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However disastrous these berg-falls may be they are too 

 common among the Alps to excite any great attention, except 

 when of very exceptional extent, as in the case just mentioned ; 

 but when a large tract of land that looks like solid ground, with 

 substantial houses built on it and covered with orchards and 

 gardens sinks down and become part of an adjoining lake we 

 are more likely to feel and express great surprise. Thus all 

 Switzerland was taken by surprise when on July 5th of the 

 present year the telegraph flashed over the whole country, the 

 intelligence that a portion of the little town of Zug had dis- 

 appeared below the surface of its lake ; the thing seemed utterly 

 unlikely and the news was received with much incredulity — 

 nevertheless it was true. The town of Zug is situated at the 

 north-eastern corner of the lake, at a point where the hills that 

 have formed the eastern rampart of the lake, continuing onward in 

 northerly direction leave its shore, which now consists of a dead 

 level plain. Through this level plain the principal affluent of the 

 lake finds its way, having in all probability been the agent in pro- 

 ducing the level plain through which it now flows. Two or three 

 smaller streams also fall into the lake near Zug. The greater part 

 of the town lies on the gentle slop of the hills — but a long suburb 

 extends along that margin of the lake, which I have spoken of as 

 part of the level alluvial plain. It was in this suburb that the 

 disaster occured. I have noticed a peculiarity in the Lake of Zug 

 and possibly some connection may exist between these repeated 

 subsidences and this peculiarity. The river, Lorze, the principal 

 feeder of the lake, falls into it at a point not more than a kilometer 

 and a half (rather under a mile) in a direct line from the place 

 where the waters of the lake have their outlet. 



Whatever may have been the causes, either predisposing or 

 exciting, the facts are these : — About mid-day, July 5th, some of 

 the houses that formed part of the suburb I have mentioned sud- 

 denly sank down, and later in the afternoon other houses, amount- 

 ing in all to about thirty, were swallowed up, and where but a few 

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