s they are displaced, not larger 
are, are, to those who are in their 
Shundred to two hundred feet 
A Week « 
which from the valley < 
than fifteen or twenty 
immediate vicinity, fr 
This kind of avalane 
alanche,) as they are ca 
being formed: by the loose fresh-fallen snow of winter, before it 
has been malekaae made ae is piled up by: the whirlwinds 
2 
nt 
rays of ibs sun Dike very powerlel; ‘the snow becomes more 
compact. ‘They are composed of soggy 8 snow and ice, and are 
also very destructive. 
They were avalanches of this kind, that 1720, in Ober 
Gestelen, (Vallais,) and in 1749 in the Tavetsch, produced such 
devastation. The records of the valleys of the Alps abound with 
mournful exemplification of the destructive power of these ava- 
lanches, and of many others of this class. The wind of the 
avalanche, whose violent effects have been described by writers, 
probably acts only by its vibratory power, and the concussion 
consequent upon the movement of the avalanche, thus filling 
up the momentary vacuum produced by its rapid motion through 
the air. This idea of the wind of avalanches is common among 
the inhabitants of the Alps, as is a similar one among many of us, 
concerning the wind of acannon ball, killing without touching.* 
In support of their opinions of the wind of avalanches, they 
cite the fact of large and sturdy pines being cut smoothly off, 
without the bark or brauches being chafed, but I saw nothing of 
this kind, which could not be accounted for by the rush of wind 
to fill de vacuum. It was in this way that the village of Ronda 
in the Visp-Thol, had many of its houses prostrated and scattered 
in fragments in 1720, and also one of the spires of the convent 
of Dissentis fell by the vibratory action of the air, produced by 
an avalanche which fell about one fourth of a mile distant from it. 
This concussion of the air is familiar to all by the effects produced 
* See gt ses 3 panies instance of this effect in Col. Trumbull’ 8 Autobi- 
ography, p. 21.— 
Vol. xivi, No. i hc ak 1844. 37 
Me 
Bey a 
4 
