Picturesque Tour through the Oberland; index
<87>
GLACIERS OF GRINDELWALD.
The prospect of a valley, which descends with rapid declivity between threatening rocks; an immense assemblage of points, which cannot be compared with any thing but solid waves; a sea, if we may so express it, motionless, in its fury, and on its brink a vault almost as regular as the portal of a large church, changing its form every year, and pouring forth an inexhaustible stream, produced by the melting of the substance of which this transparent portal is composed; the most beautiful meadows, fruit of exquisite flavour, charming woods on the margin of tracts where everlasting winter holds its reign; an icy torrent, which seems to precipitate itself from the top of the mountains into a deep ravine, checked by a carpet of flowers, which assigns to it a boundary that its billows shall not pass, and the crops of the husbandman waving in safety on its banks--these certainly are objects capable of interesting persons the most difficult to be moved. But these phenomena are far surpassed, and a much more powerful impression is made on the soul by those enormous mountains, whose bases are buried in these valleys of ice, and which raise their threatening summits to heaven; those gigantic and rugged peaks, which bear the marks of all the convulsions that have changed the face of the globe. The rage of the elements spent itself against their buckler of granite. Covered with honourable scars, they seem proud of having sustained the tremendous conflict without being overturned, and of being still strong enough to endure the new combats which the future catastrophes of our planet shall prepare for them, and to which they may be summoned by the voice of their Creator. We might say, that they are waiting for the signal in dignified tranquillity, and with the certainty of once more coming off victorious from the shock of elements, of surviving all the fresh embellishments of this terrestrial surface, which they have so often seen renewed. Perhaps their summits overlooked old Ocean, at the period when it first covered our continent; they then witnessed his <88> retreat, and successively beheld the earth peopled with those animals of unknown species, the skeletons of which have been put together in our days by the genius of ephemeral man, and these same races ingulphed when Ocean returned to claim his ancient domain; the vast regions, stretched at their feet, repeopled with gigantic beings; and the sea, at the command of Jehovah, a second time lashing their sides with its waves, and destroying the mammoths and the mastodontes, as it had formerly swept away the anoplotherium and the palœotherium. Fresh creations and fresh convulsions have since succeeded each other, on the theatre of which these peaks are the most elevated points: every thing has perished; they alone are still standing, and proudly rear their heads to that azure vault which they seem to uphold.
Three of these colossal mountains, or rather their bases, occupy the background
of the annexed view. 
The
rock, seen on the right, belongs to the Eiger, which is of a very regular
form. The mountain that separates the two glaciers is called the Mettenberg
(the middle or intermediate mountain), and is but the pedestal of the Schreckhorn,
the summits of which cannot be seen from the bottom of the valley. It is a
disadvantage of low stations, and such as are too near to the foot of the
High Alps, that their summits are entirely hidden from the sight of the spectator,
or that they appear so much foreshortened, that it is impossible for him to
appreciate their real elevation. This remark particularly applies to the Wetterhorn
(the peak of tempests), which appears on the left, and does not produce in
this view an effect commensurate with its height and magnitude. The glacier,
which descends between the Eiger and the Mettenberg, is the less considerable
of the two, and is called the Little or Lower Glacier, to distinguish it from
that which is seen between the Mettenberg and the Wetterhorn, and the extremity
of which adjoins to a more elevated part of the valley of Grindelwald.
The peaks, covered with snow of dazzling whiteness, which overlook <89> the Lower Glacier, are called the Viescher-hörner, and mark the, boundary of the canton of Berne. On the southern declivity, a glacier of the same name extends to the environs of the Rhone, in that part of the Valais in which are the road of the Simplon, and the relics of a wall erected by the Romans to check the incursions of the Viberii, a tribe occupying the Upper Valais between Brieg and the sources of the Rhone. It was till lately supposed that the two glaciers of Grindelwald were totally separated by the rocks of the Schreckhorn, and that they were cut off by other ridges from the glaciers of Lauteraar, Gauli, and the Jungfrau; but Messrs. Meyer state, in the account from which a copious extract has been given, that they clearly perceived an uninterrupted connexion between all these glaciers.
Tradition, as Mr. Meyer remarks in the preceding narrative, has preserved the memory of an ancient direct communication between the Valais and Grindelwald through these defiles, which are now choked up with permanent ice. In addition to the facts quoted by him, is recorded the following:--
In the year 1712, on the breaking out of the civil war, three adventurous fellows traversed the wildest and most elevated tract of these glaciers from the Valais, and, after three arduous days' journey, arrived in safety, by way of the Lower Glacier, at Grindelwald. They were natives of the Oberland, a number of whom repair annually into the Valais in quest of employment. On the commencement of hostilities, the Valaisans, out of enmity to Berne and the Protestants, forcibly detained these three men, whom they wished to compel to renounce their religion, in which view they denied them every kind of food. Finding an opportunity to escape, they fled, with imminent danger of their lives, over the lofty, snow-covered mountains, towards their own country. The ascent to them from the side next to the Valais was indeed easy, but on that next <90> to Grindelwald they ran the risk of perishing with cold and hunger; nor was it without the most laborious exertions, being obliged night and day to hew steps in the ice with their axes, that they escaped this melancholy end.
