Three hours had not yet elapsed since we left the gap, and from our present station we could survey the route as far as a point which concealed from us the actual summit, and could see that the difficulties before us were not greater than we had already passed through, and such as time and perseverance would surely conquer. Nevertheless, there is a tide in the affairs of such expeditions, and the impression had been for some time gaining ground with me that the tide on the present occasion had turned against us, and that the time we could prudently allow was not sufficient for us to reach the top that day. Before trial, I had thought it not improbable that the ascent might turn out either impossible or comparatively easy; it was now tolerably clear that it was neither the one nor the other, but an exceedingly long and hard piece of work, which the unparalleled amount of ice made longer and harder than usual. I asked Bennen if he thought there was time enough to reach the top of all: he was evidently unwilling, however, to give up hopes; and Tyndall said he would give no opinion either way; so we again moved on.
At length we came to the base of a mighty knob, huger and uglier than its fellows, to which a little arête of snow served as a sort of drawbridge. I began to fear lest in the ardour of pursuit we might be carried on too long, and Bennen might forget the paramount object of securing our safe retreat. I called out to him that I thought I should stop somewhere here, that if he could go faster alone he might do so, but he must turn in good time. Bennen, however, was already climbing with desperate energy up the sides of the kerb; Tyndall would not be behind him; so I loosed the rope and let them go on. Carrel moved back across the little arête, and sat down, and began to smoke: I remained for a while standing with my back against the knob, and gazed by myself upon the scene around.
As my blood cooled, and the sounds of human footsteps and voices grew fainter, I began to realise the height and the wonderful isolation of our position. The air was preternaturally still; an occasional gust came eddying round the corner of the mountain, but all else seemed strangely rigid and motionless, and out of keeping with the beating heart and moving limbs, the life and activity of man. Those stones and ice have no mercy in them, no sympathy with human adventure; they submit passively to what man can do; but let him go a step too far, let heart or hand fail, mist gather or sun go down, and they will exact the penalty to the uttermost. The feeling of ‘the sublime’ in such cases depends very much, I think, on a certain balance between the forces of nature and man’s ability to cope with them: if they are too weak, the scene fails to impress; if they are too strong for him, what was sublime becomes only terrible. Looking at the Dôme du Goûté or the Zumstein Spitze full in the evening sun, when they glow with an absolutely unearthly loveliness, like a city in the heavens, I have sometimes thought that, place but the spectator alone just now upon those shining heights, with escape before night all but impossible, and he will see no glory in the scene—only the angry eye of the setting sun fixed on dark rocks and dead-white snow.
We had risen seemingly to an immense height above the gap, and the ridge which stretches from the Matterhorn to the Dent d’Érin lay flat below; but the peak still towered behind me, and, measuring our position by the eye along the side of our neighbour of equal height, the Weisshorn, I saw that we must be yet a long way beneath the top. The gap itself, and all traces of the way by which we had ascended, were invisible; I could see only the stone where Carrel sat, and the tops of one or two crags rising from below. The view was, of course, magnificent, and on three sides wholly unimpeded: with one hand I could drop a stone which would descend to Zmutt, with the other to Breuil. In front lay, as in a map, the as yet unexplored peaks to south and west of the Dent d’Érin, the range which separates Val Tournanche from the Valpelline, and the glacier region beyond, called in Ziegler’s map Zardezan, over which a pass, perchance, exists to Zermatt. An illimitable range of blue hills spread far away into Italy.
I walked along the little arête, and sat down; it was only broad enough for the foot, and in perfectly cold blood even this perhaps might have appeared uncomfortable. Turning to look at Tyndall and Bennen, I could not help laughing at the picture of our progress under difficulties. They seemed to have advanced only a few yards. ‘Have you got no further than that yet?’ I called out, for we were all the time within hearing. Their efforts appeared prodigious: scrambling and sprawling among the huge blocks, one fancied they must be moving along some unseen bale of heavy goods instead of only the weight of their own bodies. As I looked, an ominous visitant appeared: down came a fragment of rock, the size of a man’s body, and dashed past me on the couloir, sending the snow flying. For a moment I thought they might have dislodged it; but looking again I saw it had passed over their heads, and come from the crags above. Neither of them, I believe, observed the monster; but Tyndall told me afterwards that a stone, possibly a splinter from it, had hit him in the neck, and nearly choked him. I looked anxiously again, but no more followed. A single shot, as it were, had been fired across our bows; but the ship’s course was already on the point of being put about.
Expecting fully that they would not persevere beyond a few minutes longer, I called out to Tyndall to know how soon they meant to be back. ‘In an hour and a half,’ he replied, whether in jest or earnest, and they disappeared round a projecting corner. A sudden qualm seized me, and for a few minutes I felt extremely uncomfortable: what if the ascent should suddenly become easier, and they should go on, and reach the top without me? I thought of summoning Carrel, and pursuing them; but the worthy man sat quietly, and seemed to have had enough of it. My suspense, however, was not long: after two or three minutes the clatter, which had never entirely ceased, became louder, and their forms again appeared: they were evidently descending. In fact, Bennen had at length turned, and said to Tyndall, ‘Ich denke die Zeit ist zu kurz.’ I was glad that he had gone on as long as he chose, and not been turned back on my responsibility. They had found one part of this last ascent the worst of any, but the way was open thenceforward to the farthest visible point, which can be no long way below the actual top.
It was now just about mid-day, and ample time for the descent, in all probability, was before us; but we resolved not to halt for any length of time till we should reach the gap. Descending, unlike ascending, is generally not so bad as it seems; but in some places here only one can advance at a time, the other carefully holding the rope. ‘Tenez fortement, Carrel, tenez,’ is constantly impressed on the man who brings up the rear. ‘Splendid practice for us, this,’ exclaims Tyndall exultingly, as each successive difficulty is overcome. At length we reach a place whence no egress is possible; we look in vain for traces of the way we had come: it is our friend the ice-coated chimney. Bennen gets down first, in the same mysterious fashion as he got up, and assists us down; presently a shout is heard behind; Carrel is attempting to get down by himself, and has stuck fast; Bennen has to extricate him. We are now getting rapidly lower; soon the difficulties diminish; our gap appears in sight, and once more we reach the broad granite slab beside the narrow col, and breathe more freely.
