Our life in the Swiss highlands

Preface

THE Essays which compose this volume were written partly by myself and partly by my daughter Margaret. Mine are signed “J. A. S.,” hers “M. 8.”

Some of them have not been printed. Others are republished from the Fortnightly Review, the Cornhill Magazine, the Pall Mall Gazette, and the St. Moritz Post.

I ought to add that two of the series were included in a former book of mine, called Jtalian Byways, which appeared in 1883. But they are so obviously appropriate to this volume that I felt myself justified in not omitting them from the collection.

JOHN ADDINGTON SYMONDS.

Am Hor, Davos-PuLatTz.

are needs

Contents

Davos IN THE OLDEN Days .

Snow, Frost, Storm, aNnD AVALANCHE .

Notes CHIAVENNA IN APRIL CaTtTcHING A MARMoT

II

Avalanches are unlike glaciers in this respect, that they offer none of the problems which streams of ice in motion have presented to the scientific observer.

Given certain conditions of weather, certain accumulations of snow on the higher levels of the mountain ranges, and certain disturbing causes, the simple force of gravity is sufficient to account for the descent of these formidable torrents.

The disturbing cause may be either violent wind acting upon unwieldy masses of suspended snow; or rain soddening similar masses, and adding to their weight and solidity; or the passage of animals across ledges and wreaths whence snow is easily detached ; or even the vibrations of a man’s voice, a horse-bell, or a carter’s whip. It may, again, be the spontaneous subsidence of a sheet of snow too cumbrous to support itself upon a steep declivity.

The small amount of snow dislodged in the first instance by any one of these causes sets an avalanche in motion. In ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, the snow slides a little distance, and then is arrested by some inequality in the ground. But if circumstances are favourable to its advance, it accumulates more and more material from the surrounding slopes, acquires momentum, and eventually rushes forward with irresistible force. In order to generate an overwhelming avalanche, dangerous to whole villages and forests, the original snow-slip must have occurred at a considerable distance, measured by thousands of feet, and must have been so situated as to draw a large area of snow-field into motion.

Roughly speaking, then, all avalanches, however distinguished by specific names, originate in snow-slips, which, unless they are arrested near the source, convulse a large portion of their neighbourhood, and discharge themselves with fatal fury on the valley.

III

Several artificial means have been tried for securing life, traffic, and property against avalanches.

We have seen that the mischief begins high up on the bare cliffs and slopes above the forests. The passing of a chamois, the halloo of a hunter, the crack of a postillion’s whip, is sufficient to set snow enough going there to overwhelm a village.

Measures are not usually taken at the altitude where avalanches originate.

The first and most important line of defence is athe forest itself; and for this reason the forest laws of Switzerland are very severe. A man is not allowed to fell a tree in his own wood without the forester’s consent. Everything is done to preserve the natural rampart afforded by a mass of pines.

In the second place, where avalanches descend regularly every year, stone galleries are built, or tunnels are mined out of the solid rock to protect roads. We have examples of these galleries and tunnels in the Ziige, near Davos.

Scientific engineers are eager to change these plans of defence. They believe that the root of the mischief ought to be attacked. In places where avalanches are expected, at the tops of the Ziige, they recommend the building of terraces and dwarf-walls, so as to arrest the earliest snow-slip. Lower down, in the forest zone, piles should be driven into the ground, and fenced with wattling. Ifthese precautions were taken, it is believed that the avalanche would be arrested at its commencement and impeded in its descent. | Fifty or sixty well-known avalanche tracks have been successfully treated by these means in Switzerland. An Oe