The presumed existence in ancient times of a practicable route, over ground now covered with impassable glaciers, is a circumstance behind which, in particular, those naturalists entrench themselves, who attribute to the ice a tendency to cover the whole surface of the High Alps, and to cut off the more temperate valleys situated among them. Other observations are alleged in proof of this opinion. There are several glaciers bearing the names of ancient pasture grounds, upon which they have recently encroached. The herdsmen every where complain of these encroachments; and the celebrated Haller affirms, in a preface which he wrote to Wagner's Collection of Views, that, in his early youth, he had seen the Berne mountains free from snow the greatest part of the summer, which, at the time of writing, were constantly covered with it. To this observation of the Swiss Pliny, M. Ramond has added one which deserves attention. The Jungfrau may be seen from Strasburg, 150 miles distant in a direct line; and the Schreckhorn is visible, at the like distance, from Beaune. The Alsatians, who behold the Alps bounding their horizon to the south, seem to have intended to describe their appearance by formerly naming them Hohe Blauen (High Blues) a denomination which they have since disused, because it has ceased to be applicable to masses of dazzling whiteness, which contrast so strongly with the azure of the sky. The increase of the glaciers is, moreover, a phenomenon which might naturally be looked for, when it is considered that most of those which have been examined have travelled beyond the cold region in which they were originally formed; and that the same cause which preserved the snows of the first winter, in spite of the heat of the first summer, has ever since continued to operate with incessantly increasing energy; as the <91> cold, which prevails on the summit of the Alps, and which produced the first stratum of resisting snow, has necessarily become more and more intense, in proportion to the annual increase in the thickness of the cap of ice.
The encroachment of the icy zone upon the more temperate valleys is undoubtedly a misfortune for the inhabitants of the Alps, both on account of the consequent diminution of the pasturage, and the interruption of beneficial intercourse. But, on the other hand, they can scarcely fail to preserve the summits of the Alps whose flattened shape allows snow to lodge upon them, from new destructions--an interesting result to those naturalists who are apprehensive that the rivers, by incessantly carrying away matter from the mountains whence they issue, may at length wear away the summits requisite for the preservation of their sources.
How considerable soever this increase of the ice in the higher valleys of the Alps may be, it is constantly balanced by proportionate diminutions in the lower regions. Such is the observation made in the Grindelwald, as well as at the foot of Mont Blanc and the Furca; and an ancient tradition represents the glacier of Grindelwald as increasing for seven years, and then diminishing for the like space of time. But so regular a change is inconsistent with the causes which alone can influence their variations. Professor Kuhn of Berne, who has had occasion to make close and long-continued observations on the glaciers, has completely demonstrated, that their progressive motion is solely owing to the pressure of the upper part of the glaciers on the lower extremity. The soil of the valleys which they fill forming an inclined plane, and the ice in summer melting more in those parts which are contiguous to the rocks, that is, on the borders of the glaciers, and at the lower surface which rests on the mountain, their points of contact are so diminished, that the impulsive force of the upper parts easily overcomes <92> the efforts that still oppose its action; and the adhesion of the parts which have remained in contact with the ground being incapable of counterbalancing the pressure, which finds less and less resistance from one moment to another, the whole mass begins to slip, and advances by means of an impulsion that is purely mechanical.
The present minister of Grindelwald, who accommodates travellers when the inn is too full to receive them, and who explored the upper glacier, accompanied by a chamois-hunter, was upon the ice during such a movement. They had seated themselves to smoke a pipe, "when," to use the words of the reverend narrator, "a tremendous, stunning noise was heard, and every thing about us began to move. Our guns, hatchets, pouches, &c., which we had laid upon the ice, seemed to be animated. Fragments of rock, which had previously lain still upon the glacier, rolled one over another. Chasms closed with a sound resembling the report of a cannon, and spouted the water, which is usually contained within them, to the height of a house, so that we got a sound ducking. New clefts, of the breadth of ten to twenty feet, opened with an inexpressibly disagreeable noise. The whole mass of the glacier advanced probably several paces. A tremendous convulsion seemed to be preparing; but in a few seconds, all was again still, and nothing but the squeaking of some marmots interrupted the awful silence of death."
It is evident that, according to these circumstances, there cannot be any regularity in the changes which the glaciers undergo at their lower extremity, and that all must depend on the severity of the winter, the quantity of the snow, and the temperature, of the summer. Experience confirms this conclusion. The glaciers generally diminish for several successive years, that is, the lower part of the glacier, which has been propelled into a fertile valley, loses by the melting of summer a quantity of ice, exceeding the progression <93> which has taken place in the same period of time. On the other hand, there are years in which the glaciers increase considerably, and cover meadows and cultivated hills. This increase commonly occurs in spring; and when, in the course of a year, they have advanced much more than usual in the interior of a valley, they are generally observed to diminish afterwards for several successive years. This extraordinary increase has probably cleared the upper part of the valley, so that it takes several years before it is again entirely blocked up, and before fresh accumulations of ice can communicate to the lower regions of the inclined plane which it covers the degree of pressure requisite to operate upon the lower extremity, and to impart a progressive motion to the entire mass.