Two hours have brought us down thus far; but if we are to return by the way we came, three or four hours of hard work are still needed before we arrive at anything like ordinary snow-walking. We hold a consultation. Bennen thinks the rocks, now that the ice is melting in the afternoon sun, will be difficult, and ‘withal somewhat dangerous’ (etwa gefährlich auch). The reader will remark that Bennen uses the word ‘dangerous’ in its legitimate sense. A place is dangerous where a good climber cannot be secure of his footing; a place is not dangerous where a good climber is in no danger of slipping, although to slip may be fatal. We determine to see if it be possible to descend the sides of the snow-crater, on the brink of which we now stand. The crater is portentously steep, deeply lined with fresh snow, which glistens and melts in the powerful sun. The experiment is slightly hazardous, but we resolve to try. The crater appears to narrow gradually to a sort of funnel far down below, through which we expect to issue into the glacier beneath. At the sides of the funnel are rocks, which some one suggests might serve to break our fall, should the snow go down with us, but their tender mercies seem to me doubtful. Cautiously, with steady, balanced tread, we commit ourselves to the slope, distributing the weight of the body over as large a space of snow as possible, by fixing in the pole high up, and the feet far apart, for a slip or stumble now will probably dissolve the adhesion of the fresh, not yet compacted mass, and we shall go down to the bottom in an avalanche. Six paces to the right, then again to the left; we are at the mercy of those overhanging rocks just now, and the recent tracks of stones look rather suspicious; but all is silent, and soon we gain confidence, and congratulate ourselves on an expedient which has saved us hours of time and toil. Just to our right the snow is sliding by, first slowly, then faster; keep well out of the track of it, for underneath is a hard polished surface, and if your foot chance to light there, off you will probably shoot. The snow travels much faster than we do, or have any desire to do; we are like a coach travelling alongside of an express train; in popular phrase, we are going side by side with a small avalanche, though a real avalanche is a very different matter. Soon we come somewhat under the lee of the rocks, and now all risk is over, we are through the funnel, and floundering waist-deep, heedless of crevasses in the comparatively level slopes beyond. We plunge securely down now in the deep snow, where care and caution had been requisite in crossing the frozen surface in the morning; at length we cast off the rope, and are on terra firma.
We shall be at Breuil in unexpectedly good time, before five o’clock; but it is well we are off the mountain early, for clouds and mist are already gathering round the peak, and the weather is about to break. Tyndall rushes rapidly down the slopes, and is lost to view; Bennen and I walk slowly, discussing the results of the day. I am glad to see that he is in high spirits, and confident of our future success. He agrees with me to reach the top will be an exceedingly long day’s work, and that we must allow ten hours at least for the actual peak, six to ascend, four to descend; we must start next time, he says, ‘ganz, ganz früh,’ and manage to reach the gap by seven o’clock. Presently we deviate a little from our downward course; the same thought occupies our minds; we perceive a long low line of roof on the mountain-side, and are not mistaken in supposing that our favourite food will at this hour be found there in abundance. The shepherds on the Italian hills are more hospitable and courteous, I think, than their Swiss brethren: twenty cows are moving their tails contentedly in line under the shed, for Breuil is a rich pasture valley, and in an autumn evening I have counted six herds of from ninety to a hundred each, in separate clusters, like ants, along the stream in the distance. The friendly man, in hoarse but hearty tones, urges us on as we drink; Bennen puts into his hand forty centimes for us both (for we have disposed of no small quantity): but he is with difficulty persuaded to accept so large a sum, and calls after us, ‘C’est trop, c’est trop, messieurs.’ Long may civilisation and half-francs fail of reaching his simple abode; for, alas! the great tourist-world is corrupting the primitive chalet-life of the Alps, and the Alpine man returning to his old haunts, finds a rise in the price even of ‘niedl’ and ‘mascarpa.’
The day after our expedition Bennen and myself recrossed the Théodule in a heavy snow-storm. Tyndall started for Chamouni, for the weather was too bad to justify an indefinite delay at Breuil in the hope of making another attempt that year, and by waiting till another season we were sure of obtaining less unfavourable conditions of snow and ice upon the mountain.—We had enjoyed an exciting and adventurous day, and I myself was not sorry to have something still left to do, while we had the satisfaction of being the first to set foot on this, the most imposing and mightiest giant of the Alps—the ‘inaccessible’ Mont Cervin.—Vacation Tourists, 1860.
IV.
THERMOMETRIC STATION ON MONT
BLANC.
The thermometers referred to at p. 17 were placed on Mont Blanc in 1859. I had proposed to the Royal Society some time previously to establish a series of stations between the top and bottom of the mountain, and the council of the society was kind enough to give me its countenance and aid in the undertaking. At Chamouni I had a number of wooden piles shod with iron. The one intended for the summit was twelve feet long and three inches square; the others, each ten feet long, were intended for five stations between the top of the mountain and the bottom of the Glacier de Bossons. Each post was furnished with a small cross-piece, to which a horizontal minimum thermometer might be attached. Six-and-twenty porters were found necessary to carry all the apparatus to the Grands Mulets, whence fourteen of them were immediately sent back. The other twelve, with one exception, reached the summit, whence six of them were sent back. Six therefore remained. In addition to these we had three guides, Auguste Balmat being the principal one; these, with Dr. Frankland and myself, made up eleven persons in all. Though the main object of the expedition was to plant the posts and fix the thermometers, I was very anxious to make some observations on the transparency of the lower strata of the atmosphere to the solar heat-rays. I therefore arranged a series of observations with the Abbé Veuillet, of Chamouni; he was to operate in the valley, while I observed at the top. Our instruments were of the same kind; in this way I hoped to determine the influence of the stratum of air interposed between the top and bottom of the mountain upon the solar radiation.
