GLACIERS OF THE AAR.
My new Friend--a Wonderful Youth--Hospice of the Grimsel--the Valley--a
comfortable Day--Glaciers of the Aar--a Gloomy Vale--Climbing a
Hill--View of the Glacier--Theory of its Formation--Caverns in the
Ice--Incidents of Men falling in--My Leap and Fall--an Artist
Lost--Return.
Heinrich proved to be a wonderful youth. He had a warm heart, and his
intellect was cultivated to a degree not parallelled in my acquaintance
among young men. He was just one and twenty years of age, and had not
completed the usual course of collegiate education. But there was no
author in the Latin or Greek languages, poet, philosopher or historian,
whose works I have ever heard of, which were not familiar to him, as the
English Classics are to well read men in England or America. He
discoursed readily of the style, the dialect, the shade of sentiment on
any disputed point; he cited passages and drew illustrations from the
pages of ancient literature which seemed to him like household words:
and one of our amusements when crossing the Alps was to discuss the
difference in Greek or Latin words which are usually regarded as
synonymes. But classical learning was the least and lowest attainment of
this accomplished youth. The whole range of Natural Sciences had been
pursued with a zeal that might be called a passion. Botany and
Mineralogy were child's play to him: and Chemistry had been a favorite
study evidently, for its principles often came up in our rambling
discourse, and he was master of it as if he had been a teacher of the
science for years. Geology was a hobby of his, and he thrust it upon me
often when I wished he would let me alone, or discourse of something
else. And yet when I have said all this I have not mentioned the
department in which he was most at home, where his soul revelled in
profound enjoyment, and in which he was resolved to spend his life.
_Metaphysics_ was his favorite pursuit. His analytical mind was always
on the track of investigation, challenging a reason for everything,
questioning the truth of every proposition, and never resting till his
reason had subjected it to the most exhausting process. Yet in the midst
of these studies including many departments to which I have not
referred, as the exact sciences, he had polished this fine intellect by
the widest course of polite literature, perusing in the German
translations, all the old masters of the English tongue, admiring
Shakespeare and Milton, quoting from them as a scholar would from
Sophocles or Homer, and surprising me by reference to English authors,
whose works I had not supposed were translated into the German language.
Of course the poets and philosophers of his father-land were his pride
and love. Often he would speak of them in terms of endearment, as if
they were his personal friends; though of all beings, present or past,
in heaven or out of it, I think he loved Plato most. This boy was just
out of his teens, a student still, and modest as he was learned; burning
to learn more; asking questions till it was tiresome to hear them; and
never dreaming that he knew more than others. He was the most learned
young man I ever saw. And few old men know half as much. He now joined
my party, leaving his own altogether, and resolved to follow me to the
ends of the earth.
We are now in the Vale of the Grimsel. In the bottom of the Valley, by
the side of a lake forever dark with the shadows of overhanging hills,
is the _Hospice_, a name that here combines the idea of hospital and
hotel--its design being to furnish lodging and entertainment to
travellers, whether they are able to pay for the hospitality or not.
Last winter the landlord of the Grimsel having insured his house, set
fire to it, to get the money, and now is in prison for twenty years as
the penalty of his crime. In years past there have been terrible
avalanches here, and once the house was crushed by the "thunderbolts of
snow." Often it is surrounded by snow drifts twenty or thirty feet high,
yet some one lodges here all winter to keep up a fire and furnish
shelter to the benighted traveller. It is strange that these lonely
paths should be traversed at all in the depth of winter. But there is no
other mode of communication between the valleys, than along these
defiles, and the traffic among the people of one canton with another is
carried on, and the intercourse of families is kept up at the risk of
life here as in other countries. If one has a good home, it were better
to stay in it than to cross the Grimsel in the winter.
A mixed multitude were under the roof of the Hospice. The building is
yet unfinished; and it must have required prodigious exertions to get it
so far under way, since the fire, as to make it habitable for travellers
this season. Every stick of timber must be brought up by hand from the
plain some miles below. The walls are of stone, about three feet thick,
and rough enough. No attempt to smooth a wall, or paint a board appears
on the edifice, and the rude bedsteads, benches and chairs suggest to
the luxurious traveller how few of the good things he has at home are
actually essential to his comfort. The house has about forty beds, but
these were far from being sufficient to give each weary pilgrim one.
