THE RECENT LANDSLIP AT LAKE ZUG. 
105 
the day was over about thirty houses, among which was a new 
hotel, had fallen. In the first fall a considerable number of 
persons, perhaps between twenty and thirty, were drowned, or 
crushed among the ruins ; later in the day no loss of life 
occurred. There have been in Switzerland many land-slips 
and many subsidences, but this differs from almost all others. 
Here there was no sliding down, no forward-thrust from any 
moving mass, but, almost without a warning, a portion of a 
street of houses standing on a dead flat sank down, and in a 
few minutes, where substantial buildings had stood, there was 
nothing but mud and water and floating wreck. 
Our party was staying for a few days at Lucerne, and when, 
on the morning of the 6tli, the news reached us, it seemed 
almost incredible. We could not but think that the disaster 
was exaggerated, and, as Lucerne is only about eighteen miles 
from Zug, we determined to run over and see for ourselves. 
We went, armed with cameras, for we hoped to obtain trust¬ 
worthy mementos of the calamity. We found the little town 
in a state of great excitement, its usually quiet streets thronged 
with Switzers from all parts of the Confederacy, but of the 
ruins we could see but very little. The state of things in the 
neighbourhood of the fallen houses was so perilous that no 
persons, except those engaged in removing furniture, &c., were 
allowed to approach, and the soldiers of the Canton guarded 
every point of access. We were therefore obliged to return to 
Lucerne with scant information, but well satisfied with having 
made the attempt. The Rev. E. Hill, of St. John’s College, 
Cambridge, who visited the spot about a fortnight after the 
disaster, when the excitement had passed away, and when no 
further danger or damage was apprehended, and when con¬ 
sequently it was comparatively easy to investigate the cause of 
the catastrophe, read an interesting paper on the subject at the 
meeting of the British Association in Manchester. He stated 
that the soil, for the first ten or twelve feet, consisted of silted 
matter, the detritus brought down by the streams, and which 
detritus forms the level flat spoken of above as existing at the 
northern end of the lake, Below this tolerably firm stratum 
there exists, to an unknown depth, a soft, spongy, semi-fluid 
formation, which, were it not for the waters of the lake, would 
ooze out and occupy a still lower level. Under ordinary 
conditions the pressure of the water maintains the ooze in 
its position, but any circumstances that would disturb this 
pressure, or increase the weight of the super-incumbent 
mass, would have a tendency to destroy the equilibrium, 
and cause a movement towards the deeper parts of the lake’s 
bed. 
