J. A. Symonds—Avalanches and Avalanche Blasts. 159 
Humber Valleys, or even over the Wolds as well, giving rise to the 
more chalky Hessle Clay. Before accepting a submergence of 400 
feet, very strong proofs will have to be furnished, not only of the 
marine aspect of the high-level brown Boulder Clays, but also of 
their Newer Pleistocene age. 
V.—AVALANCHES AND AVALANCHE Buasts.—-“‘ WINTER IN THE 
Hieu Apes.” 
By Jonun AppincTon Symonps, Esq. 
ie following important and interesting notes on avalanches and 
the dangerous wind-blasts they cause, appeared in the Pali Mall 
Gazette for February 28th, 1888. As we do not remember to have 
seen the geological effects of these phenomena described in any 
detail in our numerous geological text-books, we believe Mr. 
Symonds’ notes on the subject will be of much interest to readers 
of the GrotocicaL MaGaziIne. 
“« Feb. 6.—We reckoned another foot of snow this morning. The 
Fluela Pass, which connects us with the Lower Engadine, was closed 
to traffic. Just before noon a man called Anton Broher, known 
among his comrades as “the Knave of Spades,” because he had 
a bushy black beard, was swept away by an avalanche below 
Tschuggen, on the Fluela road, about three miles from Davos Platz. 
Hye-witnesses saw him carried by the blast of the avalanche, 
together with his horse and sledge, three hundred yards in the air 
across the mountain stream. The snow which followed buried him. 
He was subsequently dug out dead, with his horse dead, and the 
sledge beside him. The harness had been blown to ribbons in the 
air; for nothing could be found of it, except the head-piece on the 
horse’s neck. 
This violence of the wind which precedes an avalanche is well 
authenticated. A carter, whom I know, once told me that he was 
driving his sledge with two horses on the Albula Pass, when an 
avalanche fell upon the opposite side of the gorge. It did not catch 
him. But the blast carried him and his horses and the sledge at 
one swoop over into deep snow, whence they emerged with difficulty. 
Another man, who is well known to me, showed me a spot in the 
Schaufigg Valley (between Chur and the Streda Pass) where one of 
his female relatives had been caught by the wind of an avalanche. 
She was walking to church when this happened. The blast lifted 
her into the air, swept her from the road, and landed her at the top 
of a lofty pine, to which she clung with all the energy of desperation, 
The snow rushed under her, and left the pine standing. It must 
have been a trifling avalanche. Her friends, returning from church, 
saw her clutching for bare life upon the tree, and rescued her. 
Many such cases could be mentioned. A road-maker named Schorta 
this winter was blown in like manner into the air below Zernetz, 
and saved himself by grappling to a fir tree. J have been shown 
a place near Ems, in the Rhine Valley, not far from Chur, where a 
miller’s house was carried some distance through the air by an 
