204 FORESTRY IN SWITZERLAND. 



of the memorable land-slides at Goldau in 1806, or at Elm in 188 1, to engulf 

 entire villages, destroy many human lives, and convert smiling valleys into 

 scenes of barren desolation and ruin. 



Another memorable avalanche was that which occurred on the 31st of May, 

 1879, at Fontana, in Canton Tessin, destroying 'the church, the town-house, 

 a dwelling and two barns, and costing the lives of an entire family. On this 

 occasion, within a space of five minutes, no less than 350,000 cubic meters of 

 earth and rock came down from a height of 4,300 feet upon the devoted village, 

 and the ruin which it wrought is vividly portrayed in the accompanying 

 sketches, placed at my disposal by the federal chief inspector of forestry, Mr. 

 J. *Coaz, in whose admirable work, ''Die Lawinender Schweizer Alpen" they 

 originally appeared. 



An exceptionally curious avalanche was that which on the morning of May 

 I, 1879, came rushing down the westerly slope of the Jungfrau into the Lauter- 

 brunn Valley, a distance of about 7,000 feet. Its peculiar feature was, that 

 not only along its course but even on the opposite side of the valley, 1,200 

 feet away, the atmospheric pressure which its rapid movement generated was 

 so great as to level entire forests. The effect is vividly delineated in the 

 accompanying view taken from the work above mentioned. 



Since commencing the preparation of this report I have clipped from the 

 Neue Zuricher Zeitung, of this city (November 15, 1886), a report, of which 

 the following is a translation : 



From Altorf. — On Friday evening several blocks of rock detached themselves from a bare 

 crag and fell, one of them passing entirely through a house. The inmates, who had aheady 

 retired to rest, were buried in the ruins, but on crying for help, were taken out uninjured. 

 Altogether, the weight of fallen rock is estimated at 1 ,000 centners [about a ton] . The family 

 room and the entire front of the house known as the " Nzissbaumbi" were torn clean away. 

 Since Friday no further fall has been reported. The cutting away of the woods is the supposed 

 cause of the disaster. 



A BRIEF RETROSPECT. 



Early in the fourteenth century, in the more thickly populated sections 

 of Switzerland, the people appear to have been forced, through apprehension 

 of a deficiency in their wood supply, to take some measures fcr the preserva- 

 tion of their forests. In the year 131 4 Zurich forbade its foresters (vorsters) 

 to "fell, raft or sell wood from the Sihlwald." In 1339 Schwyz issued a 

 prohibition against charcoal burning, and in 1438 Freiburg decreed that no 

 wood should be cut in the environs of the city. In Entlebuch it was for- 

 bidden in 1471 " to draw wood from forests situated high up in the moun- 

 tains," and in 1592 Berne called attention to the need of economy in the 

 use of wood. Finally similar decrees became general, but while serving to 

 preserve forest areas they proved a hindrance to the progress of agricultural 

 and vine-growing interests. Zurich, for instance, in 1563, forbade the es- 

 tablishment of any new vineyards, and the prohibition was kept in force up 

 to the beginning of the eighteenth century. At that period the dread of 

 a deficiency of wood became so general that it was even forbidden to purvey 