Many were obliged to choose the softest boards in the dining room floor,
and sleep on them. Yet in that company of sixty who crowded around the
supper table were many of the learned, and titled, and beautiful, and
wealthy of many lands; meeting socially in a dreary valley, on a journey
of pleasure, and refreshing each other with the "feast of reason and the
flow of soul." Reserve was banished, and the hour freely given to good
cheer, in which all strove to forget the toils of the day, in the
pleasures of the evening, and the repose of a peaceful night.
Within an hour's walk from the door of the Hospice is the Glacier of the
Aar, the most interesting and instructive of all the Glaciers of
Switzerland. It has been more studied by men of science than any other.
Agassiz and Forbes had their huts on its bosom, and spent many long and
weary months in prying into the mysteries of these stupendous seas of
solid water. Not one of the whole company who staid at the Hospice last
night, turned aside for a day to study with us this wonderful scene. A
party of English people read the guide book on the route to Meyringen,
and congratulated themselves on having a "comfortable" day, as there was
very little to see! They were _doing_ Switzerland, and were evidently
pleased to find a day before them when they had nothing to do but to go
on, without being worried with fine views and climbing hills. One party
after another came down and took a wretched cup of coffee, and were off
on their pilgrimage, some on foot, some on mules, and one or two were
carried on chairs by porters.
We were left alone at the Hospice, and after breakfast set off to spend
the day on the Glaciers. There are two of them, the Obi and Unter, or
Upper and Lower; the latter being the most easily reached, and happily
the most interesting. It is eighteen miles long, and about three miles
wide. To circumnavigate it therefore, is not the journey of a day, but
it may be explored on foot, and Hugi, the naturalist, is said to have
rode over it on a horse. The morning was not promising. Heavy mists had
lodged in the vale of the Grimsel. But far above them in gloomy grandeur
rose the sterile ridges of rocks, towering aloft, and looking like the
battlements of giants' castles, inaccessible save to the chamois and his
pursuer, who often risked, and sometimes threw away his life in his
daring adventures to secure his prey. Even the chamois has now almost
entirety disappeared, and the eagles alone have their dwelling places in
these desolate abodes. Yet from the lofty heights some beautiful
cascades are pouring all the way down into the vale, foaming as they
fall; and sometimes caught by the intervening rocks, and sent out from
the side of the precipice they melt into spray, and again on a lower
ledge are gathered to pursue their downward course. Along the bottom of
this gloomy vale we walked for an hour, till we came in sight of a
mighty pile of earth, rocks, ice and snow. At first we thought we had
come to a vast heap of sand, or to the _debris_ brought down by an
avalanche of soil with stones intermingled, but from the base of it a
torrent was rushing, not of clear blue water, but of a dirty milky hue,
as are all the streams when they issue from the beds of these Glaciers.
The front of the mass was perhaps one hundred and fifty feet high, and
nearly perpendicular, and here it was half a mile in width. On nearer
approach, we could see the rocks of blue ice projecting through the
coating of earth, showing plainly that the body of the great pile before
us was the cold icebergs hid beneath a covering of earth that had been
washed down upon it, from the mountains above. Now and then large masses
of earth, or a huge boulder would be dislodged from the brow of the
pile, and thunder along down, as we sat watching for these miniature
avalanches. The sense of the terrible was strong upon us now. It was not
beautiful: it was grand and awful, as we changed our position lest the
falling rocks should overtake us in their course. But a few little birds
were flying about from stone to stone unconscious of danger, the
solitary inhabitants of this frozen world.
We now determined to ascend and look on its face. With incredible toil
we climbed the hill by the side of it. If there ever was a path, we
could not find it, but from rock to rock, often pulling ourselves up by
the stunted bushes, we worked our way. Onward and upward we mounted, and
at last were rewarded for the struggle by standing abreast of the
glacier, where we could walk around and upon it and contemplate its
stupendous proportions. From the bosom of it rises the Finster-Aarhorn,
a lone pyramid that seems now to touch the blue sky: so cold and stern
it stands there, its head forever covered with snow and its foot in this
everlasting ocean of ice. The Schreckhorn is the other peak that stands
yet farther off, but the clouds are now so dense around its summit, that
I cannot see its hoary head.
