A little bridge, apparently frail, spans the torrent just above the entrance to this gorge, and from it one perceives, being fashioned in the rocks below, concavities similar to those to which reference has just been made. The torrent is seen hurrying forwards. Not everywhere. In some places the water strikes projecting angles, and, thrown back by them, remains almost stationary, eddying round and round: in others, obstructions fling it up in fountains, which play perpetually on the under surfaces of overhanging masses; and sometimes do so in such a way that the water not only works upon the under surfaces, but round the corner; that is to say, upon the surfaces which are not opposed to the general direction of the current. In all cases concavities are being produced. Projecting angles are rounded, it is true, and are more or less convex, but they are overlooked on account of the prevalence of concave forms.
Cause and effect help each other here. The inequalities of the torrent bed and walls cause its eddyings, and the eddies fashion the concavities. The more profound the latter become, the more disturbance is caused in the water. The destruction of the rocks proceeds at an ever-increasing rate; for the larger the amount of surface that is exposed, the greater are the opportunities for the assaults of heat and cold.
When water is in the form of glacier it has not the power of making concavities, such as these, in rocks, and of working upon surfaces which are not opposed to the direction of the current. Its nature is changed; it operates in a different way, and it leaves marks which are readily distinguished from those produced by torrent-action.
The prevailing forms which result from glacier-action are more or less convex. Ultimately, all angles and almost all curves are obliterated, and large areas of flat surfaces are produced. This perfection of abrasion is rarely found, except in such localities as have sustained a grinding much more severe than that which has occurred in the Alps; and, generally speaking, the dictum of the veteran [pg 99]geologist Studer, quoted below, is undoubtedly true.[77] Not merely can the operations of extinct glaciers be traced in detail by means of the bosses of rock popularly termed roches moutonnées, but their effects in the aggregate, on a range of mountains or an entire country, can be recognised sometimes at a distance of fifteen or twenty miles from the incessant repetition of these convex forms.
We finished up the 3d of August with a walk over the Findelen glacier, and returned to Zermatt at a later hour than we intended, both very sleepy. This is noteworthy only on account of that which followed. We had to cross the Col de Valpelline on the next day, and an early start was desirable. Monsieur Seiler, excellent man, knowing this, called us himself, and when he came to my door, I answered, “All right, Seiler, I will get up,” and immediately turned over to the other side, saying to myself, “First of all, ten minutes more sleep.” But Seiler waited and listened, and, suspecting the case, knocked again. “Herr Whymper, have you got a light?” Without thinking what the consequences might be, I answered, “No,” and then the worthy man actually forced the lock off his own door to give me one. By similar and equally friendly and disinterested acts, Monsieur Seiler has acquired his enviable reputation.
At 4 A.M. we left his Monte Rosa Hotel, and were soon pushing our way through the thickets of grey alder that skirt the path up the right bank of the exquisite little valley which leads to the Z’Muttgletscher.
Nothing can well seem more inaccessible than the Matterhorn upon this side; and even in cold blood one holds the breath when looking at its stupendous cliffs. There are but few equal to them in size in the Alps, and there are none which can more truly be termed precipices. Greatest of them all is the immense north cliff,—that which bends over towards the Z’Muttgletscher. Stones which drop [pg 100]from the top of that amazing wall fall for about 1500 feet before they touch anything; and those which roll down from above, and bound over it, fall to a much greater depth, and leap well-nigh 1000 feet beyond its base. This side of the mountain has always seemed sombre—sad—terrible; it is painfully suggestive of decay, ruin, and death; and it is now, alas! more than terrible by its associations.
“There is no aspect of destruction about the Matterhorn cliffs,” says Professor Ruskin. Granted;—when they are seen from afar. But approach, and sit down by the side of the Z’Muttgletscher, and you will hear that their piecemeal destruction is proceeding ceaselessly—incessantly. You will hear, but, probably, you will not see; for even when the descending masses thunder as loudly as heavy guns, and the echoes roll back from the Ebihorn opposite, they will still be as pin-points against this grand old face, so vast is its scale!
If you would see the “aspects of destruction,” you must come still closer, and climb its cliffs and ridges, or mount to the plateau of the Matterhorngletscher, which is cut up and ploughed up by these missiles, and strewn on its surface with their smaller fragments; the larger masses, falling with tremendous velocity, plunge into the snow and are lost to sight.
The Matterhorngletscher, too, sends down its avalanches, as if in rivalry with the rocks behind. Round the whole of its northern side it does not terminate in the usual manner by gentle slopes, but comes to a sudden end at the top of the steep rocks which lie betwixt it and the Z’Muttgletscher; and seldom does an hour pass without a huge slice breaking away and falling with dreadful uproar on to the slopes below, where it is re-compacted.