852 REPORT—1896. 
Spittalmatte thus formed is about 14 mile long from north to south and 3 mile 
wide. Its southern portion is diversified by low wooded hills, the Arvenwald, 
obviously formed by avalanches in past ages, and the northern portion was an open 
pasture or Alp now overwhelmed, 
The Altels is a roughly pyramidal mountain. The west face from which the 
avalanche descended slopes at a high angle, and the limestone strata of which it is 
composed dip at about the same angle. The upper part is, or rather was, covered 
with snow and glacier ice, At a certain distance from the top the glacier ceases 
to spread, and becomes confined within rocky walls on either side, where the 
strata, formerly continuous, have been removed in past ages by avalanches. 
The whole width of the glacier at the place where it has slid appears from the 
Sigfried map to be about a kilometre, and the middle half of this descended, 
leaving a portion of about + kilometre standing at each side. The portion on the 
south side which has not descended is separated from the rest by a wall of rock, 
and this separation probably accounts for it not having come down at the same time ; 
it extends lower down the mountain than the fallen part appears to have done. 
The avalanche descended to the bottom of the valley, a vertical distance of 
about 4,000 feet, and the acquired momentum carried the greater part of it up the 
slope on the other side to a height of about 400 feet above the lowest point. 
Here it spread out in a fan shape, and formed a return current on each side, the 
northern one of which descended again quite to the bottom of the valley. There 
were also local return slips, The stream was covered up by the avalanche ice, but. 
speedily worked a way underneath it, and the glacier bridge thus formed had not 
quite melted on a second visit a year after the event, The area covered was about 
1 mile by } mile. The average thickness, as estimated in the sections exposed by 
the return slips, was about 6 feet, but there were places 20 feet thick, and some 
doubtless more, near the bed of the stream. The materials of which the avalanche 
was composed were an intimate mixture of snow and glacier ice with stones and 
mud, the two former, perhaps, on the whole, predominating ; but in one good 
exposure, though the ice and snow predominated in the upper part the stones and 
mud did so near the base. Many of the stones showed marks of rubbing and scratch- 
ing, especially those at the parts of the avalanche further from the Altels; nearly 
all of these, however, retained some angle unworn, and thus differed from ordinary 
river gravel. 
The effects of the wind which always accompanies avalanches was strikingly 
shown by the over-turning of about 1,000 trees and the destruction of some 
chalets, the materials of which were carried above 100 yards. The tops of the 
trees all pointed radially away from the direction of the couloir, down which the 
avalanche had fallen. This destruction by the wind was in an area outside that 
actually overwhelmed by the avalanche, and here also large boulders could be seen 
which had been rocked by the force of the wind, Six men were killed in the 
chalets, and about 160 cattle on the pasture. 
The ice cliff left standing by the fall of the avalanche was semi-elliptical in 
shape, about 4 a kilometre in extent, and from 50 feet to 70 feet high. Nearly all 
of it presented the appearance of a perfectly fresh fracture. There were blue 
veins of more compact ice in many parts, and also a few dirt bands of stones in 
the substance of the ice. One was specially conspicuous towards the south end of 
the cliff, and about one-third of its height from the bottom. Its presence here 
was very remarkable, as there are no rocks overhanging the glacier from which the 
stones could have fallen. A few rocks just peep through the snow at the edge of 
the aréte, and if the stones did not come from this source, which seems unlikely, 
they must have been picked up by the glacier from its floor. There were slight 
indications of another crack in the glacier parallel with, and perhaps 100 yards 
further up than, the cliff, but the author is inclined to think that it was only the 
usual bergschrund. 
The rocky floor of the glacier left exposed by the fall was singularly smooth, 
and its inclination coincided with the dip of the limestone strata of which it was 
composed. Dr. Heim believes that the glacier is usually frozen in its bed, and 
that the catastrophe is due to the unusual period of hot weather which preceded it. 
