The Idaho Springs siftings-news., 1909-07-10

suddenly revealed and as suddenly
closed again, the awful chasms. opened
and shut so swiftly, throw the imagi-
nation into a state of disorder 'hat
adds enormously to the confusing gran
deur OF the spectacle Only few
DAYS ago, while climbing across the
middle slopes OF the Blumisalp. was
fortunate enough to see the pageant
in all it's splendor. The hot spring sun
shine Joined forces WITH the snow
cooled air to produce a vast chaos OF
cloudland Far below, the huge trough
of the Oschinen See was filled with
seething yapour that ~ose and fell as
the winds directed it, allowing occa-
sional glimpses into the green slac-
Ter water through profound tunnels
of mist. yet. as a whole. climbing grad
ually upward to where We stood.
Overhead, the submits rose clear in
sky of summer blue. with the single
exception Of the great Doldenhorn.
where an immense cloud, forever shift
ing. and shedding whole prccipices on
/ its way, moved off laboriously till II
/ was caught by the air-draughts from
the eastern Thai. and myseriously
. spirited out of sight .itogether.
| But, meanwhile, the sea of vapour at
| our feet had risen till it spread in a
single plain of white that somehow
made one think OF Shelley's plat
/ forms of the wind" become visible.
/ This sea was without break. Ap-
! parently. too, 1t was motionless: yet.
on looking closer through field glasses.
/ it showed itself really alive with move
meut; the rising and falling of waves,
riffs with fringed and jagged edges
shooting in all directions. though rev.
er high enough to destroy the gen
eral effect of calm surface. There
were swift draughts and whirlwinds
/ astir through the entire mass. II was
the glasses, OF course, that betrayed
the colossal scale of the thing Far
4 below us. from some steep slope hid
den beneath the sea of mist, there
rose a curious long-drawn sound that
at first suggested nothing We could
rrecogniZ. 1t was only few minutes
later when the thunder followed that
we realized an avalanche had plunged
into the gulf. First we heard the hiss
/ ing of the sheet of sliding snow-that
/ awful Kissing that more than any
| thing else strikes error to the heart
OF the climber. It rose up to us
[ through the mist as he sound of an
explosion might rise through the depths
of the sea. Then, as the mass fell
from ledge to ledge and finally dropped
over the last dizzy cliff into the Os-
chinen See. we heard the laundering
roar that echoed below behind and
/ overhead, and later felt the icy wind
that followed the displacement OF the
I air. Yet no signs were otherwise Wis.
/ ible. The surface of the mist-sea re
manned untroubled. Nothing stirred:
! only the mighty sounds and the mes.
sage OF the loosed wind. And, far over
/ head, the iron battlements OF rock
| stood serene and terrible, their foun-
! dations rising out of the vast platform
Of vaporr that wrapped them about
| like an ocean. their SUBMITS OF shin
| ing ice inhabited by the flames of the
| sunshine.
Yet. several hours later. when we
watched the same mountains from the
/ safety OF the comfortable Gemmi ho-
tel and listened to the warnings OF
Herr Dettlebach. the proprietor, about
| spring avalanches. 1t all seemed some
! how unreal-the scenery all incredible
| and phantasmal as with the color1ng
Of splendid dream. The clouds had
risen: like fragments of flying FIRE
| they fioated far overhead now in the
sunset 1t became impossible to see
again that ocean of mist. What we
had seen was no scenery of the known
world. 1t belonged. surely. to the
scenery Of such dreams as carry the
Imagination into the beyond-into in
finite distances above the cloudA