TORRENTS 
In the higher recesses of mountain regions slow and silent processes 
are in operation, sometimes for many years together, which not only 
produce changes in the form and character of mountains, but at length 
issue in the most unexpected and appalling effects. These processes 
may be, first, the gradual, but irresistible, motion of those icy 
streams, called glaciers; or, secondly, the penetrating of water from 
melting ice and snow through fissures or openings in rocks, until, 
by alternate freezing and thawing, it separates portions of their 
substance ; or, thirdly, the softening of immense beds of clay, on 
which many rocks are found to rest. From such causes as these, 
arise the land-slips, inundations, avalanches, and torrents, to which 
the Swiss valleys and villages are liable. It was owing to the gradual 
softening of extensive beds of clay, that a most destructive land-slip 
took place in 1806 from the Rossberg, a mountain in Switzerland 
nearly five thousand feet high. Suddenly, and within the space of five 
minutes, a portion of this mountain, a league in length, one thousand 
feet broad, and one hundred feet thick was precipitated, together with a 
torrent of mud, into the valley beneath, and destroyed three villages, 
more than three hundred houses, stables and huts, and about four 
hundred and fifty human beings, besides whole herds of cattle. 
The Val de Bagnes, near Martigny, has been more than once de- 
vastated by means of masses of ice and snow from the glacier of Getroz, 
completely blocking up the mountain torrent which feeds the river 
Dranse. Behind this barrier the waters accumulated in a fearful man- 
ner in 1818, forming a lake which was estimated to contain eighthundred 
millions of cubic feet of water. Notwithstanding the most persevering 
and ingenious efforts to drain this lake by means of a tunnel cut through 
the ice, the waters burst through the barrier with a tremendous crash, 
carrying away rocks, forests, bridges, houses and cultivated lands. 
Between Martigny and the lake of Geneva, in the month of 
August 1835, a torrent of mud descended from the summit of the 
Dent de Midi, into the Vallais near Evionaz. The following account 
of this catastrophe has been communicated to us by a gentleman 
who visited the spot in August 1838, and who found the whole Val- 
lais presenting a most desolate appearance, " being covered with 
crumbled fragments of rotten slaty rock," or with huge masses of 
OF MUD. 
the same substance, together with trees and bushes, brought down by 
the great " deb&cle" or " Ecoulement," (or flow,) as this torrent is called. 
" It would appear, from the accounts of the people in the neighbour- 
hood, that one day in August, 1835, a crashing noise was heard in 
the mountain, and shortly afterwards the ecoulement was seen to 
issue from the ravine, (shown in the above cut) overthrowing and car- 
rying along with it trees and everything else that it met in its course. 
The advance of the slimy torrent, although not rapid, was irresistible, and 
in about a couple of hours it had covered, in a fan-like form, the whole 
slope down to the "Rhone. No lives were lost; but the peasants who 
lived in a few scattered cottages in the ravine, and in the vicinity of 
its mouth, were scared from their dwellings, and suffered some consider- 
able loss of property. I was assured that no water was seen : — It 
was like a deluge of bluish grey mud, intermixed with slaty rocks, 
and exhibiting much the same appearance to the eye as it does at 
present. It continued to flow, but gently, for two or three days, 
and then stopped. The next year, however, and at the same season, 
a similar ecoulement, though of a less fearful nature, took place. The 
phenomenon is generally supposed to have arisen from the rotten state 
of the rock, under the glaciers of the recesses of the Dent de Midi." 
It is also conjectured to have been caused by a glacier bursting, 
and sweeping along with it the debris of the Moraine, converted into 
mud. As it moved down from an immense height, the momentum 
it acquired carried it forward at last with irresistible violence, sweeping 
away blocks of stone many tons in weight, which floated like corks 
upon the surface. It covered the high road for a length of about nine 
hundred feet, and overwhelmed many fields, orchards, and some few 
houses. Such phenomena are by no means new in that neighbour- 
hood. It appears, from the accounts of the people in the neigh- 
bourhood, that "some very long time ago, the Rhone, in that part 
of its course, flowed much more nearly through the centre of the 
Vallais, and that a town or village, named Penassez, stood upon its 
bank, but that a debacle from this same ravine overwhelmed Penassez, 
and drove the Rhone eastward, to the channel which it now occupies, 
at the very foot of the opposite mountain, the Dent de Morcles, which 
bounds the Vallais on that side." 
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