Wishing to commence the observations at daybreak, I had a tent carried to the summit, where I proposed to spend the night. The tent was ten feet in diameter, and into it the whole eleven of us were packed. The north wind blew rather fiercely over the summit, but we dropped down a few yards to leeward, and thus found shelter. Throughout the night we did not suffer at all from cold, though we had no fire, and the adjacent snow was 15° Cent., or 27° Fahr., below the freezing point of water. We were all however indisposed. I was indeed very unwell when I quitted Chamouni; but had I faltered my party would have melted away. I had frequently cast off illness on previous occasions, and hoped to do so now. But in this I was unsuccessful; my illness was more deep-rooted than ordinary, and it augmented during the entire period of the ascent. Towards morning, however, I became stronger, while with some of my companions the reverse was the case. At daybreak the wind increased in force, and as the fine snow was perfectly dry, it was driven over us in clouds. Had no other obstacle existed, this alone would have been sufficient to render the observations on solar radiation impossible. We were therefore obliged to limit ourselves to the principal object of the expedition—the erection of the post for the thermometers. It was sunk six feet in the snow, while the remaining six feet were exposed to the air. A minimum thermometer was screwed firmly on to the cross-piece of the post; a maximum thermometer was screwed on beneath this, and under this again a wet and dry bulb thermometer. Two minimum thermometers were also placed in the snow—one at a depth of six, and the other at a depth of four feet below the surface—these being intended to give some information as to the depth to which the winter cold penetrates. At each of the other stations we placed a minimum thermometer in the ice or snow, and a maximum and a minimum in the air.
The stations were as follows:—The summit, the Corridor, the Grand Plateau, the glacier near the Grands Mulets, and two additional ones between the Grands Mulets and the end of the Glacier de Bossons. We took up some rockets, to see whether the ascensional power, or the combustion, was affected by the rarity of the air. During the night, however, we were enveloped in a dense mist, which defeated our purpose. One rocket was sent up which (though we did not know it) penetrated the mist, and was seen at Chamouni. Lecomte’s experiments on the alleged influence of light and rarefaction in retarding combustion caused me to resolve on making a series of experiments on Mont Blanc. Dr. Frankland was kind enough to undertake their execution. Six candles were chosen at Chamouni, and carefully weighed. All of them were permitted to burn for one hour at the top, and were again weighed when we returned to Chamouni. They were afterwards permitted to burn an hour below. Rejecting one candle, which gave a somewhat anomalous result, we found that the quantity consumed above was, within the limits of error, the same as that consumed at the bottom. This result surprised us all the more, inasmuch as the light of the candles appeared to be much feebler at the top than at the bottom of the mountain.
The explosion of a pistol was sensibly weaker at the top than at a low level. The shortness of the sound was remarkable; but it bore no resemblance to the sound of a cracker, to which in acoustic treatises it is usually compared. It resembled more the sound produced by the expulsion of a cork from a champagne-bottle, but it was much louder. The sunrise from the summit was singularly magnificent. The snow on the shaded flanks of the mountain was of a pure blue, being illuminated solely by the reflected light of the sky; the summit of the mountain, on the contrary, was crimson, being illuminated by transmitted light. The contrast of both was finer than I can describe.
About twenty hours were spent upon the top of Mont Blanc on this occasion. Had I been better satisfied with the conduct of the guides, it would have given me pleasure at the time to dwell upon this out-of-the-way episode in mountain life. But a temper, new to me, and which I thought looked very like mutiny, showed itself on the part of some of my men. Its manifestation was slight, I must say, in most cases, and conspicuous only in one. Regrets and apologies followed, and due allowance ought to be made for the perfectly novel position in which the men found themselves. The awe of entire strangeness is very powerful in some minds; and to my companions the notion of spending a night at the top of Mont Blanc was passing strange. The thing had never been attempted previously, nor has the experiment been repeated since.
As stated at p. 17, I made an attempt during the execrable weather of 1860 to reach the top, but was driven down after a delay of twenty hours at the Grands Mulets. The same weather destroyed the lower stations. In 1861, though the cross still remained at the top, the thermometers exhibited broken columns and were worthless for observation.
I may add, in conclusion, that the lowest temperature at the summit of the Jardin during the winter of 1858 was 21° Cent. below zero. In 1859 I vainly endeavoured to find a thermometer which had been placed in the snow upon the summit of Mont Blanc a year previously.
V.
From a little book called ‘Mountaineering in 1861,’ published nine years ago, but long since out of print, I will now make a few selections. The mountain work of that year embraced the ascent of the Weisshorn, and the passage of the barrier between the Cima di Jazzi and Monte Rosa by an untried and dangerous route. Both these expeditions are described. But, besides these narratives of outward action, I notice in the book a subjective element, consisting of the musings and reflections to which I often abandon myself when sauntering over easy ground, and without which even Switzerland would sometimes be monotonous to me. It is only from the reader accustomed to similar reflective moods that I expect acceptance, or even tolerance, of these musings: the man of action will pass them impatiently by. I begin with
A LETTER FROM BÂLE.
‘I reached Bâle last night, and now sit on the balcony of the “Three Kings” with the Rhine flashing below me. It is silent here, but higher up, in passing the props of a bridge, it breaks into foam; its compressed air-bubbles burst like elastic springs, and shake the air into sonorous vibrations.[6] Thus the rude mechanical motion of the river is converted into music. The hammer of the boat-builder rings on his plank, the leaves of the poplars rustle in the breeze, the watchdog’s honest bark is heard in the distance; while from the windows of the houses along the banks gleam a series of reflected suns, each surrounded by a coloured glory.
‘Yesterday I travelled from Paris, and the day previous from London, when the trail of a spent storm swept across the sea and kept its anger awake. The stern of our boat went up and down, the distant craft were equally pendulous, and the usual results followed. Men’s faces waxed green, roses faded from ladies’ cheeks; while puzzled children yelled intermittently in the grasp of the demon which had newly taken possession of them. One rare pale maiden sat right in the line of the spray, and bore the violence of the ocean with the resignation of an angel. A white arm could be seen shining through translucent muslin, but even against it the brine beat as if it were a mere seaweed. I sat at rest, hovering fearfully on the verge of that doleful region, whose bourne most of those on board had already passed, thinking how directly materialistic is the tendency of sea-sickness, through its remorseless demonstration of the helplessness of the human soul and will.
‘The morning of the 1st of August found me on my way from Paris to Bâle. The sun was strong, and, in addition to this source of temperature, eight human beings, each burning the slow fire which we call life, were cooped within the limits of our compartment. We slept, first singly, then by groups, and finally as a whole. Vainly we endeavoured to ward off the coming lethargy. Thought gradually slips away from its object, or the object glides out of the nerveless grasp of thought, and we are conquered by the heat. But what is heat, that it should work such changes in moral and intellectual nature? Why are we unable to read “Mill’s Logic” or study the “Kritik der reinen Vernunft” with any profit in a Turkish bath? Heat, defined without reference to our sensations, is a kind of motion, as strictly mechanical as the waves of the sea, or as the aërial vibrations which produce sound. The communication of this motion to the molecules of the brain produces the moral and intellectual effects just referred to. Human action is only possible within a narrow zone of temperature. Transgress the limit on one side, and we are torpid by excess; transgress it on the other, and we are torpid by defect. The intellect is in some sense a function of temperature. Thus at noon we were drained of intellectual energy; eight hours later the mind was awake and active, and through her operations was shed that feeling of earnestness and awe which the mystery of the starry heavens ever inspires. Physically considered, however, the intellect of noon differed from that of 8 P.M. simply in the amount of motion possessed by the molecules of the brain.
