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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 May 2009
It is a noteworthy fact that, although Alpine glaciers have, during the last few years, not shown any very marked oscillations, the Central Alps have, since the year 1892, been annually visited by a disaster caused, directly or indirectly, by the bursting or falling of a glacier. Thus, in 1892, the Tête Rousse glacier of the Mont Blanc group swept away the Baths of St. Gervais; in 1893, the village of Taesch, between Viess and Zermatt, was devastated by the torrent of the Weingarten glacier, not far from the village of Randa, which was destroyed by a glacier avalanche in the year 1819; again, in 1894, the torrent of the Crête glacier (Grand Combin group, Rhone valley) suddenly poured its flood into the river Dranse, and thereby endangered the town of Martigny; while last year the record was swelled by the avalanche of the Altels glacier on the north side of the Gemmi Pass, in the Bernese Oberland.
1 Official measurements made in 1893, after a dry and hot summer, showed that out of 28 glaciers in Canton Valais (Rhone valley), 14 had receded 3 to 28 metres, 3 had remained stationary, 10 had advanced 2 to 30 metres, and only one (Zigior glacier, Mont Collon group) had advanced 100 metres, or about 1 ft. per day.
1 The precise date of the avalanche of 1782 is fixed by a public document, which was discovered through the efforts of Prof. Forel, of Morges, in the archives of Louèche, and enumerates the loss of life and property sustained on that occasion: “per terribilem et stupendam de summitate montis prolapsam glaciei quantitatem.” On that occasion four men, who were crossing the Spitalmatte on their way home, and ninety cattle, were killed.