Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1909-07-14

suddenly revealed and as suddenly
closed again, the awful chasms, opened
and shut so swiftly, throw the 1mag1-
nation into a state of disorder that
adds enormously to the confusing gran
deur of the spectacle. Only few
days ago, while climbing across the
middle slopes of the Blumlisalp, l 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 filed with
seething vapour, that rose and fell as
the winds directed it, allowing occa-
sional glimpses into the green glac-
Ter water through profound tunnels
of mist, yet, as whole, climbing grad
ually upward to where we stood.
Overhead, the SUBMITS rose clear in
a sky of summer blue, with the single
exception of the great DoldenhOrn,
where an immense cloud, forever shift
ing, and shedding whole precipices on
it's way, moved off laboriously till it
was caught by the air-draughts from
the eastern Thai, and myseriously
spirited out of sight altogether.
But, meanwhile, the sea of vapour at
our feet had risen till it spread in
single plain of white that somehow
made one think of Shelley's plat
forms of the wind" become visible.
This sea was without a break. APP
parently, too, it was motionless; yet,
on looking closer through field-glasses,
it showed itself really alive with move
ment; the rising and falling of waves,
riffs with fringed and jagged edges
shooting in all directions, though new
er high enough to destroy the gen
eral effect of calm surface. There
were swift draughts and whirlwinds
astir through the entire mass. 1t was
the glasses, of course, that betrayed
the colossal scale of the thing. Far
below us, from some steep slope hid
den beneath the sea of mist, there
rose 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 terror to the heart
of the climber. 1t rose up to us
through the mist as the 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
air. Yet no signs were otherwise Wis
ible. The surface of the mist-sea re-
NAMED untroubIed. 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 vapour 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 no
tel and listened to the warnings of
Herr Dettlebach, the proprietor, about
spring avalanches, it all seemed some
how unreal-the scenery all incredible
and phantasmal as with the coloring
of a splendid dream. The clouds had
risen; like fragments of flying fire
they foated 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 clouds.