'FRISCO MAIL NEWS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6038, 21 September 1887, Page 3

'FRISCO MAIL NEWS.

The Fatal Accident on the

Jungfrau,

A correspondent at the-Eggißchorn sends the following account of the inquest upon the bodies of the six Swiss tourists who lost their Kve3 on the Jungfrau : — So far as can be gathered from the observations made by the experts who examined the remains and gave their evidence at the inquest, the party, detained by the lateness of the hour and by the storm, passed Friday night (they left Lauterbrunnen, it will be remembered, on Thursday, July 14) near the top, where there is no shelter. Very early on Saturday they began to move down, but, unguided, they took— and this was the fatal error— the left instead of the right side of the arete leading from the top. On that Bide of the arete the slope becomes increasingly steep as you descend, until at last it becomes almost perpendicular. Whether the party were blown over or whether fresh fallen snow on the steep slope gave way under the tread of six men will never be known, but they fell together, first, it is thought, on a ledge about 100 feet down, and then, bounding off that, to the snowfield some 1500 or 2000 feet below. The connecting rope was broken in only two places; the bodies were very near each other. Two of them were so telescoped that on a first view it was thought that only five had been found. Several of the watches they carried had continued to beat until sundown, but two had stopped at a few minutes after five on Saturday morning. It is tolerably certain that the fall was instantly' fatal, for the bodies were terribly shattered. Only one of them could be recognised by his features. When found they were completely covered by snow. An upright alpenstock gave the first clue to them. The task of carrying them down »vas very laborious, but it was done very expeditiously by a large party of guides and porters, first to the Concordia hut, by the great Aletsch glacier, and thence by Saturday afternoon to ' the crest above the Marjelen See, a thousand feet above the Eggisohorn Hotel, where they were severally identified by their friends, and the judicial inquiry into the circumstances of the death was conducted. About half-past 5 tho same evening, near the hotel, under the clear canopy of heaven, far above the Rhone valley to which they were to be carried that night, a religious service, conducted by a Lutheran pastor, was held over the bodies, which though, still uncoffined, were overlaid with wreaths of Alpine flowers. Ife was an impressive sight, even to those least concerned, to hear the tones of prayer and mourning mingled with the roar of the rushing Rhone, four thousand feet below, and the great still masses of the Valais Alps looking unmoved on these victims of the mountains ; but it seemed to touch still more closely the band of bronzed and hardy Alpinists whose daily work at this season is among the perils which to these six Swiss proved fatal. After this nimple service in the temple not made with hande, over those who in their death had not been divided, the bodies, now consigned to the care of their several relatives, were conveyed to Brieg the same night.

To turn for a moment to brighter subjects, it will gratify many to know that the beautiful Marjelen See, with its miniature icebergs and icefloes, is this season fuller than it has been since it was suddenly drained through the glacier some fifteen years ago. Two years ago it was quite dry. Another item of interest is the project to place an exceedingly well constructed hut on the Jungfrau, within 200ffc of the top. The hut, which is of most ingenious construction, is now on view on the terrace of iMb hotel, under the care of the well-known Mr P. Gossett, Federal engineer, of Berne, to .whose skill and enterprise, assisted by Sir Francis Adams, the English Minifiterat Berne, the project ia mainly due. The expense of the wooden construction and of its transport here has been already provided for at Berne, but money— and it will cost £700 to £800— has yet to be found to erect defences for it on the Jungfrau, and to place the hut there.