Part 7 (1/2)
Simond had proved himself a very valuable a.s.sistant; he was intelligent and perfectly trustworthy; and though the peculiar nature of my work sometimes caused me to attempt things against which his prudence protested, he lacked neither strength nor courage. On reaching Chamouni and adding up our accounts, I found that I had not sufficient cash to pay him; money was waiting for me at the post-office in Geneva, and thither it was arranged that my friend Hirst should proceed next morning, while I was to await the arrival of the money at Chamouni. My guide heard of this arrangement, and divined its cause: he came to me, and in the most affectionate manner begged of me to accept from him the loan of 500 francs. Though I did not need the loan, the mode in which it was offered to me augmented the kindly feelings which I had long entertained towards Simond, and I may add that my intercourse with him since has served only to confirm my first estimate of his worthiness.
EXPEDITION OF 1858.
(13.)
[Sidenote: DOUBTS REGARDING STRUCTURE. 1858.]
I had confined myself during the summer of 1857 to the Mer de Glace and its tributaries, desirous to make my knowledge accurate rather than extensive. I had made the acquaintance of all accessible parts of the glacier, and spared no pains to master both the details and the meaning of the laminated structure of the ice, but I found no fact upon which I could take my stand and say to an advocate of an opposing theory, ”This is una.s.sailable.” In experimental science we have usually the power of changing the conditions at pleasure; if Nature does not reply to a question we throw it into another form; a combining of conditions is, in fact, the essence of experiment. To meet the requirements of the present question, I could not twist the same glacier into various shapes, and throw it into different states of strain and pressure; but I might, by visiting many glaciers, find all needful conditions fulfilled in detail, and by observing these I hoped to confer upon the subject the character and precision of a true experimental inquiry.
The summer of 1858 was accordingly devoted to this purpose, when I had the good fortune to be accompanied by Professor Ramsay, the author of some extremely interesting papers upon ancient glaciers. Taking Zurich, Schaffhausen, and Lucerne in our way, we crossed the Brunig on the 22nd of July, and met my guide, Christian Lauener, at Meyringen. On the 23rd we visited the glacier of Rosenlaui, and the glacier of the Schwartzwald, and reached Grindelwald in the evening of the same day. My expedition with Mr. Huxley had taught me that the Lower Grindelwald Glacier was extremely instructive, and I was anxious to see many parts of it once more; this I did, in company with Ramsay, and we also spent a day upon the upper glacier, after which our path lay over the Strahleck to the glaciers of the Aar and of the Rhone.
Pa.s.sAGE OF THE STRAHLECK.
(14.)
[Sidenote: A GLOOMY PROSPECT. 1858.]
On Monday, the 26th of July, we were called at 4 A.M., and found the weather very unpromising, but the two mornings which preceded it had also been threatening without any evil result. There was, it is true, something more than usually hostile in the aspect of the clouds which sailed sullenly from the west, and smeared the air and mountains as if with the dirty smoke of a manufacturing town. We despatched our coffee, went down to the bottom of the Grindelwald valley, up the opposite slope, and were soon amid the gloom of the pines which partially cover it. On emerging from these, a watery gleam on the mottled head of the Eiger was the only evidence of direct sunlight in that direction. To our left was the Wetterhorn surrounded by wild and disorderly clouds, through the fissures of which the morning light glared strangely. For a time the Heisse Platte was seen, a dark brown patch amid the ghastly blue which overspread the surrounding slopes of snow. The clouds once rolled up, and revealed for a moment the summits of the Viescherhorner; but they immediately settled down again, and hid the mountains from top to base. Soon afterwards they drew themselves partially aside, and a patch of blue over the Strahleck gave us hope and pleasure. As we ascended, the prospect in front of us grew better, but that behind us--and the wind came from behind--grew worse. Slowly and stealthily the dense neutral-tint ma.s.ses crept along the sides of the mountains, and seemed to dog us like spies; while over the glacier hung a thin veil of fog, through which gleamed the white minarets of the ice.
[Sidenote: ICE CASCADE AND PROTUBERANCES. 1858.]
[Sidenote: DIRT-BANDS OF THE STRAHLECK BRANCH. 1858.]
When we first spoke of crossing the Strahleck, Lauener said it would be necessary to take two guides at least; but after a day's performance on the ice he thought we might manage very well by taking, in addition to himself, the herd of the alp, over the more difficult part of the pa.s.s.
He had further experience of us on the second day, and now, as we approached the herd's hut, I was amused to hear him say that he thought any a.s.sistance beside his own unnecessary. Relying upon ourselves, therefore, we continued our route, and were soon upon the glacier, which had been rendered smooth and slippery through the removal of its disintegrated surface by the warm air. Crossing the Strahleck branch of the glacier to its left side, we climbed the rocks to the gra.s.s and flowers which clothe the slopes above them. Our way sometimes lay over these, sometimes along the beds of streams, across turbulent brooks, and once around the face of a cliff, which afforded us about an inch of ledge to stand upon, and some protruding splinters to lay hold of by the hands. Having reached a promontory which commanded a fine view of the glacier, and of the ice cascade by which it was fed, I halted, to check the observations already made from the side of the opposite mountain.
