The Subterranean World

by G. Hartwig

In the first of these catastrophes, the life of a peasant was preserved in a wonderful manner. An immense block came toppling down close to his châlet and covered it like a shield, so as to preserve it from being crushed by the following débris, though piled up two hundred feet above it. Thus, immured as it were in a living tomb, the unfortunate man spent miserable weeks and months, subsisting on the stores of cheese hoarded in his hut, without light and air, and in constant fear that the rocks above his head might give way and bury him under their ruins. With all the energy of despair, he endeavoured to find his way out of the mighty mound of rubbish, and at length, after incredible toil, emerged into the open daylight. More like a spectre than a human being, pale and emaciated, with torn clothes, and covered with bruises, he knocked at the door of his house[^[12]] in the lower valley, where his wife and children, who had already long reckoned him among the dead, were at first terrified at his ghost-like appearance, and called in the village pastor to convince them of his identity, before they ventured to rejoice at his return.

On the road from Sallenches to Servoz, in the Valley of the Arve, well known to all the visitors of Mont Blanc, may be seen the ruins of a high mountain which collapsed in the year 1751, causing so dreadful a crash and raising such clouds of dust that the whole neighbourhood thought the world was at an end. The black dust was taken for smoke; flames had been seen darting about in the murky clouds, and the report spread to Turin that a new Vesuvius had suddenly opened its subterranean furnaces among the highest of the Alpine mountains. The king, alarmed or interested at the news, immediately sent the famous geologist Vitaliano Donati to gather accurate information on the spot. Donati, travelling night and day, with all the eagerness of a zealous naturalist, arrived while the appalling phenomenon was still in full activity.

‘The peasants,’ writes Donati to a friend, ‘had all fled from the neighbourhood, and did not venture to approach the crashing mountain within a distance of two Italian miles. The country around was covered with dust, which closely resembled ashes, and had been carried by the wind to a distance of five miles. I examined the dust, and found it to consist of pulverised marble. I also attentively observed the smoke, but could see no flames, nor could I perceive a sulphurous smell; the water also of the rivulets and sources showed no trace of sulphurous matter. This convinced me at once that no volcanic eruption was taking place, and penetrating into the cloud of dust which enveloped the mountain, I advanced close to the scene of the commotion. I there saw enormous rocks tumbling piecemeal into an abyss with a dreadful noise, louder than the rolling of thunder or the roar of heavy artillery, and distinctly saw that the smoke was nothing but the dust rising from their fall.

‘Further investigations also showed me the cause of the phenomenon, for I found the mountain to consist of horizontal strata, the lowest being composed of a loose stone of a slaty texture, while the upper ones, though of a more compact nature, were rent with numerous crevices. On the back of the mountain were three small lakes, the water of which, penetrating through the fissures of the strata, had gradually loosened their foundations. The snow, which had fallen during the previous winter more abundantly than had ever been known within the memory of man, hastened the progress of destruction, and caused the fall of six hundred million cubic feet of stone, which alone would have sufficed to form a great mountain. Six shepherds, as many houses, and a great number of cows and goats have been buried under the ruins.

‘In my report to the king I have accurately described the causes and effects of the catastrophe, and foretold its speedy termination—a prediction which has been fully verified by the event—and thus the new volcano has become extinct almost as soon as its formation was announced.’

Fortunately, this grand convulsion of nature, which spread consternation far and wide, caused the death of but a few victims. The landslip of the Rufi or Rossberg, which, on September 2, 1806, devastated the lovely Vale of Goldau, and overwhelmed four villages, with their rich pasture-grounds and gardens, was far more disastrous. The preceding years had been unusually wet, the filtering waters had loosened the Nagelfluh, or coarse conglomerate of which the mountain is composed, and the rains having latterly been almost continuous, a great part of the mountain, undermined by the subterranean action of the waters, at length gave way and was hurled into the valley below.

Early in the morning the shepherds who were tending their herds on the mountains perceived fresh crevices in the ground and on the rock walls. In many parts the turf appeared as if turned up by a ploughshare, and a cracking noise as if roots were violently snapped asunder was heard in the neighbouring forest. From hour to hour, the rents, the cracking, the rolling down of single stones increased, until finally, at about five in the afternoon, a large chasm opened in the flanks of the mountain, growing every instant deeper, longer, and broader. Then from the opposite Righi the forest might be seen to wave to and fro like a storm-tossed sea, and the whole flank of the mountain to slide down with a constantly increasing velocity, until finally hundreds of millions of cubic feet of rock came sweeping down into the valley with a noise as if the foundations of the earth were giving way. The friction or clash of the huge stones, hurled against each other in their fall, produced so intense a heat that flames were seen to flash forth from the avalanche, and the moisture with which they were saturated, being suddenly changed into steam, caused explosions like those from the crater of a volcano. Dense clouds of dust veiled the scene of destruction, and it was not before they slowly rolled away that the whole extent of the disaster became visible. Where, but a few hours since, four prosperous villages—Goldau, Busingen, Upper and Lower Röthen, and Lowerz—had been gilded by the sun, and numerous herds had been grazing on the rich pastures along the borders of the lake of Lowerz, nothing was now to be seen but a desolate chaos of rocks, beneath which 457 persons lay buried. From this terrible disaster some wonderful escapes are recorded. High on the slope of the Rossberg, lived Bläsi Mettler, with his young wife Agatha. When, in the morning, the first premonitory signs of the disaster appeared, and the labouring mountain began to raise its warning voice, the superstitious peasant, fancying he heard the jubilee of demons, hastened down to Arth, on the bank of the lake of Zug, and begged the parish priest, with tears and lamentations, to accompany him, and exorcise the evil spirits with a copious sprinkling of holy water. While he was still speaking, the catastrophe took place, and he now rushed back again to his hut, where beyond all doubt his beloved wife and his only child, which was but four weeks old, had found a premature grave.

Meanwhile Agatha had spent several anxious hours. She was preparing her humble evening meal when the thundering uproar and the shaking of the hut filled her with the terrors of death. Seizing the infant, which lay awake in its cradle, she crossed the threshold, while the soil under her feet slid down into the valley. Escaping into the open air, she looked back and saw her hut and a sea of huge stone blocks roll down into the vale below, while the spot on which she stood remained unmoved. In this situation she was found by Bläsi, who, though a poor and ruined man, still thanked God for the wonderful preservation of his family.

About a thousand feet lower down the mountain lived Bläsi’s brother Bastian, who, when the mountain slipped, was tending his herd on the opposite Righi. But his wife and her two little children were in his hut when it was buried beneath the stony avalanche. After the terrible commotion had subsided, the relations of Frau Mettler, anxious to ascertain her fate, hastened to the scene of desolation. The hut had disappeared, the green Alpine meadow was covered with a heap of ruins, but, not far from the former site of the humble cottage, the youngest child lay quietly sleeping. At the peril of his life, one of the infant’s relations clambered over the ruins and rescued the little sleeper, who, unhurt amidst the falling rafters of the hut and the ruins of the crumbling mountain, had been carried away with the bed on which he was reposing. On my last visit to Switzerland, I was informed that Sebastian Meinhardt Mettler, the child thus wonderfully saved, died in the year 1867, at the age of sixty-one.

Some of the victims who had been buried in the ruins of the villages were dug out and restored to daylight; others, less fortunate, may have slowly perished, immured in a living grave; but by far the greater number were no doubt suddenly killed. The total number of those who were saved, either by the assistance of their friends, or by a timely flight, or by absence from their homes at the time of the disaster, amounted to 220; but more than double that number perished, and probably there was not one among the survivors who had not to lament the loss of friends and kinsfolk.