REICHENBACH AND HANDECK. 1856.
After crossing the Scheideck I descended to Meyringen, visiting the Reichenbach waterfall on my way. A peculiarity of the descending water here is, that it is broken up in one of the basins into nodular masses, each of which in falling leaves the light foaming mass which surrounds it as a train in the air behind; the effect exactly resembles that of the avalanches of the Jungfrau, in which the more solid blocks of ice shoot forward in advance of the lighter débris, which is held back by the friction of the air.
Next day I ascended the valley of Hasli, and observed upon the rocks and mountains the action of ancient glaciers which once filled the valley to the height of more than a thousand feet above its present level. I paused, of course, at the waterfall of Handeck, and stood for a time upon the wooden bridge which spans the river at its top. The Aar comes gambolling down to the bridge from its parent glacier, takes one short jump upon a projecting ledge, boils up into foam, and then leaps into a chasm, from the bottom of which its roar ascends through the gloom. A rivulet named the Aarlenbach joins the Aar from the left in the very jaws of the chasm: falling, at first, upon a projection at some depth below the edge, and, rebounding from this, it darts at the Aar, and both plunge together like a pair of fighting demons to the bottom of the gorge. The foam of the Aarlenbach is white, that of the Aar is yellow, and this enables the observer to trace the passage of the one cataract through the other. As I stood upon the bridge the sun shone brightly upon the spray and foam; my shadow was oblique to the river, and hence a symmetrical rainbow could not be formed in the spray, but one half of a lovely bow, with its base in the chasm, leaned over against the opposite rocks, the colours advancing and retreating as the spray shifted its position. I had been watching the water intently for some time, when a little Swiss boy, who stood beside me, observed, in his trenchant German, "There plunge stones ever downwards." The stones were palpable enough, carried down by the cataract, and sometimes completely breaking loose from it, but I did not see them until my attention was withdrawn from the water.
HUT OF M. DOLLFUSS. 1856.
On my arrival at the Grimsel I found Mr. Huxley already there, and, after a few minutes' conversation, we decided to spend a night in a hut built by M. Dollfuss in 1846, beside the Unteraar glacier, about 2000 feet above the Hospice. We hoped thus to be able to examine the glacier to its origin on the following day. Two days' food and some blankets were sent up from the Hospice, and, accompanied by our guide, we proceeded to the glacier.
HÔTEL DES NEUFCHÂTELOIS. 1856.
Having climbed a great terminal moraine, and tramped for a considerable time amid loose shingle and boulders, we came upon the ice. The finest specimens of "tables" which I have ever seen are to be found upon this glacier—huge masses of clean granite poised on pedestals of ice. Here are also "dirt-cones" of the largest size, and numerous shafts, the forsaken passages of ancient "moulins," some filled with water, others simply with deep blue light. I reserve the description and explanation of both cones and moulins for another place. The surfaces of some of the small pools were sprinkled lightly over with snow, which the water underneath was unable to melt; a coating of snow granules was thus formed, flexible as chain armour, but so close that the air could not escape through it. Some bubbles which had risen through the water had lifted the coating here and there into little rounded domes, which, by gentle pressure, could be shifted hither and thither, and several of them collected into one. We reached the hut, the floor of which appeared to be of the original mountain slab; there was a space for cooking walled off from the sleeping-room, half of which was raised above the floor, and contained a quantity of old hay. The number 2404 mètres, the height, I suppose, of the place above the sea, was painted on the door, behind which were also the names of several well-known observers—Agassiz, Forbes, Desor, Dollfuss, Ramsay, and others—cut in the wood. A loft contained a number of instruments for boring, a surveyor's chain, ropes, and other matters. After dinner I made my way alone towards the junction of the Finsteraar and Lauteraar glaciers, which unite at the Abschwung to form the trunk stream of the Unteraar glacier. Upon the great central moraine which runs between the branches were perched enormous masses of rock, and, under the overhanging ledge of one of these, M. Agassiz had his Hôtel des Neufchâtelois. The rock is still there, bearing traces of names now nearly obliterated by the weather, while the fragments around also bear inscriptions. There in the wilderness, in the gray light of evening, these blurred and faded evidences of human activity wore an aspect of sadness. It was a temple of science now in ruins, and I a solitary pilgrim to the desecrated blocks. As the day declined, rain began to fall, and I turned my face towards my new home; where in due time we betook ourselves to our hay, and waited hopefully for the morning.
But our hopes were doomed to disappointment. A vast quantity of snow fell during the night, and, when we arose, we found the glacier covered, and the air thick with the descending flakes. We waited, hoping that it might clear up, but noon arrived and passed without improvement; our fire-wood was exhausted, the weather intensely cold, and, according to the men's opinion, hopelessly bad; they opposed the idea of ascending further, and we had therefore no alternative but to pack up and move downwards. What was snow at the higher elevations changed to rain lower down, and drenched us completely before we reached the Grimsel. But though thus partially foiled in our design, this visit taught us much regarding the structure and general phenomena of the glacier.
THE RHONE GLACIER. 1856.
The morning of the 24th was clear and calm: we rose with the sun, refreshed and strong, and crossed the Grimsel pass at an early hour. The view from the summit of the pass was lovely in the extreme; the sky a deep blue, the surrounding summits all enamelled with the newly-fallen snow, which gleamed with dazzling whiteness in the sunlight. It was Sunday, and the scene was itself a Sabbath, with no sound to disturb its perfect rest. In a lake which we passed the mountains were mirrored without distortion, for there was no motion of the air to ruffle its surface. From the summit of the Mayenwand we looked down upon the Rhone glacier, and a noble object it seemed,—I hardly know a finer of its kind in the Alps. Forcing itself through the narrow gorge which holds the ice cascade in its jaws, and where it is greatly riven and dislocated, it spreads out in the valley below in such a manner as clearly to reveal to the mind's eye the nature of the forces to which it is subjected. Longfellow's figure is quite correct; the glacier resembles a vast gauntlet, of which the gorge represents the wrist; while the lower glacier, cleft by its fissures into finger-like ridges, is typified by the hand.