This dreadful catastrophe also levied its tribute among the strangers whom the beauties of Alpine scenery annually attract to Switzerland. A party of tourists had left Arth in the afternoon with the intention of spending the night in Schwyz. Part of the company had already entered the ill-fated village of Goldau, and the others were about to follow, when suddenly the thundering roar of the sliding mountain caused them to stop. Looking up and seeing rocks, forests, huts, all rushing down in horrible confusion, they instinctively ran back for their lives. The warning came not one instant too soon, for close behind the spot where they stopped panting for breath, the stones still fell like hail. But their unfortunate companions, the wife and daughter of Baron Diesbach, Colonel Victor von Steiger, and some boys, whose tutor had been slowly following them with the Baron, were buried beneath the ruins.
From the Righi the traveller still looks down upon the avalanche of stones, and the flank of the Rossberg still plainly shows the spot where, more than half a century ago, the masses of rock now reposing in the valley detached themselves from the mountain. But the beautifying hand of vegetation has already done much to adorn the scene of ruin. Green mosses have woven their soft carpet over the naked stones, while grasses and flowers, and in some places even shrubs and trees, have sprung up between them. The tears also which once were shed over the victims of the great catastrophe have long since been dried, and its last witnesses have passed away to make room for a new generation, who remember the mountain-slip which buried their fathers only as a legend of the past.
This terrible disaster, however appalling through the far-spread desolation it entailed, has yet been equalled or surpassed by others of a like nature. In the fifth century, the old Roman town of Velleja was buried under the ruins of the Ravinazzo Mountain, and the bones and coins dug out of its ancient site prove that no time was left to the inhabitants for flight. Tauretunum was once a flourishing Roman town, situated on the south bank of the lake of Geneva, at the foot of the Dent d’Oche. In 563 it was utterly destroyed by a disruption of the overhanging mountain. The avalanche of stones which at that time was hurled down upon the devoted city is still visible as a promontory projecting far into the lake, which is here at least 500 feet deep. The immense wave caused by the rocky mass as it plunged into the water inundated the opposite shore from Morges to Vevay, and swept away every homestead that lay on its path.
In the night of September 4, 1618, the falling of the Monte Conto, in the Vale of Chiavenna, so completely buried the small town of Plürs and the village of Scilano, that of their 2,430 inhabitants but three remained alive, and but one single house escaped the universal destruction. At present, magnificent chestnut-trees grow upon the mound of ruins and cast their shade over the graves of the long-forgotten victims. Three villages, with their whole population, were covered in the district of Treviso when the Piz mountain fell in 1772; and the enormous masses of rock which in 1248 detached themselves from Mount Grenier, south of Chambery in Savoy, buried five parishes, including the town and church of Saint André, the ruin occupying an extent of about nine square miles.
Sometimes the same village has been repeatedly destroyed by mountain-slips. Thus excavations have shown that Brienz, a hamlet built on the borders of the lake of the same name, on a mound of accumulated ruins, has been twice overwhelmed by a deluge of stones and mud, and twice reconstructed.
It would be useless to multiply examples of the undermining power of water. I will merely add that it is impossible to wander through the valleys of Switzerland without being struck by the sight of the sloping hillocks of rubbish piled up against the foot of every gigantic rock wall, which in many cases can only be attributed to that cause. Some are entirely overgrown with large firs, thus showing that the last stony avalanche took place at a remote period; others are desolate heaps of rubbish, which evidently prove that the work of destruction is constantly going on, and that the highest peaks will ultimately be levelled with the plain. Over many a hamlet the sword of Damocles is continually suspended in the shape of a precipitous rock-wall, or of a forest-crowned mountain-brow. For years the undermining waters are slowly and secretly at work, and then suddenly the crisis takes place.
AXMOUTH LANDSLIP.
Were the history of the Andes or of the Himalayas as familiar to us as that of the Alps, we should be able to relate many like instances of disastrous mountain-slips. But the high places of the earth do not alone bear witness to the power of aqueous erosion, for wherever the soil is undermined, it may be precipitated to a lower level. Thus, the phenomenon is by no means uncommon in England, though rarely occurring on so large a scale as in the landslip which took place at Axmouth in Dorsetshire, on December 24, 1839.
‘The tract of downs ranging there along the coast,’ says Sir Charles Lyell (‘Principles of Geology’), ‘is capped by chalk, which rests on sandstone, beneath which is more than 100 feet of loose sand, the whole of these masses reposing on retentive beds of clay shelving towards the sea. Numerous springs, issuing from the loose sand, have gradually removed portions of it, and thus undermined the superstratum. In 1839, an excessively wet season had saturated all the rocks with moisture, so as to increase the weight of the incumbent mass, from which the support had already been withdrawn by the action of springs. Thus, the superstrata were precipitated into hollows prepared for them, and the adjacent masses of partially undermined rock to which the motion was communicated, were made to slide down, on a slippery basis of watery sand, towards the sea. These causes gave rise to a convulsion, which began on the morning of December 24, with a crashing noise; and, on the evening of the same day, fissures were seen opening in the ground, and the walls of tenements rending and sinking, until a deep chasm or ravine was formed, extending nearly three-quarters of a mile in length, with a depth of from 100 to 150 feet, and a breadth exceeding 240 feet. At the bottom of this deep gulf lie fragments of the original surface, thrown together in the wildest confusion. In consequence of lateral movements, the tract intervening between the new fissure and the sea, including the ancient undercliff, was fractured, and the whole line of sea-cliff carried bodily forwards for many yards. This motion of the sea-cliff produced a further effect, which may rank among the most striking phenomena of this catastrophe. The lateral pressure of the descending rocks urged the neighbouring strata, extending beneath the shingle of the shore, by their state of unnatural condensation, to burst upwards in a line parallel to the coast, so that an elevated ridge, more than a mile in length and rising more than forty feet, covered by a confused assemblage of broken strata and immense blocks of rock, invested with seaweed and corallines, and scattered over with shells and starfish, and other productions of the deep, forms an extended reef in front of the present range of cliffs.’