THE WEISSHORN.

BY JOHN TYNDALL.

(From "Hours of Exercise in the Alps.")

[JOHN TYNDALL: A British scientist; born near Carlow, Ireland, August 21, 1820; died at Haslemere, Surrey, England, December 4, 1893. In 1839 he became an assistant on an ordnance survey, and was subsequently a railway engineer and a teacher of physics. After several years of study in Germany he secured his doctor's degree, and was made a Fellow of the Royal Society. He was professor of natural philosophy in the Royal Institution (1853-1867) and superintendent (1867-1887). He was the first to climb the Weisshorn, and also climbed to the summit of the Matterhorn. Among his books are: "Philosophical Transactions in Glaciers of the Alps" (1860), “Mountaineering in 1861" (1862), "Heat considered as a Mode of Motion" (1863), "Dust and Disease" (1870), "Faraday as a Discoverer" (1868), "Nine Lectures on Light" (1870), "Hours of Exercise in the Alps" (1871), "Essays on the Use and Limit of the Imagination in Science (1871), "The Forms of Water in Clouds and Rivers, Ice and Glaciers" (1872), "Essays on the Floating Matter of the Air" (1881), and "New Fragments" (1892).]

ON Friday the 16th of August I rose at 4.30; the eastern heaven was hot with the glow of the rising sun, and against it were drawn the mountain outlines. At 5.30 I bade good-by to the excellent little auberge of the Bel Alp, and went straight down the mountain to Briegg, took the diligence to Visp, and engaged a porter immediately to Randa. I had sent Bennen thither to inspect the Weisshorn. On my arrival I learned that he had made the necessary reconnaissance, and entertained hopes of our being able to gain the top.

This noble mountain, which is fourteen thousand eight hundred feet high, had been tried on various occasions and from different sides by brave and competent climbers, but all efforts had been hitherto unavailing.

Previous to quitting Randa to assail this formidable peak, I had two pairs of rugs sewed together so as to form two sacks. These and other coverlets, together with our wine and provisions, were sent on in advance of us. At 1 P.M. on the 18th of August Bennen, Wenger, and myself quitted the hotel, and were soon zigzagging among the pines of the opposite mountain. Wenger had been the guide of my friend Forster, and had shown himself so active and handy on the Strahleck that I commissioned Bennen to engage him. During the previous night I had been very unwell, and as I climbed the slope I suf

fered from intense thirst. Water seemed powerless to quench the desire for drink. We reached a chalet, and at our request a smart young Senner caught up a pail, and soon returned with it full of delicious milk. The effect of the milk was astonishing. It seemed to lubricate every atom of my body, and to exhilarate with its fragrance my brain.

Two hours' additional climbing brought us to our bivouac, a ledge of rock which jutted from the mountain side, and formed an overhanging roof. On removing the stones from beneath the ledge, a space of comparatively dry clay was laid bare. This was to be my bed, and to soften it Wenger considerately stirred it up with his ax. The position was excellent, for lying upon my left side I commanded the whole range of Monte Rosa, from the Mischabel to the Breithorn. We were on the edge of an amphitheater. Beyond the Schallenbach was the stately Mettelhorn. A row of eminences swept round to the right linked by lofty ridges of cliffs, which embraced the Schallenberg glacier. They formed, however, only a spur of the vaster Weisshorn, the cone of which was not visible from our dormitory. In company with Bennen I afterwards skirted the mountain until the whole colossal pyramid stood facing us. When I first looked at it my hopes sank, but both of us gathered confidence from a more lengthened gaze. The mountain is a pyramid with three faces, the intersections of which form three sharp edges or arêtes. The end of the eastern ridge was nearest to us, and on it our attention was principally fixed. We finally decided on the route to be pursued next morning, and with a chastened hope in both our breasts we returned to our shelter.

Water was our first necessity: it seemed everywhere, but there was none to drink. It was locked to solidity in the ice and snow. The sound of it came booming up from the Vispbach, as it broke into foam or rolled its bowlders over its waterworn bed;, and the swish of many a minor streamlet mingled with the muffled roar of the large one. Bennen set out in search of the precious liquid, and after a long absence returned with a jug and pan full. At our meal, Wenger, who is a man rich in small expedients, turned the section of a cheese towards the flame of our pine fire; it fizzed and blistered and turned viscous, and, the toasted surface being removed, was consumed with relish by us all. The sunset had been unspeakably grand, steeping the zenith in violet, and flooding the base of the heavens

with crimson light. Immediately opposite to us rose the Mischabel, with its two great peaks, the Grubenhorn and the Täschhorn, each barely under 15,000 feet in height. Next came the Alphubel, with its flattened crown of snow; then the Allaleinhorn and Rympfischhorn; then the Cima di Jazzi; next the mass of Monte Rosa, flooded with light from bottom to top. The face of the Lyskamm turned towards us was for the most part shaded, but here and there its projecting portions jutted forth red hot as the light fell upon them. The "Twins" were most singularly illuminated; across the waist of each of them was drawn a black bar, produced by the shadow of a corner of the Breithorn, while their bases and crowns were exposed to the crimson light. Over the rugged face of the Breithorn itself the light fell as if in splashes, igniting its glaciers and swathing its black crags in a layer of transparent red. The Mettelhorn was cold, so was the entire range governed by the Weisshorn, while the glaciers they embraced lay gray and ghastly in the twilight shade.

