Oct. 27, 1887] 



NATURE 



613 



equal thickness of the most exquisite blue ; on the dry 

 bed of the lake were stranded the bergs which the day 

 before had floated in its waters, and we could now 

 appreciate their true size. One whose shape we had 

 greatly admired now appeared even more beautiful with 

 its fantastic pinnacles and blue recesses. It was, I esti- 

 mated, from 30 to 40 feet high, nearly as wide, and con- 

 siderably longer. Two cubical masses on the opposite 

 shore were in colour the most lovely turquoise blue that I 

 have ever seen. These, no doubt, on the previous day 

 had appeared as mere slabs on the surface. The bed of 

 the lake was covered with a fine mud, on which were 

 numerous tracks or castings, which I attributed to a 

 worm. I did not see any shells, so that probably no 

 moUusks live in the chilly waters of the Miirjalen See.* 



The ice in this part of the Aletsch glacier is compara- 

 tively little crevassed. This permits the glacier to act as 

 a dam ; the drainage of the lake is no doubt due to some 

 accidental rupture which opens a communication, quickly 

 enlarged by the running water, with the sub-glacial drain- 

 age of the glacier. 



A traveller in August 1872 was so fortunate as to see 

 the actual escape of the water at the lower part of the 

 glacier. He describes it as follows^ : — " It was 4.50 p.m. 

 /hen we arrived (at the Bel Alp Hotel). The domestics 

 Jrew our attention to a sound like the roar of a cataract, 

 irhich seemed to descend the Aletsch. For a time the 

 fecund was sub-glacial, but a yellow torrent at length ap- 

 3eared on the opposite side of the glacier, smoking and 

 roaring as it tumbled down the declivities of ice. The 

 Front of the torrent soon appeared opposite to the Bel 

 Up, carrying every movable thing along with it. Wish- 

 ing to get near the torrent, I descended rapidly to the 

 glacier, crossed it, and succeeded in getting quite close 

 to the rushing water. Everywhere impetuous, it was 

 divided into spaces of tolerably uniform slope, separated 

 from each other by steep and broken declivities, down 

 which the water plunged with tremendous fury. At the 

 base of one of these falls it was met by a kind of reflect- 

 ing surface, by which the rhythmic character of the motion 

 was finely revealed. The water here was tossed upwards 

 in a series of vast parallel fans, carrying with them ice- 

 blocks and stones, and breaking above into a spray as 

 fine as smoke. A bend of the glacier came in for the 

 lateral portion of this spray, and over it the rounded blocks 

 of ice and the stones were showered like projectiles. The 

 sound of the torrent had not abated at bed-time, but this 

 morning all is quiet, and no water is to be seen in the 

 temporary channel." 



This sudden discharge of so great a body of water, in 

 addition to damaging the fields immediately below, very 

 considerably raises the level of the Rhone. On the last 

 occasion, September 4, the writer quoted at the beginning 

 of this article states that " the level of the Rhone rose at 

 Brieg 54 feet, from about 3J feet to 9 feet, and at Sitten 

 4 feet, from 6i feet to \o\ feet. The greatest rise ob- 

 served since the regulation of the Rhone from the same 

 cause took place on July 19, 1878, and although it was 

 then at Brieg only 5 feet, and at Sitten only 3 feet, it was 

 considered a very fortunate circumstance that the event 

 took place at a very low level of the Rhone for the 

 season."'' He adds that to avoid such a danger in future 

 it is proposed to enlarge greatly a channel which many 

 years since was cut through the moraine stuflf overlying 

 the rock east of the lake, and so provide an outlet towards 

 the Viesch glacier. By this "the volume of its waters will 

 be reduced to about half what it is at present (10,000,000 



' Ramsay found the temperature of the water near the ice-cliff to be 

 3°C. 



* J. T. quoted from ihe Times in Alpine Journal, vol. vi. p. loo. 



3 An account of this is given by F. V. Salis {Jahrb. Schweiz. Alptncl. 

 1878-79, p. 549. The discharge on this occasion was at first slow. It 

 began at 8 a.m. July 18 ; by 4 p.m. the lake had sunk i metre ; during the 

 darkness it sank 4 metres, and by 3 p.m. most of the contents were gone. 