The surface and figure of the glaciers are determined by the nature of the ground on which they rest. In valleys, which have but little declivity, they have few clefts. Seas of ice, as they are called, are but immense accumulations of nearly smooth ice, which occupy the plain part of the most elevated valleys. There are some which are from twenty to thirty miles long, and from a mile and a half to two miles and a half broad. When the glaciers descend over a rugged slope and very uneven ground, as at the extremity of the glaciers of Grindelwald, their surface is covered with chasms, and elevations not less than a hundred feet high; and which, in places where the inclination of the ground exceeds thirty or forty degrees, assume the most diversified and the most singular forms. The chasms are frequently several feet wide, and more than a hundred in depth: the sudden changes in the temperature of the atmosphere are one of the principal causes of them. In winter, the most profound silence pervades these solitudes; but on the return of warm weather and throughout the whole of the summer, tremendous roarings, accompanied with shocks that shake the mountain, are heard from time to time; for whenever a chasm is formed, a noise resembling thunder resounds to a great distance; and when many of these detonations <94> occur in a short space of time, they are considered as indicating a change of weather.
In July 1787, Christian Bohren, who then kept the only inn there is at Grindelwald, and was living a few years since, had the misfortune to fall into one of these chasms, while driving some sheep over the small glacier to the Mettenberg, by the sudden giving way of a piece of ice nineteen feet long, and eight broad. The depth of the abyss into which he was precipitated with it measured sixty-four feet. In the fall he dislocated his right hand, and broke one of his arms, but lost none of his presence of mind. He fortunately found at the bottom an opening communicating with the torrent which runs under the glacier, and which discharges itself into the Black Lütschinen. After reaching the bed of this torrent by lateral clefts, he followed it under the arch of ice which it had wrought for its passage, to its mouth, and thus escaped the cruel fate with which he was threatened.
The great glacier has considerably receded since the year 1720. Its ancient limits are marked by a hill thirty feet high, composed of rubbish carried along by the glacier, and now covered with firs of considerable height. Though the Lower Glacier exhibits inequalities in the shape of towers, obelisks, columns, &c., more diversified and more clearly defined than the Upper Glacier, yet the traveller would do well to visit the latter, were it only for the purpose of enjoying a nearer view of the Wetterhorn. This mountain is thus named from the storms of which its summit, almost always shrouded, is the focus, in the opinion of the inhabitants, whom it serves for a barometer. Ascending the Upper Glacier along the Wetterhorn, the visitor will command one of the most magnificent spectacles: he will perceive the Schreckhorn, with the Mettenberg in front of its base: its immense skeleton, displaying to the eye the material of which the second envelope of the nucleus of the globe is perhaps <95> composed, seems to reveal the mysteries hidden in the recesses of the earth; its bare peaks tower above these regions, resplendent in hyperborean decorations; it stands alone amidst frightful deserts; it may be aptly denominated the King of Terrors*, for it is impossible to behold this colossus, without feeling that involuntary awe which a mingled spectacle of the sublime and terrible never fails to excite.
The Eiger Breithorn, or the Outer Eiger, is in no respect inferior to the Schreckhorn; nay, it is a question, whether it is not, by its form and position, the most majestic of those wonders which on all sides strike the eye, and awe the soul in the valley of Grindelwald. Below the summit of the Eiger is an aperture called the Heiterloen, through which the sun throws his rays at noon in certain periods of the year.
The Wetterhorn is 11,453 feet above the level of the sea; the Eiger, 12,268; the Schreckhorn, 12,560. The village of Grindelwald is situated at an elevation of 3150 feet; and the pass of the Scheideck, which bounds the valley on the east, and must be crossed, in order to proceed directly from the valley of Grindelwald to that of Hasli, is 6046. In traversing this Scheideck, as well as that which separates the valley of Lauterbrunn from the Grindelwald, in summer, the traveller is sure to enjoy the interesting sight of avalanches tumbling from the Wetterhorn upon the hills and valleys at its foot.
The valley of Grindelwald, which is reported to have been given to the chapter of Interlacken by the Emperor Conrad III. in 1146, passed with the rest of the possessions of that monastery into the hands of the government of Berne. Long before the troubles, occasioned by the Reformation, this valley had been a theatre of hostilities. <96> In 1191, the barons adverse to Berthold V. Duke of Zähringen here sustained a signal defeat, which was productive of the most beneficial consequences to the towns founded by that prince. The valley of Grindelwald was long the scene of religious wars and commotions. What solitude is so profound, what valley on the face of the earth so secluded, that the passions of men have not left in it some traces of their ravages? If there be a spectacle which ought to calm them, and at the same time to remind man of his high destination, and the nothingness of his vain pursuits here below, it is certainly that presented by the Alps in their most elevated valleys.
Note
* Schreckhorn, signifies, peak of terror or horror. back