‘It is not levity which prompts me to write thus. Matter, in relation to vital phenomena, has yet to be studied, and the command of Canute to the waves would be wisdom itself compared with any attempt to stop such enquiries. Let the tide rise, and let knowledge advance; the limits of the one are not more rigidly fixed than those of the other; and no worse infidelity could seize upon the mind than the belief that a man’s earnest search after truth should culminate in his perdition.’
The sun was high in heaven as we rolled away from Bâle on the morning of the 2nd. Sooner or later every intellectual canker disappears before earnest work, the influence of which, moreover, fills a wide margin beyond the time of its actual performance. Thus, to-day, I sang as I rolled along—not with boisterous glee, but with serene and deep-lying gladness of heart. This happiness, however, had its roots in the past, and had I not been a worker previous to my release from London, I could not now have been so glad an idler. In any other country than Switzerland the valley through which we sped would have called forth admiration and delight. Noble fells, proudly grouped, flanked us right and left. Cloud-like woods of pines overspread them in broad patches, with between them spaces of the tenderest green, while among the meadows at their feet gleamed the rushing Rhine.
The zenith was blue, but the thick stratum of horizontal air invested the snowy peaks with a veil of translucent haze, through which their vast and spectral outlines were clearly seen. As we rolled on towards Thun the haze thickened, while dense and rounded clouds burst upwards, as if let loose from a prison behind the mountains. Soon afterwards the black haze and blacker clouds resolved themselves into a thunderstorm. The air was cut repeatedly by zigzag bars of solid light. Then came the cannonade, and then the heavy rain-pellets rattling with fury against the carriages. It afterwards cleared, but not wholly. Stormy cumuli swept round the mountains, between which, however, the illuminated ridges seemed to swim in the opalescent air.
At Thun I found my faithful and favourite guide, Johann Bennen, of Laax, in the valley of the Rhone, the strongest limb and stoutest heart of my acquaintance in the Alps. We took the steamer to Interlaken, and while we were on the lake the heavens again darkened, and the deck was flooded by the gushing rain. The dusky cloud-curtain was rent at intervals, and through the apertures thus formed parallel bars of extraordinary radiance escaped across the lake. On reaching Interlaken I drove to the steamer on the lake of Brientz. We started at 6 P.M., with a purified atmosphere, and passed through scenes of serene beauty in the tranquil evening light. The bridge of Brientz had been carried away by the floods, the mail was intercepted, and I joined a young Oxford man in a vehicle to Meyringen. The west wind again filled the atmosphere with gloom, and after supper I spent an hour watching the lightning thrilling behind the clouds. The darkness was intense, and the intermittent glare correspondingly impressive. Sometimes the lightning seemed to burst, like a fireball, midway between the horizon and the zenith, spreading a vast glory behind the clouds and revealing all their outlines. In front of me was a craggy summit, which indulged in intermittent shots of thunder; sharp, dry, and sudden, with scarcely an echo to soften them off.
NOTE ON THE SOUND OF AGITATED WATER.
A liquid vein descending through a round hole in the bottom of a tin vessel exhibits two distinct portions, the one steady and limpid, the other unsteady and apparently turbid. The flash of an electric spark in a dark room instantly resolves the turbid portion into isolated drops. Experiments made in 1849 with such a jet directed my attention to the origin of the sound of agitated water. When the smoke is projected from the lips of a tobacco-smoker, a little explosion usually occurs, which is chiefly due to the sudden bursting of the film of saliva connecting both lips. An inflated bladder bursts with an explosion as loud as a pistol-shot. Sound to some extent always accompanies the sudden liberation of compressed air, and this fact is also exhibited in the deportment of a water-jet. If the surface of water into which the jet falls intersect its limpid portion, the jet enters silently, and no bubbles are produced. If the surface cut the turbid portion of the jet, bubbles make their appearance with an accompaniment of sound. The very nature of the sound pronounces its origin to be the bursting of the bubbles; and to the same cause the murmur of streams and the sound of breakers appear to be almost exclusively due. The impact of water against water is a comparatively subordinate cause of the sound, and could never of itself occasion the ‘babble’ of a brook or the musical roar of the ocean.—Philosophical Magazine, February 1857.
VI.
THE URBACHTHAL AND GAULI GLACIER.
Our bivouac at Meyringen was le Sauvage, who discharged his duty as a host with credit to himself and with satisfaction to us. Forster (the statesman) arrived, and in the afternoon of the 3rd we walked up the valley, with the view of spending the night at Hof. Between Meyringen and Hof, the vale of Hasli is crossed by a transverse ridge called the Kirchet, and the barrier is at one place split through, forming a deep chasm with vertical sides through which plunges the river Aar. The chasm is called the Finsteraarschlucht, and by the ready hypothesis of an earthquake its formation has been explained. Man longs for causes, and the weaker minds, unable to restrain their longing, often barter, for the most sorry theoretic pottage, the truth which patient enquiry would make their own. This proneness of the human mind to jump to conclusions, and thus shirk the labour of real investigation, is a most mischievous tendency. We complain of the contempt with which practical men regard theory, and, to confound them, triumphantly exhibit the speculative achievements of master minds. But the practical man, though puzzled, remains unconvinced; and why? Simply because nine out of ten of the theories with which he is acquainted are deserving of nothing better than contempt. Our master minds built their theoretic edifices upon the rock of fact, the quantity of fact necessary to enable them to divine the law being a measure of individual genius, and not a test of philosophic system.[7]
The level plain of Hof lies above the mound of the Kirchet; how was this flat formed? Is it not composed of the sediment of a lake? Did not the Kirchet form the dam of this lake, a stream issuing from the latter and falling over the dam? And as the sea-waves find a weak point in the cliffs against which they dash, and gradually eat their way so as to form caverns with high vertical sides, as at the Land’s End, a joint or fault or some other accidental weakness determining their line of action; so also a mountain torrent rushing for ages over the same dam would be sure to cut itself a channel. The lake after its drainage left the basis of green meadows as sediment behind; and through these meadows now flows the stream of the Aar. Imagination is essential to the natural philosopher, but its matter must be facts; and its function the discernment of their connection.
