blanc, either by way Of The Grands Mulcts from
Chamounix, or from St Gervas by the Col de
Vozs. The glacier, which i small compared with
many in It's immediate neighborhood, comes down
from the Dom du Coulter in triangular FORM IT.
narrow end filling the gorge Of the Bosset The
Biosset, Bionnassay is "a little mountain tor
rent that carries away the waters OF the melted
ice and there IL, or was, village Of the same
name close 10 the terminal moraine Of the glacier
The hamlet has been swept away. ana lis in
habitants have also been overwhelmed In every
glacier there must, Of course, be point where
ing down from the mountains, and this terminal
point is always marked by the accumulation OF
masses Of rock aud drift carried down by the
ie-stream. Where the glacier flows between rock. |
Of great hardness this position is often IA gorge |
and such would seem 10 have been the case IN |
this instance. vast mass of ice il appears |
overhanging the little mountain torrent, and |
when the strain became too great it broke away
from the rest OF The glacier and fell into the |
Riosset, carrying with it masses Of rock and |
earth and completely damming the stream In |
this way natural lake formed held back |
by the Ice, until the waters overtOpped the barrier
or, more probably, acquired sufficient force 10 |
sweep il away down the rayine
AT the distance OF few miles the Bosset |
flows into the larger stream Of Bon Nant another |
mountain torrent running through the deep, well |
wooded and picturesque valley of Montioie and |
a couple of miles below the junction stands St. |
Gervais-famOus for its baths and saline sui |
phuious waters. St Gervais also occupies prac- |
tically narrow gorge. Nowhere was space given |
for the accumulated waters TO spread and so lose |
their impctuosty On the contrary. il is 10 he |
remembered, In considering the tremendous eff |
fects produced by the flood, that il was running |
along with the velocity OF the Niagara RAPIDS |
Without actual measurement il Is necessarily i'm |
possible % Say exactly. but from the bursting OF
the ice-dam at the foot Of the glacier 10 81 Ger
vas there was probably a fall OF several hundred |
feet, and thus the rush of waters WAS sufficient
10 dislodge and carry with il huge masscs of rock
and sweep all before It, little below ST Ger |
vas the Bon Nant, or Grand Nanf Joins the |
Arve-another ravine formed by the Mer de GIace |
and into the Arve the rcsistless torrent carried
the rocks, houses, baths and hundreds of human |
beings-