THE GREAT ST. BERNARD, 



Though it cannot boast of the height of its great neighbour, 

 yet it rears its head in proud majesty. This mountain is situate in 

 Savoy and Switzerland, between Valais and the Valley of Aoust, at the 

 source of the rivers Drance and Doria. The top is always covered with 

 snow, and there is a large monastery, called Hospice of Great St. Ber- 

 nard, near to one of the most dangerous passages of the Alps. In these 

 regions, the traveller is often overtaken by the most severe weather, even 

 after days of cloudless beauty, when the glaciers glitter in the sunshine, 

 and the pink flowers of the rhododendron appear as if they were never 

 to be sullied by the tempest. But a storm suddenly comes on, the roads 

 are rendered impassable by drifts of snow, the avalanches sweep the 

 valleys, carrying trees and crags of rock before them. The hospitable 

 monks, though their revenue is scanty, open their door to every stranger 

 that presents himself. To be cold and weary, to be benighted, constitute 

 the title to their comfortable shelter, their cheering meal, and their 

 agreeable converse. But their attention to the distressed does not end 

 here. They devote themselves to the dangerous task of searching for 

 those unhappy persons who may have been overtaken by the avalanche 

 or the sudden storm, and would perish but for their charitable succour. 

 Most remarkably are they assisted in these truly Christian offices. They 

 have a breed of noble dogs in their establishment, whose extraordinary 

 sagacity often enables them to rescue the traveller from destruction by 

 the overwhelming avalanche. 



AVALANCHES 



Are the most dangerous and terrible phenomena to which the valleys 

 embosomed between high snow topped mountain-ranges are exposed. 

 They are especially frequent in the Alps, owing to the steepness of their 

 declivities, but they are also known in other mountain regions, as in the 

 Pyrenees and in Norway. They originate in the higher region of the 

 mountains, when the accumulation of snow becomes so great, that the 

 inclined plane on which the mass rests can no longer support it. It is 

 then pushed down the declivity by its own weight, and precipitated into 

 the subjacent valley, where it often destroys forests and villages, buries 



