20 NATURAL SCIENCE. Jan., 1896. 



with an average diameter of one foot, which lay all about in the 

 neighbourhood of the fallen mass, bore eloquent testimony to the 

 extreme violence of the wind. On the way from the Hotel Schwaren- 

 bach, before coming to the Bernese frontier, the green pasture was 

 strewn with these balls like a battle-field in old muzzle-loading times. 

 The true avalanche, in its recoil from the rock-wall, has formed an 

 immense rampart, separated from the rock by a deep trench. On the 

 sides, under the stress of the enormous power of the wind, which, like 

 the avalanche itself, was deflected by the Weissfluhgrat, blocks of 

 considerable size were driven around as in a whirlpool, so as, at least 

 on the northern edge, to have been forced back up the slopes of the 

 Altels towards the entrance of the gorge leading to Kandersteg (PI. II.). 

 These different atmospheric movements were well marked owing to 

 the disposition of the materials which came under their influence. 

 Near the Winteregg, the trees, shrubs, and grasses were all bent 

 towards the north, forming an exterior zone, which was more and 

 more thickly covered with the dust, etc., raised by the catastrophe as 

 the central mass was approached. A second zone, within the first, 

 was found to consist of the loose rocks, etc., thrust aside by the head 

 of the ice-mass as it dashed up the west slope ; the inner edge of this 

 zone was itself covered by a layer of ice and snow, representing the 

 matter that kept pouring off from the sides of the central body in its 

 upward progress, and also the results of the reflux which took place 

 when its further advance was barred. Some of the ice and stones 

 hurled against the Weissfluhgrat had adhered to it, being plastered, 

 as it were, into the fissures and gullies. These masses were being 

 constantly detached from their precarious position, and kept descend- 

 ing in roaring avalanches. On the two sides of the projecting 

 terrace near the foot of the Altels, over which, as has been mentioned, 

 the glacier leapt on to the pasturage, are two immense cones of 

 detritus, composed chiefly of the stones which were drawn down in 

 the wake of the true avalanche, and which have followed the course 

 of two gullies, one on the north, the other on the south. 



At Leuk the people say that it was on August 17, 1782, that 

 the Winteregg alp was overwhelmed in a similar manner. The 

 corpses of two of the men who lost their lives in that catastrophe were 

 not recovered from their icy tomb till June in the following year. 



Howard V. Knox. 

 Baden, Switzerland. 



