The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-07-23

up to this point must have consisted of
 one vast moving block of ice, measur-
 ing one and quarter millions of cubic
 metres -four million cubic feet) was re- duced to fragments, at the same time
 that the heat generated by the shock converted these into semi-fluid condi-
 tion Among the debris were to be seen some blocks of considerable size, but only few exceeded two metres (six and one-half feeD in diameter. With the velocity acquired in it's de- scent, this river of ice rushed across the
 pasturage and up the western slope of
 the valley to hieght of thirteen hun | dred feet along the rocky wall of the Weissfiuhgrat. Not being completely able to surmount this barrier, the main
 mass came surging back--like a vast sea wave recoiling from the cliffs-with such force that some of it returned to a height of one hundred feet up the east | ern side. Isolated blocks, however, | were hurled over the ridge into the ad- joining valley, the Uschinenthal.
 The avalanche was preceded by T | terrific blast of wind which swept away chalets, trees. men and cattle as though | they had been feathers. This Is proved | by the fact that, far above the limit | reached by the avalanche, hundreds of i trees have been uprooted, and lie in | regular rows. indicating with mathe- nautical exactitude the direction of the aerial current These trees are for the | most part of great size, several, indeed, | having trunks one metre in diameter. Such as were protected by a large rock pr vaxy d IF, hn hot spared. Others, standing with only half their height above such hollows, have had the exposed part blown off, while the subsequent oncoming of the | avalanche has not succeeded in tearing l up what was left of them, even when
 it has enveloped their base. This wind produced a workable bombardment of | ice-dust mixed with stones, which has
 stripped the roofs and branches of the trees laid low by the wind itself and | which must have killed man and beast before ever the real avalanche over- | whelmed them Further away the l trees have only been denuded of their
 upper portion, the branches composing which were transported to a great dis | tance, and now form a compact line of 1 debris among the far-off scattered trees, like the bank of sea wreck left on open coasts after fierce storm. Ice
 bombs, too, round like cannon-b balls,
 but with an average diameter of one | foot which lay all about in the neigh borhood of the fallen mass, bore elo- | quent testimony to the extreme vio- lence of the wind. On the way from | the Hotel Schwarenbach, before com i ing to the Bernese frontier the green pasture was strewn with these balls l like a battlefield in old muzzle- loading
 times.
 ''The true avalanche, in it's recoil l from the rock wall, has formed an in-
 mense rampant, separated from the rock by deep trench. On the sides, under the stress of the enormous power
 of the wind, which, like the avalanche | itself, was deflected by the Weissfluh- | grat, blocks of considerable size were
 driven around as in a whirlpool so as, I at least on the northern edge, to have l been forced back up the slopes of the
 Altels toward the entrance of the gorge | leading to Kandersteg, These differeat
 atmospheric motions were well marked | owing to the disposition of the materi- 1IS WnicN came unUeT lliGlT l1lHuSHCe
 Near the Winteregg the trees, shrubs
 and grasses were all bent toward the
 north, forming an exterior zone, which
 was more and more thickly covered with the dust. etc, raised by the catas-
 trophe as the central mass was ap- preached. A second zone, within the
 first, was found to consist of the loose
 rocks. etc, thrust aside by the head of
 the ice mass as it dashed up the west slope; the inner edge of this zone was itself covered by layer of ice and snow, representing the matter that
 kept pouring off from the sides of the
 central body in it's upward progress,
 and also the results of the reflux which
 took place when it's further advance
 was barred Some of the ice and
 stones hurled against the Weissfuh-
 grat had adhered to it, being plastered,
 as it were. into the Assures and gullies.
 These masses were being constantly
 detached from their precarious position
 and kept descending in roaring ava
 Ranches. ."-Natural Science.