Here we are six thousand feet above the level of the sea, and for
three-quarters of the year the snow is falling on these mountains: not
an April snow that melts as it falls, but a dry powder, into which a man
without snow-shoes would sink out of sight, as in the water. On the
loftiest of these mountains, the surface of the snow melts a little
every day, and the deeper you descend into the snow, the melting is
going on also. But at night it freezes, as by day for a little while it
thaws, and this process is continued until the snow is gradually
converted into ice. The high valleys are filled with these ever
increasing deposits of snow, which are thus constantly undergoing this
change, and as the fresh deposit far exceeds what is carried off by
melting, the enormous mass is rather increased than diminished by the
lapse of time. It becomes a fixed fact; yet not fixed, for the most
remarkable, and to my mind, the sublimest fact in this relation, is that
these glaciers are actually moving steadily, year by year. The
projecting mass in the lowest valley, as where we were standing a few
hours ago, is melting away, and sending out the river that leaves its
bosom on its mission into a world far below. Underneath the glacier,
where it presses on the earth, which has a heart of fire, the work of
dissolution is rapidly going on, while the sun on the upper surface
melts the ice, and streams flow along and cut deep crevices into which
the uncautious traveller may fall never to rise again till the last day.
Some of these glaciers may be traversed underneath, by following the
streams. Hugi wandered a mile in this way underneath magnificent domes,
through which the sun-light was streaming, and among crystal columns
which had been left standing as if to support the superincumbent mass.
The water, as in rocky caverns, trickles through and freezes in
beautiful stalactytes, to adorn these palaces, unseen except by the eye
to which darkness and light are both alike. As this decay of the glacier
takes place, and it is always more rapid near the lower border of it
than above, the pressure of the upper masses brings the whole mountain
slowly along: with a steadiness of march that cannot be perceived by the
eye, but which is marked with precision, and chronicled from year to
year. The place where great rocks are reposing on the surface near the
edge of the mountain against which the glacier presses has been
carefully noted, and the next year and for many subsequent years, the
onward progress of the boulder has been noted. Blocks of granite have
been inserted in the bosom of the glacier, and their position defined by
their relation to the points of land in sight; and years afterwards they
are away on their journey, and by and by, they have disappeared
altogether as the glacier moves on and heaves and breaks and closes
again. More wonderful still, it is recorded that a "mass of granite of
twenty six thousand cubic feet, originally buried under the snow, was
raised to the surface and even elevated above it upon two pillars of
ice, so that a small army might have found shelter under it." The men of
science who have pursued investigations here under circumstances quite
as fearful and forbidding as the navigators around the north Pole, have
a rude hut in which they make themselves as comfortable as the nature of
the case will admit; but this house though founded on a rock is not
stationary. It moves on with the mighty field of ice, about three
hundred feet in a year, or nearly one foot every day: not so rapidly in
winter as in summer, for the rate of progress depends on the melting,
which is arrested for a brief period during the terrible winters of this
Alpine region. Other glaciers move with greater rapidity than this. The
Mere de Glace is believed to move at the rate of four or five hundred
feet every year, and it is said that the glacier is gradually wasting
out.
The surface of this frozen sea is exceedingly irregular, depending on
the nature of the ground below, and the progress of the ice. When a
stream has cut away a great seam, where the descent of the moving mass
will be swift when it does move, the shock will throw up the ice in
ridges, in pyramids, in various fantastic shapes, piling rocks on rocks
of ice, as if some great explosion underneath had upheaved the surface
and the fragments had come down in wild confusion, like the ruins of a
crystal city. Then the sun gradually melts those towers, and they assume
strange shapes of wild and dazzling beauty, unreal palaces, glittering
minarets, silvered domes and shining battlements; freaks of nature we
call them, but they are too beautiful for chance work, and we do not
know to what eyes these forms of glory may give pleasure, nor why it is
that God displays so much of his selectest skill and most stupendous
power, where few behold it of the race to which we belong. Doubtless our
own great Cataract leaped and thundered in the wilderness thousands of
years, with no human ear or eye to receive its majesty and beauty, but
it did not roar in vain. God has other and nobler worshippers than man,
and while we are groping like moles beneath the surface, and striving in
our blindness to discover the mysteries of God's works, there are minds
to which these wonders are revelations of their Maker's glory and
goodness, and they understand, admire and adore.