The sunlight lingered, while up the arch of the opposite heavens the moon, within one day of being full, seemed hastening to our aid. She finally appeared exactly behind the peak of the Rympfischhorn, the cone of the mountain being projected for a short time as a triangle on the lunar disk. Only for a short time, however; the silver sphere soon cleared the mountain, and bore away through the tinted sky. The motion was quite visible, and resembled that of a vast balloon. As the day approached its end the scene assumed the most sublime aspect. All the lower portions of the mountains were deeply shaded, while the loftiest peaks, ranged upon a semicircle, were fully exposed to the sinking sun. They seemed pyramids of solid fire, while here and there long stretches of crimson light drawn over the higher snow fields linked the summits together. An intensely illuminated geranium flower seems to swim in its own color, which apparently surrounds the petals like a layer, and defeats by its luster any attempt of the eye to seize upon the sharp outline of the leaves. A similar effect was here observed upon the mountains; the glory did not seem to come from them alone, but seemed also effluent from the air around them. the evening advanced, the eastern heavens low down assumed a deep purple hue, above which, and blending with it by infinitesimal gradations, was a belt of red, and over this again zones of orange and violet. I walked round the corner of the moun

As

tain at sunset, and found the western sky glowing with a more transparent crimson than that which overspread the east. The crown of the Weisshorn was imbedded in this magnificent light. After sunset the purple of the east changed to a deep neutral tint, and against the faded red which spread above it the sunforsaken mountains laid their cold and ghastly heads. The ruddy color vanished more and more; the stars strengthened in luster, until finally the moon and they held undisputed possession of the sky.

My face was turned towards the moon until it became so chilled that I was forced to protect it by a light handkerchief. The power of blinding the eyes is ascribed to the moonbeams, but the real mischief is that produced by radiation from the eyes into clear space, and the inflammation consequent upon the chill. As the cold increased I was fain to squeeze myself more and more underneath the ledge, so as to lessen the space of sky against which my body could radiate. Nothing could be more solemn than the night. Up from the valley came the low thunder of the Vispbach. Over the Dom flashed in succession the stars of Orion, until finally the entire constellation hung aloft. Higher up in heaven was the moon, and her beams as they fell upon the snow fields and pyramids were sent back in silvery luster by some, while others remained a dead white. These, as the earth twirled round, came duly in for their share of the glory. The Twins caught it at length and retained it long, shining with a pure spiritual radiance, while the moon continued above the hills.

At twelve o'clock I looked at my watch, and a second time at 2 A.M. The moon was then just touching the crest of the Schallenberg, and we were threatened with the withdrawal of her light. This soon occurred. We rose at 21 A.M., consumed our coffee, and had to wait idly for the dawn. A faint illumination at length overspread the sky, and with this promise of the coming day we quitted our bivouac at 31 A.M. No cloud was to be seen; as far as the weather was concerned we were sure to have fair play. We rounded the shingly shoulder of the mountain to the edge of a snow field, but before entering upon it I disburdened myself of my strong shooting jacket, leaving it on the mountain side. The sunbeams and my own exertion would, I knew, keep me only too warm during the day. We crossed the snow, cut our way through a piece of entangled glacier, reached the Bergschrund, and passed it with

out a rope. We ascended the frozen snow of the couloir by steps, but soon diverged from it to the rocks at our right, and mounted them to the end of the eastern arête of the mountain.

A snow saddle separated us from the higher rocks. With our staff pikes at one side of the saddle, we pass by steps cut upon the other. We find the rocks hewn into fantastic turrets and obelisks, while the loose chips of this sculpture are strewn confusedly upon the ridge. Amid these we cautiously pick our way, winding round the towers or scaling them amain. The work was heavy from the first, the bending, twisting, reaching, and drawing up calling upon all the muscles of the frame. After two hours of this work we halted, and, looking back, saw two moving objects on the glacier below us. At first we took them to be chamois, but they were men. The leader carried an ax, and his companion a knapsack and an alpenstock. They followed our traces, losing them apparently now and then, and waiting to recover them. Our expedition had put Randa in a state of excitement, and some of its best climbers had urged Bennen to take them with him. This he did not deem necessary, and now here were two of them determined to try the thing on their own account, and perhaps to dispute with us the honor of the enterprise. On this point, however, our uneasiness was small.

Resuming our gymnastics, the rocky staircase led us to the flat summit of a tower, where we found ourselves cut off from a similar tower by a deep gap bitten into the mountain. The rope was here our refuge. Bennen coiled it round his waist; we let him down along the surface of the rock, until he fixed himself on a ledge, where he could lend me a helping hand. I followed him, and Wenger followed me. By a kind of screw motion we twisted ourselves round the opposite tower, and reached the ridge behind it. Work of this kind, however, is not to be performed by the day, and, with a view of sparing our strength, we quitted the ridge and endeavored to get along the southern slope of the pyramid. The mountain was scarred by long couloirs, filled with clear, hard ice. The cutting of steps across these couloirs proved to be so tedious and fatiguing that I urged Bennen to abandon them and try the ridge once more. We regained it and worked along it as before. Here and there upon the northern side the snow was folded over, and we worked slowly upward along the cornice snow. The ridge became gradually narrower, and the precipices on