We were called at 4 A.M., an hour later than we intended, and the sight of the cloudless mountains was an inspiration to us all. At 5.30 A.M. we were off, crossing the valley of Hof, which was hugged round its margin by a light and silky mist. We ascended a spur which separated us from the Urbachthal, through which our route lay. The Aar for a time babbled in the distance, until, on turning a corner, its voice was suddenly quenched by the louder music of the Urbach, rendered mellow and voluminous by the resonance of the chasm into which the torrent leaped. The sun was already strong. His yellow light glimmered from the fresh green leaves; it smote with glory the boles and the plumes of the pines; soft shadows fell from shrub and rock upon the pastures; snow-peaks were in sight, cliffy summits also, without snow or verdure, but in many cases buttressed by slopes of soil which bore a shaggy growth of trees. To the right of us rose the bare cliffs of the Engelhörner, broken at the top into claw-shaped masses which were turned, as if in spite, against the serene heaven. Bennen walked on in front, a mass of organised force, silent, but emitting at times a whistle which sounded like the piping of a lost chamois. In a hollow of the Engelhörner a mass of snow had found a lodgment; melted by the warm rock, its foundation was sapped, and down it came in a thundering cascade. The thick pinewoods to our right were furrowed by the tracks of these destroyers, the very wind of which, it is affirmed, tears up distant trees by the roots.
For a time our route lay through a spacious valley, which at length turned to the left, and narrowed to a gorge. Along its bottom the hissing river rushed; this we crossed, climbed the wall of a cul de sac, and from its rim enjoyed a glorious view. The Urbachthal has been the scene of vast glacier action. Looking at these charactered cliffs, one’s thoughts involuntarily revert to the ancient days, and we restore in idea a state of things which had disappeared from the world before the development of man. Whence this wondrous power of reconstruction? Was it locked like latent heat in ancient inorganic nature, and developed as the ages rolled? Are other and grander powers still latent in nature, destined to blossom in another age? Let us question fearlessly, but, having done so, let us avow frankly that at bottom we know nothing; that we are imbedded in a mystery, towards the solution of which no whisper has been yet conceded to the listening intellect of man.
The world of life and beauty is now retreating, and the world of death and beauty is at hand. We were soon at the end of the Gauli glacier, from which the impetuous Urbach rushes, and turned into a chalet for a draught of milk. The Senner within proved an extortioner—‘Ein unverschämter Hund;’ but let him pass. We worked along the flank of the glacier to a point which commands a view of the cliffy barrier which it is the main object of our journey to pass. From a range of snow-peaks linked together by ridges of black rock, the Gauli glacier falls, at first steeply as snow, then more gently as ice. We scan the mountain barrier to ascertain where it ought to be attacked. No one of us has ever been here before, and the scanty scraps of information which we have received tell us that at one place only is the barrier passable. We may reach the summit at several points from this side, but all save one, we are informed, lead to the brink of intractable precipices, which fall sheer to the Lauteraar glacier. We observe, discuss, and finally decide. We enter upon the glacier; black chasms yawn here and there through the superincumbent snow, but there is no real difficulty. We cross the glacier and reach the opposite slopes; our way first lies up a moraine, and afterwards through the snow; a laborious ascent brings us close to the ridge, and here we pause once more in consultation. There is a gentle indentation to our left, and a cleft in the rocks to our right; our information points to the cleft, but we decide in favour of the saddle.
The winter snows were here thickly laid against the precipitous crags; the lower part of the buttress thus formed had broken away from the upper, which still clung to the rocks, the whole ridge being thus defended by a profound chasm, called in Switzerland a Bergschrund. At some places portions of snow had fallen away from the upper slope and partially choked the schrund, closing, however, its mouth only, and on this snow we were now to seek a footing. Bennen and myself were loose coming up; Forster and his guide were tied together; but now my friend declares that we must all be attached. We accordingly rope ourselves, and advance along the edge of the fissure to a place where it is partially stopped. A vertical wall of snow faces us. Our leader carefully treads down the covering of the chasm; and having thus rendered it sufficiently rigid to stand upon, he cuts a deep gap with his ice-axe in the opposing wall. Into the gap he tries to force himself, but the mass yields, and he falls back, sinking deeply in the snow of the schrund. He stands right over the fissure, which is merely bridged by the snow. I call out, ‘Take care!’ he responds, ‘All right!’ and returns to the charge. He hews a deeper and more ample gap; strikes his axe into the slope above him, and leaves it there; buries his hands in the yielding mass, and raises his body on his two arms, as on a pair of pillars. He thus clears the schrund and anchors his limbs in the snow above. I am speedily at his side, and we both tighten the rope as our friend Forster advances. With perfect courage and a faultless head, he has but one disadvantage, and that is an excess of weight of at least two stone. In his first attempt the snow-ledge breaks, and he falls back; but two men are now at the rope, the tension of which, aided by his own activity, prevents him from sinking far. By a second effort he clears the difficulty, is followed by his guide, and all four of us reach the slope above the chasm. Its steepness was greater than that of a cathedral roof, while below us, and within a few yards of us, was a chasm into which it would be certain death to fall. Education enables us to regard a position of this kind almost with indifference; still the work was by no means unexciting. In this early stage of our summer performances, it required perfect trust in our leader to keep our minds at ease. We reached the saddle, and a cheer at the summit announced that our escape was secured.
The indentation formed the top of a kind of chimney or funnel in the rocks, which led right down to the Lauteraar glacier. Elated with our success, I released myself from the rope and sprang down the chimney, preventing the descent from quickening to an absolute fall by seizing at intervals the projecting rocks. Once an effort of this kind shook the alpenstock from my hand: it slid along the rubbish, reached a snow-slope, shot down it, and was caught on some shingle at the bottom of the slope. Quickly skirting the snow, which, without a staff, cannot be trusted, I reached a ridge, from which a jump landed me on the débris: it yielded and carried me down; passing the alpenstock I seized it, and in an instant was master of all my motions. Another snow-slope was reached, down which I shot to the rocks at the bottom, and there awaited the arrival of my guide.
