88 LITEEATUEE ON TORRENTS. 



as the lake. The Drause flowed, filled from bank to bank, but without 

 overflowing, and a few days more would have sufficed to empty the immense 

 reservoir. 



" ' But detonations in the interior of the dyke announced that gla^ons, 

 blocks and pillars of ice, were detaching themselves from the mass, through 

 their low specific gravity, and were thus diminishing the thickness of the 

 dyke on the side towards the lake, while the current out of the tunnel was 

 eating away this dyke on the outer side, and was threatening a sudden 

 rupture ; the danger increasing, the engineer despatched from time to time 

 expresses to warn the inhabitants to keep themselves on the out-look. The 

 water began to make way under the ice, sweeping along the stones and 

 earth at its base under the tunnel ; the crisis appeared inevitable and close 

 at hand. At half-past four o'clock in the afternoon a tremendous crash 

 announced the rupture of the ice-work ; the water of the lake shot along 

 with fury indescribable ; it formed a torrent 100 feet in height, which 

 traversed the first 6 leagues, or 18 miles, in forty minutes, although kept 

 back in many places by narrow gorges through which it had to pass, 

 carrying off in its course 130 chalets or cottages, a whole forest, and an 

 immense quantity of earth and of stones. Debouching over against Chables, 

 the chief place of the valley, the water was seen pushing before it a moving 

 mountain of all kinds of debris of 300 feet in height, from which was rising 

 a thick black cloud like the smoke of a conflagration. An English 

 traveller, Mr P., of Lausanne, accompanied by a young artist, and a guide, 

 was returning from seeing the works, and going towards Chables ; happen- 

 ing by chance to turn round, he saw advancing with fearful rapidity the 

 moving column, the distant roar of which he had not heard through the 

 noise made by the Drause. He hastily warned his two companions and three 

 other travellers who had joined them ; all leapt from their mules, scrambled 

 up the mountain, and got safely beyond the sweep of the deluge, which 

 filled in an instant the whole gorge beneath them. But Mr P. was nowhere 

 to be seen; for some hours they believed him to be lost; but then they 

 learned that his mule, shying at an overturned tree which she saw on the 

 road, wheeling round, saw all at once an object far more dreadful close upon 

 her, and, darting oS' towards the mountain, had carried him far away from 

 the scene of danger. 



" ' From Chables the d6bacle arrived at Martigny — 4 leagues, or 12 miles, 

 distant — in 50 minutes, carrying off, as it advanced, 35 houses, 8 mills, 95 

 barns, but only 9 people, and no cattle, the inhabitants having all been 

 warned to be on guard. The village of Bovernier was saved by a jutting 

 rock turning ofi' the flow of t'he torrent ; and the people saw it pass like a 

 shot by the side of the village without touching it, although much higher 

 than their heads. The rocks and stones were dropped before it arrived at 

 Martigny, blasting with sterility extensive meadows and fertile fields. 



" ' There it divided, but 800 of the houses of this town were carried away, 

 many others were damaged, and the streets were strewn with trees and 

 earthen debris ; 34 people only appear to have lost their lives there, the 

 inhabitants having betaken themselves to the mountains. 



" ' Below Martigny the debacle, finding a great plain, spread itself out and 

 deposited a great deal of mud and wood, and that to such an extent as to 

 render healthful, as was hoped, a great marsh there. The Ehone received 

 it little by little, and at difterent parts of its course, without overflowing ; 

 it reached the lake of Geneva at eleven o'clock at night, and was lost in 



