Second Edition. MOVING MOUNTAINSIDES.

Stratford Evening Post, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 86, 2 April 1914, Page 6

Second Edition. MOVING MOUNTAINSIDES.

DESTRUCTIVE AVALANCHE. [By Electric Telegraph—Copyright) XLimited Press Association. ! Paris, March 31. The Valley of Chamonix is smothered by avalanches, the snow reaching to the third 'floors of the houses. Lakes on the road to Geneva have filled up. An avalanche, at Grassouuet followed the course of the street. W hole trees were brought down the hillsides and deposited there.' A landslide at (Brives extends over a square mile, and the mountain-side is still moving. THE GREAT WHITE ROVER OF THE ALPS. The avalanche “season” is in full swing, but few of the thousands of tourists from every land who visit annually fully realize what the phrase means to those who from year to year live under the shadow of this terror. Communes, villages and villagers unite to fight the avalanche, insurance companies in Switzerland provide kigainst its work of destruction, giving liberal terms, and the Swiss j Government itself grants a large annual subsidy in order to enable a competent staff of engineers to continue the fight by planting forests on exposed slopes and constructing trenches and breastworks iii the threatened districts and valleys. To a certain extent this organised work against- avalanches has been effectual in some cantons, but in general the efforts of'man when battling against the “Great White River”—as the peasants name the avalanche—are pitifully inadequate. Dr. J. Coaz, of Berne, the Federal Inspector of Forests, in the latest statistics which he has compiled on -the subject, states that in 1910 the number, of avalanches and landslips in Switzerland amounted to 9368, and that in an average year they numbered over 9000. Avalanches that are known year after year to fall in the safne spot cause no anxiety to the Alpine villagers', who; on the contrary, frequent ly start the avalanche in its downward course—to get rid of it, they say —by shouting or shooting at it. On the other hand, there are scores of largo and little hamlets and villages situated under the shadow, of the Alps whose inhabitants have the fear of deaflf hanging over them in the winter. It is a pathetic sight to witness these poor peasants wending their way through the deep snow, headed by their cure, to the- little village church

which is specially constructed to resist the shock of an avalanche—twice a * week to pray for protection and delivcrarice from this scourge of the Alps- —In "some of the remote and superstitious hamlets it is still the custom of the inhabitants to gather on a certain day and climb up as near as possible to the “white river,” to which prayers are offered not to destroy their lives and property. Notable Catastrophes. Some notable catastrophes have been caused by avalanches when the winter snows, haVe been exceptionally heavy. In the Val Yedasca, on the Swiss Italian frontier, avalanches fell so frequently and committed so much havoc in the every year that 5000 peasants bieserted their homes in a body, and hitherto prosperous farms, fields and orchards are now abandoned and deserted. In the Canton of Orisons, of the Fluela Pass, in spite of the skill and. work voiK Swiss engineers is a notoriously dangerous thoroughfare Some winters ago the Davos diligence, .which crosses the Fluela daily, never reached its destination, and a.ll efforts to find the missing men, mails, and carriage failed, so large and deep was the avalanche which obstructed the route. Four months later, on a smiling summer, day, the six passengers and postal employees, their mails, luggage, and horses were discovered fresh and somul as when a hundred days before the mountain above enveloped them in its while winding-sheet.-The greatest avalanche catastrophe

on record took place at the Grandes Mines, near the village of Pragelato, on the Swiss Italian frontier. Eighty miners of several nationalities were returning to the valley down the steep side of the Col de Albergia after their day’s.work when suddenly every man was swept away 1800 ft. into an abyss below- and all covered over with tons of snow. Italian Alpine troops were hurried to the- spot from ail parts, but they arrived too late to save the 80 entombed miners, who, when the snows melted, were buried in one common grave. •