We diverged from the deep cut of the chimney, Bennen adhering to the rough rocks, while I, hoping to make an easier descent through the funnel itself, resorted to it. It was partially filled with indurated snow, but underneath was a stream, and my ignorance of the thickness of the roof rendered caution necessary. At one place the snow was broken quite across, and a dark tunnel, through which the stream rushed, opened immediately below me. My descent being thus cut off, I crossed the couloir to the opposite rocks, climbed them, and found myself upon the summit of a ledged precipice, below which Bennen stood, watching me as I descended. On one of the ledges my foot slipped; a most melancholy whine issued from my guide, as he suddenly moved towards me; but the slip in no way compromised me; I reached the next ledge, and in a moment was clear of the difficulty. We dropped down the mountain together, quitted the rocks, and reached the glacier, where we were soon joined by Forster and his companion. Turning round, we espied a herd of seven chamois on one of the distant slopes of snow. The telescope reduced them to five full-grown animals and two pretty little kids. The day was fading and the deeper glacier pools were shaded by their icy banks. Through the shadowed water needles of ice were darting: all day long the molecules had been kept asunder by the antagonistic heat; their enemy is now withdrawn, and they lock themselves together in a crystalline embrace. Through a reach of merciless shingle, which covers the lower part of the glacier, we worked our way; then over green pastures and rounded rocks, to the Grimsel Hotel, which, uncomfortable as it is, was reached with pleasure by us all.
VII.
THE GRIMSEL AND THE ÆGGISCHHORN.
This Grimsel is a weird region—a monument carved with hieroglyphics more ancient and more grand than those of Nineveh or the Nile. It is a world disinterred by the sun from a sepulchre of ice. All around are evidences of the existence and the might of the glaciers which once held possession of the place. All around the rocks are carved, and fluted, and polished, and scored. Here and there angular pieces of quartz, held fast by the ice, inserted their edges into the rocks and scratched them like diamonds, the scratches varying in depth and width according to the magnitude of the cutting stone. Larger masses, held similarly captive, scooped longitudinal depressions in the rocks over which they passed, while in many cases the polishing must have been effected by the ice itself. A raindrop will wear a stone away; much more would an ice surface, squeezed into perfect contact by enormous pressure, rub away the asperities of the rocks over which for ages it was forced to slide. The rocks thus polished by the ice itself are so exceedingly smooth and slippery that it is impossible to stand on them where their inclination is at all considerable. But what a world it must have been when the valleys were thus filled! We can restore the state of things in thought, and in doing so we submerge many a mass which now lifts its pinnacle skyward. Switzerland in those days could not be so grand as it is now. Pour ice into those valleys till they are filled, and you eliminate those contrasts of height and depth on which the grandeur of Alpine scenery depends. Instead of skiey pinnacles and deep-cut gorges we should have an icy sea dotted with dreary islands formed by the highest mountain-tops.
In the afternoon I strolled up to the Siedelhorn. As I stood upon the broken summit of the mountain the air was without a cloud; and the sunbeams fell directly against the crown and slopes of the Galenstock at the base of which lay the glacier of the Rhone. The level sea of névé above the great ice-cascade, the fall itself, and the terminal glacier below the fall were all apparently at hand. At the base of the fall the ice undergoes an extraordinary transformation; it reaches this place more or less amorphous, it quits it most beautifully laminated, the change being due to the pressure endured at the bottom of the fall. The wrinkling of the glacier here was quite visible, the dwindling of the wrinkles into bands, and the subdivision of these bands into lines which mark the edges of the laminæ of which the glacier at this place is made up. Beyond, amid the mountains at the opposite side of the Rhone valley, lay the Gries glacier, half its snow in shadow, and half illuminated by the sinking sun. Round farther to the right were the Monte Leone and other grand masses, the grandest here being the Mischabel with its crowd of snowy cones. Jumping a gap in the mountains, we hit the stupendous cone of the Weisshorn, which slopes to meet the inclines of the Mischabel, and in the wedge of space carved out between the two the Matterhorn lifts its terrible head.
Wheeling farther in the same direction, we at length strike the mighty spurs of the Finsteraarhorn, between two of which lies the Oberaar glacier. Here is no turmoil of crevasses, no fantastic ice-pinnacles, nothing to indicate the operation of those tremendous forces by which a glacier sometimes rends its own breast. The grimmest giant of the Oberland closes the view at the head of the Lauteraar glacier—the Schreckhorn, whose cliffs on this side no mountaineer will ever scale. Between the Schreckhorn and Finsteraarhorn a curious group of peaks encircle a flat snow-field, from which the sunbeams are flung in blazing lines. Immediately below is the Unteraar glacier, with a long black streak upon its back, bent hither and thither, like a serpent wriggling down the valley. Beyond it and flanking it is a ridge of mountains with a crest of vertical rock, hacked into indentations which suggest a resemblance to a cock’s comb. To the very root of the comb the mountains have been planed by the ancient ice.
A scene of unspeakable desolation it must have been when not Switzerland alone, but all Europe, was thus encased in frozen armour—when a glacier from Ben Nevis dammed the mouth of Glenroy, and Llanberis and Borrodale were ploughed by frozen shares sent down by Snowdon and Scawfell—when from the Reeks of Magillicuddy came the navigators which dug out space for the Killarney lakes, and carved through the mountains the Gap of Dunloe.[8] Evening came, and I moved downwards, over heaped boulders and tufted alp; down with headlong speed over the rounded rocks of the Grimsel, making long springs at intervals, over the polished inclines, and reaching the hospice as the bell rings its inmates to their evening meal.
On Saturday I ascended from Viesch to the Hotel Jungfrau on the slope of the Æggischhorn, and in the evening walked up to the summit of the mountain alone. As usual, I wandered unconsciously from the beaten track, getting into a chaos of crags which had been shaken from the heights. My ascent was quick, and I soon found myself upon the crest of broken rocks which caps the mountain. The peak and those adjacent, which are similarly shattered, exhibit a striking picture of the ruin which nature inflicts upon her own creations. She buildeth up and taketh down. She lifts the mountains by her subterranean energies, and then blasts them by her lightnings and her frost. Thus grandly she rushes along the ‘grooves of change’ to her unattainable repose. Is it unattainable? The incessant tendency of material forces is toward final equilibrium; and if the quantity of this tendency be finite, a time of repose must come at last. If one portion of the universe be hotter than another, a flux instantly sets in to equalise the temperatures; while winds blow and rivers roll in search of a stable equilibrium. Matter longs for rest; when is this longing to be fully satisfied? If satisfied, what then? Rest is not perfection; it is death. Life is only compatible with mutation; when equilibrium sets in life ceases, and the world thenceforward is locked in everlasting sleep.
