“True, Monsieur,” observed the guide, “and the last kind is sometimes very fatal. There was one from which my wife and child had a narrow escape. They were visiting at the time a near relation who dwelt in a village in a valley not far distant from this spot. Behind the village there is a steep slope covered with pines; behind that the mountain rises still more steeply. The little forest stands between that village and destruction. But for it, avalanches would soon sweep the village away; but wood is not always a sure protector. Sometimes, when frost renders the snow crisp and dry, the trees fail to check its descent. It was so on the last night of my wife’s visit. A brother was about to set off with her from the door of our relative’s house, when the snow began to descend through the trees like water. It was like dry flour. There was not much noise, merely a hissing sound, but it came down in a deluge, filled all the houses, and suffocated nearly all the people in them. My brother-in-law saw it in time. He put his horse to full speed, and brought my dear wife and child away in safety, but his own father, mother, and sister were lost. We tried to reach their house the next day, but could advance through the soft snow only by taking two planks with us, and placing one before the other as we went along.”
Soon after the ramblers had begun their return journey, they came to a slope which they thought might be descended by sliding or “glissading.” It was the first time that Emma had seen such work, and she felt much inclined to try it, but was dissuaded by Antoine, who led her round by an easier way. At the foot of the slope they came to a couloir, or sloping gorge, so steep that snow could not lie on it. Its surface was, therefore, hard ice. Although passable, Antoine deemed it prudent not to cross, the more so that he observed some ominous obelisks of ice impending at the top of the slope.
“Why not cross and let Emma see how we manage by cutting steps in the ice?” said Lewis.
He received a conclusive though unexpected answer from one of the obelisks above-mentioned, which fell at the moment, broke into fragments, and swept the couloir from top to bottom with incredible violence.
It is wonderful what a deal of experience is required to make foolish people wise! Winthin the next ten minutes this warning was forgotten, and Lewis led his cousin into a danger which almost cost the lives of three of the party.
Chapter Twenty.
Records a Serious Event.
Our ramblers had now reached a place where a great expanse of rock surface was exposed, and the temptation to dilate on the action of glaciers proved too strong for the Professor. He therefore led those who were willing to follow to a suitable spot and pointed out the striations, flutings, and polishings of the granite, which showed that in former ages the glacier had passed there, although at that time it was far below in the valley. The polishings, he said, were caused by the ice slowly grinding over the surface of the rock, and the flutings and groovings were caused, not by the ice itself, but by stones which were embedded in its under surface, and which cut the solid granite as if with chisels.