To Editor of the Times

TO THE EDITOR OF THE TIMES

Sir,—Various accounts of the accident here described being afloat, I have thought it worth while to give the correct one. If it should have the effect of checking the tendency to underrate the dangers of the Alps, and, without damping courage, augment caution, my chief object in writing the account will be accomplished.

I am, Sir, your obedient servant, | JOHN TYNDALL | Royal Institution, Albemarle-street, Sept. 30.

“Towards the end of last July, while staying at Pontresina,¹ in Ober Engadin,² I was invited by two friends to join in an expedition up the Pia Morteratsch.³ This I willingly did, for I wished to look at the configuration of the Alps from some commanding point in the Bernina Mountains⁴ and also to learn something of the capabilities of the Pontresina guides. We took two of them with us—Jenni,⁵ who is the man of greatest repute among them, and Walter,⁶ who is the head of the bureau of guides. We proposed to ascend by the Rosegg,⁷ and to return by the Morteratsch glacier, thus making a circuit, instead of retracing our steps. About eight hours of pleasant, healthful exertion placed us on the Morteratsch Spitze,⁸ where we remained for an hour, and where the conviction forced on my mind on many another summit was renewed—namely, that these mountains and valleys are not, as supposed by the renowned President of the Geographical Society,⁹ ridges and heaps tossed up by the earth’s central fires, with great fissures between them, but that ice and water, acting through long ages, have been the real sculptors of the Alps.¹⁰

“Jenni is a heavy man, and marches rather slowly up a mountain, but he is a thoroughly competent mountaineer. We were particularly pleased with his performance in descending. He swept down the slopes and cleared the ‘schrunds,’¹¹ which cut the upper snows, with great courage and skill. We at length reached the point at which it was necessary to quit our morning’s track, and immediately afterwards got upon some steep rocks, which were rendered slippery here and there by the water which trickled over them. To our right was a broad couloir,¹² which was once filled with snow, but this had been melted and refrozen, so as to expose a sloping wall of ice. We were all tied together at this time in the following order:—Jenni led, I came next, then my friend H.,¹³ an intrepid mountaineer, then his friend L.,¹⁴ and last of all the guide Walter. L. had had but little experience of the higher Alps, and was placed in front of Walter, so that any false step on his part might be instantly checked. After descending the rocks for a time Jenni turned and asked me whether I thought it better to adhere to them or try the ice-slope to our right. I pronounced in favour of the rocks but he seemed to misunderstand me, and turned towards that couloir. I stopped him before he reached it, and said, ‘Jenni, you know where you are going; the slope is pure ice.’ He replied, ‘I know it; but the ice is quite bare for a few yards only. Across the exposed portion I will cut steps, and then the snow which covers the ice will give us a footing.’ He cut the steps, reached the snow, and descended carefully along it—all following him, apparently in good order. After a little time he stopped, turned, and looked upwards at the last three men. He said something about keeping carefully in the tracks, adding that a false step might detach an avalanche. The word was scarcely uttered when I heard the sound of a fall behind me, then a rush, and in the twinkling of an eye my two friends and their guide, all apparently entangled together, whirred past me. I suddenly planted myself to resist their shock, but in an instant I was in their wake, for their impetus was irresistible. A moment afterwards Jenni was whirled away, and thus all five of us found ourselves riding downwards with uncontrollable speed on the back of an avalanche which a single slip had originated.

“When thrown down by the jerk of the rope, I turned promptly on my face and drove my baton through the moving snow, seeking to anchor it in the ice underneath, had held it firmly there for a few seconds, when I came into collision with some obstacle and was rudely tossed through the air, Jenni at the same time being shot down upon me. Both of us here lost our batons. We had, in fact, been carried over a crevasse, had hit its lower edge, our great velocity causing us to be pitched beyond it. I was quite bewildered for a moment, but immediately righted myself, and could see those in front of me half buried in the snow, and jolted from side to side by the ruts among which they were passing. Suddenly, I saw them tumbled over by a lurch of the avalanche, and immediately afterwards found myself imitating their motion. This was caused by a second crevasse. Jenni knew of its existence and plunged right into it—a brave and manful act, but for the time unavailing. He is over 13 stone in weight, and he thought that by jumping into the chasm a strain might be put upon the rope sufficient to check the motion. He was, however, violently jerked out of the fissure and almost squeezed to death by the pressure of the rope.