A wooden cross bleached by many storms surmounts the pinnacle of the Æggischhorn, and at the base of it I now take my place and scan the surrounding scene. Down from its birthplace in the mountains comes that noblest of ice-streams the Great Aletsch glacier. Its arms are thrown round the shoulders of the Jungfrau, while from the Monk and the Trugberg, the Gletscherhorn, the Breithorn, the Aletschhorn, and many another noble pile, the tributary snows descend and thicken into ice. The mountains are well protected by their wintry coats, and hence the quantity of débris upon the glacier is comparatively small; still, along it can be noticed dark longitudinal streaks, which are incipient moraines. Right and left from these longitudinal bands sweep finer curves, twisted here and there into complex windings, which mark the lamination of the subjacent ice. The glacier lies in a curved valley, the side towards which its convex curvature is turned is thrown into a state of strain, the ice breaks across the line of tension, a curious system of oblique glacier ravines being thus produced. From the snow-line which crosses the glacier above the Faulberg a pure snow-field stretches upward to the Col de la Jungfrau, which unites the Maiden to the Monk. Skies and summits are to-day without a cloud, and no mist or turbidity interferes with the sharpness of the outlines. Jungfrau, Monk, Eiger, Trugberg, cliffy Strahlgrat, stately, lady-like Aletschhorn, all grandly pierce the empyrean. Like a Saul of mountains, the Finsteraarhorn overtops all his neighbours; then we have the Oberaarhorn, with the river glacier of Viesch rolling from his shoulders. Below is the Märjelin See, with its crystal precipices and its floating icebergs, snowy white, sailing on a blue-green sea. Beyond is the range which divides the Valais from Italy. Sweeping round, the vision meets an aggregate of peaks which look, as fledglings to their mother, towards the mighty Dom. Then come the repellent crags of Mont Cervin, the idea of moral savagery, of wild untameable ferocity, mingling involuntarily with our contemplation of the gloomy pile. Next comes an object scarcely less grand, conveying it may be even a deeper impression of majesty and might than the Matterhorn itself—the Weisshorn, perhaps the most splendid object in the Alps. But beauty is associated with its force, and we think of it, not as cruel, but as grand and strong. Further to the right is the Great Combin; other peaks crowd around him, while at the extremity of the curve along which the gaze has swept rises the sovran crown of Mont Blanc. And now, as the day sinks, scrolls of pearly clouds form around the mountain-crests, and are wafted from them into the distant air. They are without colour of any kind; but their grace of form and lustre are not to be described.
NOTE ON CLOUDS.
It is well known that when a receiver filled with ordinary undried air is exhausted, a cloudiness, due to the precipitation of the aqueous vapour diffused in the air, is produced by the first few strokes of the pump. It is, as might be expected, possible to produce clouds in this way with the vapours of other liquids than water.
In the course of some experiments on the chemical action of light on vapours which have been communicated to the Royal Society, I had frequent occasion to observe the precipitation of such clouds; indeed, several days at a time have been devoted solely to the generation and examination of clouds formed by the sudden dilatation of mixed air and vapours in the experimental tubes.
The clouds were generated in two ways: one mode consisted in opening the passage between the filled experimental tube and the air-pump, and then simply dilating the air by working the pump. In the other, the experimental tube was connected with a vessel of suitable size, the passage between which and the experimental tube could be closed by a stopcock. This vessel was first exhausted; on turning the cock the air rushed from the experimental tube into the vessel, the precipitation of a cloud within the tube being a consequence of the transfer. Instead of a special vessel, the cylinders of the air-pump itself were usually employed for this purpose.
It was found possible, by shutting off the residue of air and vapour after each act of precipitation, and again exhausting the cylinders of the pump, to obtain with some substances, and without refilling the experimental tube, fifteen or twenty clouds in succession.
The clouds thus precipitated differed from each other in luminous energy, some shedding forth a mild white light, others flashing out with sudden and surprising brilliancy. This difference of action is, of course, to be referred to the different reflective energies of the particles of the clouds, which were produced by substances of very different refractive indices.
Different clouds, moreover, possess very different degrees of stability: some melt away rapidly, while others linger for minutes in the experimental tube, resting, as they slowly dissolve, upon its bottom like a heap of snow. The particles of other clouds are trailed through the experimental tube as if they were moving through a viscous medium.
Nothing can exceed the splendour of the diffraction phenomena exhibited by some of these clouds; the colours are best seen by looking along the experimental tube from a point above it, the face being turned towards the source of illumination. The differential motions introduced by friction against the interior surface of the tube often cause the colours to arrange themselves in distinct layers.
The difference in texture exhibited by different clouds caused me to look a little more closely than I had previously done into the mechanism of cloud-formation. A certain expansion is necessary to bring down the cloud; the moment just before precipitation the cooling air and vapour may be regarded as divided into a number of polyhedra, the particles along the bounding surfaces of which move in opposite directions when precipitation actually sets in. Every cloud-particle has consumed a polyhedron of vapour in its formation; and it is manifest that the size of the particle must depend, not only on the size of the vapour polyhedron, but also on the relation of the density of the vapour to that of its liquid. If the vapour were light, and the liquid heavy, other things being equal, the cloud-particle would be smaller than if the vapour were heavy and the liquid light. There would evidently be more shrinkage in the one case than in the other; these considerations were found valid throughout the experiments; the case of toluol may be taken as representative of a great number of others. The specific gravity of this liquid is 0.85, that of water being unity; the specific gravity of its vapour is 3.26, that of aqueous vapour being 0.6. Now, as the size of the cloud-particle is directly proportional to the specific gravity of the vapour, and inversely proportional to the specific gravity of the liquid, an easy calculation proves that, assuming the size of the vapour polyhedra in both cases to be the same, the size of the particle of toluol cloud must be more than six times that of the particle of aqueous cloud. It is probably impossible to test this question with numerical accuracy; but the comparative coarseness of the toluol cloud is strikingly manifest to the naked eye. The case is, as I have said, representative.