 It was estimated that only 700,000 cubic metres of water out of 10,000,000 

 remained. 



cubic metres)." So that future travellers will not see the 

 Miirjalen See in its full beauty. The lake formed by the 

 advance of the Gdtroz glacier, in the upper part of the 

 Dranse valley, the bursting of which in 1818 wrought 

 such fearful devastation, may be regarded as to some 

 extent a parallel case with the Miirjalen See, of a more 

 temporary nature, but on a grander scale. 



In Sir Charles Lyell's "Principles of Geology" (chap- 

 ter xvi.), and again in his " Antiquity of Man " (chapter 

 xiv.), are notices of the Miirjalen See, and of some beach 

 terraces formed by its waters. He regards it as illustra- 

 tive of the celebrated parallel roads of Glenroy, but, though 

 this explanation has found very general favour with 

 geologists, I must confess myself unable to accept it. 

 But into this thistle-bed of controversy I must not permit 

 myself to wander. T, G. Bonney. 



THE BACILLUS OF' MALARIA. 



A PAPER of unusual interest in relation to the ques- 

 -^*- tion of the agency of microphytes in the production 

 of disease will shortly appear in Prof. Cohn's botanical 

 Beitriige (vol. v. part 2). For many years the eflforts of 

 pathologists have been directed in this relation to the 

 subject of malaria. The local conditions which determine 

 the " endemic " prevalence of ague have been studied with 

 considerable exactitude. They are such as to indicate 

 very clearly that the material cause of intermittent fever, 

 although it is generated in the soil, acts through the air. 

 The fact that its influence is restricted within very narrow 

 limits of distance from its source indicates that it is not 

 diffusible like a gas or vapour, but consists of particles 

 which, on various grounds, are surmised to be living 

 organisms of extreme minuteness. Can this be esta- 

 blished on evidence which will bear criticism "* 



All will remember that in 1879 Tommasi Crudeli pub- 

 lished (in conjunction with Prof. Klebs) observations 

 which tended to show that in malarious districts a Bacil- 

 lus inhabits the soil which can be cultivated so as to 

 yield a product capable, when inoculated, of producing 

 in animals a fever of intermittent type, accompanied by 

 the anatomical characteristics of malarious infection. 

 Subsequently it was found by several observers that, 

 during the cold stage of ague, spore-containing Bacilli, 

 conjectured to be identical with those of Crudeli, are to 

 be found in the blood. 



These results have been received by pathologists with 

 much misgiving, partly because the experimental proofs 

 appeared inadequate, partly because other observers 

 failed in their endeavours to verify them. Dr. Schiavuzzi, 

 a medical practitioner at Pola, on the Adriatic, appears 

 to have been more fortunate. Following the methods of 

 Dr. Koch, he has sought for organisms in the air of the 

 malarious district near the town in which he resides, and 

 with such success that he is able, in repeated observa- 

 tions, to obtain without fail pure cultivations of a Bacillus 

 which is not only indistinguishable as regards its structure 

 from that of Crudeli, but also produces in animals the 

 characteristic symptoms and pathological changes which 

 belong to ague. The first communication of Dr. Schia- 

 vuzzi's results was made to the Accademia dei Lincei 

 more than a year ago (see Rendiconti, vol. ii. 1886, 

 April 4), but excited very little attention. It so hap- 

 pened that in the course of the past summer Prof. 

 Cohn visited Pola, and so became acquainted with Dr. 

 Schiavuzzi, who, during the present year, has been pur- 

 suing his investigations. In consequence, Prof. Cohn 

 has been able to repeat the Pola experiments in his own 

 laboratory at Breslau, and, so far as possible, to confirm 

 the discovery. The writer had the opportunity, a short 

 while ago, when Prof. Cohn was in England, of reading 

 the proofs of Schiavuzzi's paper, and of seeing the very 

 perfect photographs of the Bacillus which have been made 

 of it at Breslau. 