Here was a world of solid water, gradually enlarging and then melting
away, to send down rivers into the plains below, and this with the other
glaciers of the Alps, is thus supplying all the rivers in Europe which
might otherwise be dry. Yet as other rivers in other lands are
constantly supplied without this provision, we must suppose that some
other design in Providence is laid, which science may or may not
discover, but whether it does or not, we are certain that they are not
without a purpose corresponding with the magnitude of their proportions,
and the wisdom of Him who, though omnipotent, never wastes His strength
in works without design.
We confined our walks to the edges of this solid but still treacherous
sea. We had yesterday conversed with a man who had fallen into the
crevices of one of these glaciers, and we had a greater horror of
repeating the experiment. The case is on record of a shepherd who was
crossing this very glacier with his flock, when he fell into one of the
clefts, into which a torrent was pouring. This stream was his guide to
life and liberty again; for he followed its course under the archway it
had made, until it led him to the foot of the glacier into the open air.
But a Swiss clergyman, a spiritual shepherd, M. Mouron, was leaning on
the edge of a fissure to explore a remarkable formation over the brink,
when the staff on which he rested gave way, and he fell, only to be
drawn out again a mangled corpse. A man was let down by a rope, and
after two or three unsuccessful expeditions, found him at last, and was
drawn up with the body in his arms.
Coming down from the hill, we had hard work in crossing some dangerous
clefts in the rocks, and once I planted my Alpen-stock firmly, as I
thought, in the thin soil, and leaped; the spike failed; the foot of the
staff slipped on and left the steel in the ground, and I was sprawling
generally along down the hill: fortunately I recovered my foothold, and
came down standing! And this is a good place in which to say that shoes
with iron nails in the soles are not the best for walking over these
mountains: a good pair of boots with double soles have served me many
times, sticking fast in the face of a slippery rock, while travellers
shod with iron have been sliding down with no strength of sole to resist
the gravitation. But I met with no such misfortune in all my travels
over the most dangerous passes, and under circumstances of trial not
often exceeded by those who wander in these parts.
We had several sorts of weather in this expedition to the source of the
Aar. The misty morning was succeeded by a glowing sun at noon, followed
by clouds and rain. When this was coming, we thought it time to be
going, and gathering a few flowers, as usual, on the verge of the cold
beds of ice, we turned our weary steps towards the Hospice. It was our
good fortune just then to meet an Italian artist who had lost his way,
and we had the pleasure of guiding him to the Hospice. Wandering with
his knapsack and port folio, in search of the beautiful in nature, which
he sketched by the way, it was of no great consequence to him, in which
direction he travelled, but a storm was now at hand, it was rapidly
growing cold, and he was going every moment farther from any place of
shelter.
We were soon housed safely in the Hospice; and glad enough to stretch
ourselves on a bed after the walk of the morning. It was hard to keep
warm anywhere else but in bed. The house was yet so unfinished and open,
and the storm increasing every moment; a wretched old stove in one
corner of the eating-room, scarcely giving any heat with the few sticks
of fuel we were able to find. We wrapped blankets around us, and tried
to write, and when that proved to be more than we could accomplish under
the difficulties, I took my Bible and read to my German friend some of
the sublimest passages in the Psalms, where the Lord is revealed among
the mountains, and his majesty portrayed by the loftiest of his works.
He listened with interest, and when I laid aside the book, he asked for
it, and read it long and earnestly.
As the evening drew on, a few travellers began to drop in, and at seven
o'clock a company, much like the one of last night, but all with new
faces, sat down to supper.