Here, as there, cliffy ridges were seen crossing the cascade of the glacier, with interposed s.p.a.ces of dirt and debris--the former being toned down, and the latter squeezed towards the base of the fall, until finally the ridges swept across the glacier, in gentle swellings, from side to side; while the valleys between them, holding the princ.i.p.al share of the superficial impurity, formed the cradles of the so-called Dirt-Bands. These swept concentric with the protuberances across the glacier, and remained upon its surface even after the swellings had disappeared. The swifter flow of the centre of the glacier tends of course incessantly to lengthen the loops of the bands, and to thrust the summits of the curves which they form more and more in advance of their lateral portions. The depressions between the protuberances appeared to be furrowed by minor wrinkles, as if the ice of the depressions had yielded more than that of the protuberances. This, I think, is extremely probable, though it has never yet been proved. Three stakes, placed, one on the summit, another on the frontal slope, and another at the base of a protuberance, would, I think, move with unequal velocities. They would, I think, show that, upon the large and general motion of the glacier, smaller motions are superposed, as minor oscillations are known to cover parasitically the large ones of a vibrating string. Possibly, also, the dirt-bands may owe something to the squeezing of impurities out of the glacier to its surface in the intervals between the swellings. From our present position we could also see the swellings on the Viescherhorner branch of the glacier, in the valleys between which coa.r.s.e s.h.i.+ngle and debris were collected, which would form dirt-bands if they could. On neither branch, however, do the bands attain the definition and beauty which they possess upon the Mer de Glace.
After an instructive lesson we faced our task once more, pa.s.sing amid crags and boulders, and over steep moraines, from which the stones rolled down upon the slightest disturbance. While crossing a slope of snow with an inclination of 45, my footing gave way, I fell, but turned promptly on my face, dug my staff deeply into the snow, and arrested the motion before I had slid a dozen yards. Ramsay was behind me, speculating whether he should be able to pa.s.s the same point without slipping; before he reached it, however, the snow yielded, he fell, and slid swiftly downwards. Lauener, whose attention had been aroused by my fall, chanced to be looking round when Ramsay's footing yielded. With the velocity of a projectile he threw himself upon my companion, seized him, and brought him to rest before he had reached the bottom of the slope. The act made a very favourable impression upon me, it was so prompt and instinctive. An eagle could not swoop upon its prey with more directness of aim and swiftness of execution.
[Sidenote: ICE CLIFFS THROUGH THE FOG. 1858.]
While this went on the clouds were playing hide and seek with the mountains. The ice-crags and pinnacles to our left, looming through the haze, seemed of gigantic proportions, reminding one of the Hades of Byron's 'Cain.'
”How sunless and how vast are these dim realms!”
We climbed for some time along the moraine which flanks the cascade, and on reaching the level of the brow Lauener paused, cast off his knapsack, and declared for breakfast. While engaged with it the dense clouds which had crammed the gorge and obscured the mountains, all melted away, and a scene of indescribable magnificence was revealed. Overhead the sky suddenly deepened to dark blue, and against it the Finsteraarhorn projected his dark and mighty ma.s.s. Brown spurs jutted from the mountain, and between them were precipitous snow-slopes, fluted by the descent of rocks and avalanches, and broken into ice-precipices lower down. Right in front of us, and from its proximity more gigantic to the eye, was the Schreckhorn, while from couloirs and mountain-slopes the matter of glaciers yet to be was poured into the vast basin on the rim of which we now stood.
[Sidenote: MUTATIONS OF THE CLOUDS. 1858.]
This it was next our object to cross; our way lying in part through deep snow-slush, the scene changing perpetually from blue heaven to gray haze which ma.s.sed itself at intervals in dense clouds about the mountains.
After crossing the basin our way lay partly over slopes of snow, partly over loose s.h.i.+ngle, and at one place along the edge of a formidable precipice of rock. We sat down sometimes to rest, and during these pauses, though they were very brief, the scene had time to go through several of its Protean mutations. At one moment all would be perfectly serene, no cloud in the transparent air to tell us that any portion of it was in motion, while the blue heaven threw its flattened arch over the magnificent amphitheatre. Then in an instant, from some local cauldron, the vapour would boil up suddenly, eddying wildly in the air, which a moment before seemed so still, and enveloping the entire scene.
Thus the s.p.a.ce enclosed by the Finsteraarhorn, the Viescherhorner, and the Schreckhorn, would at one moment be filled with fog to the mountain heads, every trace of which a few minutes sufficed to sweep away, leaving the unstained blue of heaven behind it, and the mountains showing sharp and jagged outlines in the gla.s.sy air. One might be almost led to imagine that the vapour molecules endured a strain similar to that of water cooled below its freezing point, or heated beyond its boiling point; and that, on the strain being relieved by the sudden yielding of the opposing force, the particles rushed together, and thus filled in an instant the clear atmosphere with aqueous precipitation.