THE LEVELLING POWER OF RATN. 371 



continuing to be charged with as large a quantity of earthy 

 matter as the fluid could hold in suspension. I visited this 

 valley four months after the flood, and was witness to the 

 sweeping away of a bridge and the undermining of part of a 

 house. The greater part of the ice-barrier was then standing, 

 presenting vertical cliffs 150 feet high, like ravines in the 

 lava-currents of Etna, or Auvergne, where they are intersected 

 by rivers." It is worthy of special notice that inundations 

 of similar or even greater destructiveness have occurred in 

 the same region at former periods. 



It is not, however, necessary for the destructive action of 

 floods in mountain districts that ice and snow should assist, 

 as in the Martigny flood. In October, 1868, the cantons of 

 Tessin, Orisons, Uri, Valois, and St. Gall, suffered terribly 

 from the direct effects of heavy rainfall The St. Gothard, 

 Splugen, and St. Bernhardin routes were rendered impas- 

 sable. In the former pass twenty-seven lives were lost, 

 besides many horses and waggons of merchandise. On the 

 three routes more than eighty persons in all perished. In 

 the small village of Loderio alone, no less than fifty deaths 

 occurred. The damage in Tessin was estimated at ^40,000. 

 In Uri and Valois large bridges were destroyed and carried 

 away. Everything attested the levelling power of rain ; a 

 power which, when the rain is falling steadily on regions 

 whence it as steadily flows away, we are apt to overlook. 



It is not, however, necessary to go beyond our own coun- 

 try for evidence of the destructive action of water. We have 

 had during the past few years very striking evidence in this 

 respect, which need scarcely be referred to more particularly 

 here, because it will be in the recollection of all our readers. 

 Looking over the annals of the last half-century only, we 

 find several cases in which the power of running water in 

 carrying away heavy masses of matter has been strikingly 

 shown. Consider, for instance, the effects of the flood in 

 Aberdeenshire and the neighbouring counties, early in 

 August, 1829. In the course of two days a great flood 

 extended itself over " that part of the north-east of Scotland 