In fact, aqueous vapour is without a parallel in these particulars; it is not only the lightest of all vapours, in the common acceptation of that term, but the lightest of all gases except hydrogen and ammonia. To this circumstance the soft and tender beauty of the clouds of our atmosphere is mainly to be ascribed.
The sphericity of the cloud-particles may be immediately inferred from their deportment under the luminous beams. The light which they shed when spherical is continuous: but clouds may also be precipitated in solid flakes; and then the incessant sparkling of the cloud shows that its particles are plates, and not spheres. Some portions of the same cloud may be composed of spherical particles, others of flakes, the difference being at once manifested through the calmness of the one portion of the cloud, and the uneasiness of the other. The sparkling of such flakes reminded me of the plates of mica in the River Rhone at its entrance into the Lake of Geneva when shone upon by a strong sun.—Proceedings of the Royal Society, vol. xvii. p. 317.
Clouds are so often referred to in these pages that I thought it might be of interest to note the latest remarks on their formation.
VIII.
THE BEL ALP.
On Tuesday the 13th I accompanied a party of friends to the Märjelin See, skirted the lake, struck in upon the glacier, and having heard much of the position and the comfort of a new hotel upon the Bel Alp, I resolved to descend the glacier and pay the place a visit. The Valais range had been covered before we quitted the Æggischhorn; and, though the sun rode unimpeded in the higher heavens, vast masses of cloud continued to thrust themselves forth like tree-branches into the upper air.
The clouds extended, becoming ever blacker, until finally they were unlocked by thunder, and shook themselves down upon us in furious rain. The glacier is here cut up into oblique valleys of ice, subdivided by sharp-edged crevasses. We advanced swiftly along the ridges, but these finally abutted against the mountain, and we were compelled to cross from ridge to ridge. Hirst followed Bennen, and I trusted to my own devices. Joyously we struck our axes into the crumbling crests, and made our way rapidly between the chasms. The sunshine gushed down upon us, and partially dried our drenched clothes. At some distance to our left we observed upon the ice a group of persons, consisting of two men, a boy, and an old woman, engaged beside a crevasse; a thrill of horror shot through me, at the thought of a man being possibly between its jaws. We quickly joined them, and found an unfortunate cow firmly jammed between the frozen sides of the fissure, and groaning piteously. The men seemed very helpless; their means were inadequate, and their efforts ill-directed. ‘Give the brute space, cut away the ice which presses the ribs, and you step upon that block which stops the chasm, and apply your shoulders to the creature’s buttocks.’ The ice splinters fly aloft, under the vigorous strokes of Bennen. Hirst suggests that a rope should be passed round the horns, so as to enable all hands to join in the pull. This is done. Another rope is passed between the hind legs. Bennen has loosened the ice which held the ribs in bondage, and now, like mariners heaving an anchor, we all join in a tug, timing our efforts by an appropriate exclamation. The weight moves, but extremely little; again the cry, and again the heave—it moves a little more. This is repeated several times till the fore-legs are extricated and thrown forward on the ice. We now lift the hinder parts, and succeed in placing the animal upon the glacier, panting and trembling all over. Folding our rope, we went onward. The day again darkened. Again the thunder rang, being now preceded by lightning, which was thrown into my eyes from the polished surface of my axe. Flash followed flash and peal succeeded peal with terrific grandeur, and the loaded clouds sent down from all their fringes dusky streamers of rain. They looked like waterspouts, so dense was their texture. Furious as was the descending shower, hard as we were hit by the mixed pellets of ice and water, I enjoyed the scene. Grandly the cloud-besom swept the mountains, their colossal outlines looming at intervals like overpowered Titans struggling against their doom.
The glacier becoming impracticable through crevasses, we retreated to its eastern shore, and got along the lateral moraine. It was rough work. The slope to our left was partially clothed with spectral pines. Storms had stripped the trunks of their branches, and the branches of their leaves, leaving the tree-wrecks behind, as if spirit-stricken and accursed. Our home is now in sight, perched upon the summit of a bluff opposite. We passed swiftly over the ridges towards our destination. Wet and thirsty, we reached the opposite side, and, striking into a beaten track, finally reached the pleasant auberge at which our journey ends.
From the hotel on the slope of Æggischhorn an hour’s ascent is required to place you in presence of the magnificent view from the summit. But the very windows of the hotel upon the Bel Alp command noble views, and you may sit upon the bilberry slopes adjacent before the grandest of mountain scenes. On the 14th I went down to the savage gorge in which the Aletsch glacier ends. A pine tree stood sheer over it; bending its trunk at a right angle near its root, and grasping a rock with its root, it supported itself above the chasm. Standing upon the horizontal part of the tree, I hugged its upright stem, and looked down into the gorge. It required several minutes to chase away my timidity, and as the wind blew more forcibly against me, I clung with greater fixity to the tree. In this wild spot, and alone, I watched the dying fires of the day, until the latest glow had vanished from the mountains.
Above the Bel Alp, and two hours distant, is the grey pinnacle of the Sparrenhorn. I went up there on the 15th. To the observer from the hotel it appears as an isolated peak; but it forms the lofty end of a narrow ridge, which is torn into ruins by the weather. At a distance in front of me was a rocky promontory like the Abschwung, right and left of which descended two streams of ice, which welded themselves to a common trunk glacier. The scene was perfectly unexpected and strikingly beautiful. Nowhere have I seen more perfect repose, nowhere more tender curves or finer structural lines. The stripes of the moraine bending along the glacier contribute to its beauty, and its deep seclusion gives it a peculiar charm. It seems a river so protected by its bounding mountains that no storm can ever reach it, and no billow disturb the perfect serenity of its rest. The sweep of the Aletsch glacier is also mighty as viewed from this point, and from no other could the Valais range seem more majestic. It is needless to say a word about the grandeur of the Dom, the Cervin, and the Weisshorn, all of which, and a great deal more, are commanded from the Sparrenhorn.
IX.
THE WEISSHORN.
On Friday the 16th of August I rose at 4.30; the eastern heaven was hot with the glow of the rising sun, and against it were drawn the mountain outlines. At 5.30 I bade good-bye to the excellent little auberge of the Bel Alp,[9] and went straight down the mountain to Briegg, took the diligence to Visp, and engaged a porter immediately to Randa. I had sent Bennen thither to inspect the Weisshorn. On my arrival I learned that he had made the necessary reconnaissance, and entertained hopes of our being able to gain the top.