AVALANCHES IN THE CAUCASUS. 
147 
from human eye, villages, valleys, and people ! What an awful 
moment, when all was still! — when the dreadful cries of man 
and beast were heard no more; and the tremendous avalanche 
lay a vast, motionless, white shroud on all around. 
The magnitude of the destruction will readily be compre¬ 
hended, when it is understood that the depth of the snow, which 
thus rolled downwards in sight of the appalled inhabitants of the 
valley, was full twenty-eight fathoms, that is, 186 feet; and its 
extent more than six wersts, or four miles, English. It imme¬ 
diately blocked up the course of the Terek, whose obstructed 
waters, beating up, in immense billows, foaming and raging 
against this strange impediment, seemed, at times, ready to 
over-top it; but, still repelled by the firmness and height of the 
snow, it fell back on its bed with a roaring that proclaimed the 
dreadful scene to a vast distance. The overcharged waters then 
formed themselves into a lake, which spread down the whole 
valley, on the river- side of its tremendous barrier; thus com¬ 
pletely barring all communication with Wlady Caucasus. Nearly 
twelve days elapsed before the river had sapped its way through 
so immense a body of consolidated snow ; but when it did make 
an opening, its flood, and fury, and devastating consequences, 
fell not far short of the dreadful ruin occasioned by the cause of 
its obstruction. Bridges, forts, every thing contiguous to its 
path, were washed away in the torrent. 
Indeed, the traveller is scarcely ever secure, while passing- 
through some particular defiles of these mountains. The dis¬ 
asters of a winter avalanche have just been described. And in 
summer, the rocks which project from the steep face of the 
precipices, frequently become loosened by the melting snows 
or heavy rains; when, some sudden increase of either, severs 
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