“A long slope was below us which led directly downwards to a brow where the glacier suddenly fell in a declivity of ice. At the base of this declivity the glacier was cut by a series of profound chasms, and towards these we were now rapidly borne. The three foremost men rode upon the forehead of the avalanche, and were at times almost wholly immersed in the snow; but the moving layer was thinner behind, and Jenni rose incessantly and with desperate energy drove his feet into the firmer substance underneath. His voice shouting ‘Halt! Herr Jesus, halt!’ was the only one heard during the descent. A kind of condensed memory, such as that described by people who have narrowly escaped drowning, took possession of me; and I thought and reasoned with a preternatural clearness as I rushed along. Our start, moreover, was too sudden and the excitement too great to permit of the development of terror. The slope at one place became less steep, the speed visibly slackened, and we thought we were coming to rest; the avalanche, however, crossed the brow which terminated this gentler slope and regained its motion. Here H. threw his arm round his friend, all hope for the time being extinguished, while I grasped my belt and struggled for an instant to detach myself. Finding this difficult I resumed the pull upon the rope. My share in the work was, I fear, infinitesimal, but Jenni’s powerful strain made itself felt at last. Aided probably by a slight change of inclination, he brought the whole to rest within a distance of the chasms over which, had we preserved our speed, a few seconds would have carried us. None of us suffered serious damage. H. emerged from the snow with his forehead bleeding, but the wound was superficial. Jenni had a bit of flesh removed from his head by collision against a stone; the pressure of the rope had left black welts on my arms, and we all experienced a tingling sensation over the hands, like that produced by incipient frostbite, which continued for several days. I found a portion of my watch-chain hanging round my neck, another portion in my pocket—the watch itself was gone.

“This happened on the 30^th of July. Two days afterwards I went to Italy, and remained there for ten or twelve days. On the 10^th of August I was again at Pontresina and on that day made an expedition in search of the lost watch. Both the guides and myself thought the sun’s heat might melt the snow above it, and I inferred that if its back should happen to be uppermost the slight absorbent power of gold for the solar rays would prevent the watch from sinking as a stone sinks under like circumstances. The watch would thus be brought quite to the surface; and, although a small object, it might possibly be seen from some distance. I was accompanied up the Morteratsch glacier by five friends, of whose conduct I cannot speak too highly. One of them in particular, a member of the British Legislature, 64 years of age,¹⁵ exhibited a courage and collectedness in places of real difficulty which were perfectly admirable.

“Two only of the party, both competent mountaineers, accompanied me to the scene of the accident, and none of us ventured on the ice where it originated. Just before stepping upon the remains of the avalanche, a stone some tons in weight, detached by the sun from the snow slope above us, came rushing down the line of our glissade. Its leaps became more and more impetuous, and on reaching the brow near which we had been brought to rest it bounded through the air, and with a single spring reached the lower glacier, raising a cloud of ice-dust in the air. Some fragments of rope found upon the snow assured us that we were upon the exact track of the avalanche, and then the search commenced. It had not continued for 20 minutes when a cheer from one of the guides—Christian Michel of Grindelwald¹⁶—announced the discovery of the watch. It had been brought to the surface in the manner surmised, and on examination seemed to be dry and uninjured. I noticed, moreover, that the position of the hands indicated that it had only run down beneath the snow. I wound it up, hardly hoping, however, to find it capable of responding. But the little creature showed instant signs of animation. It had remained 13 days in the avalanche, but the application of its key at once restored it to life, and it has [gone] with unvarying regularity ever since.

“JOHN TYNDALL”

Wellcome, MS. 7777/108

Times, 1 October 1864, p. 10¹⁷