truction, as no words can adequately describe. Picture to yourself a rude and mingled mass of earth and stones, bristled with the shattered parts of wooden cottages, and with thousands of heavy trees, torn up by the roots, and projecting in every direction. In one part you might see a range of peasants' huts, which the torrent of earth had reached with just force enough to overthrow and tear in pieces, but without bringing soil enough to cover them. In another were mills broken in pieces by huge rocks, transported from the top of the mountains, which fell, and were carried high up the opposite side of the Rigi. Large pools of water had formed themselves in different parts of the ruins, and many little streams, whose usual channels had been filled up, were bursting out in various places. Birds of prey, attracted by the smell of dead bodies, were hovering all about the valley. But the general impression made upon us by the sight of such an extent of desolation, connected, too, with the idea that hundreds of wretched creatures were at that moment alive, buried under a mass of earth, and inaccessible to the cries and labours of their friends, was too horrible to be described or understood. As we travelled along the borders of the chaos of ruined buildings, a poor peasant, wearing a countenance ghastly with woe, came up to us to beg a piece of money. He had three children buried in the ruins of a cottage, which he was endeavouring to clear away. A little further on, we came to an elevated spot, which overlooked the whole scene. Here we found a painter seated on a rock, and busy in sketching its horrours. He had chosen a most favourable point. Before.him, at the distance of more than a league, rose the Rossberg, from whose bare side had rushed the destroyer of all this life and beauty. On his right was the lake of Lowertz, partly filled with the earth of, the mountain. On the banks of this lake was all that remained of the town of Lowertz. Its church was demolished; but the tower yet stood amid the ruins, shattered, but not thrown

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down. The figures, which animated this part of the drawing, were a few miserable peasants, left to grope among the wrecks of one half their village. The foreground of the picture was a wide desolate sweep of earth and stones, relieved by the shattered roof of a neighbouring cottage. On the left hand spread the blue and tranquil surface of the lake of Zug, on the margin of which yet stands the pleasant village of Art, almost in contact with the ruins, and trembling even in its preservation.

We proceeded, in our descent, along the side of the Rigi, toward the half-buried village of Lowertz. Here we saw the poor curate, who is said to have been a spectator of the fall of the mountain. He saw the torrent of earth rushing toward his village, overwhelming half his people, and stopping just before his door! What a situation! He appeared, as we passed, to be superintending the labours of some of the survivors, who were exploring the ruins of the place. A number of new-made graves, marked with a plain pine cross, showed where a few of the wretched victims of this catastrophe had just been interred.

Our course lay along the borders of the enchanting lake of Lowertz. The appearance of the slopes, on the eastern and southern sides, told us what the valley of Goldau was a few days since, smiling with varied vegetation, gay with villages and cottages, and bright with promises of autumnal plenty. The shores of this lake were covered with ruins of huts, with hay, with furniture and clothes, which the vast swell of its waters had lodged on the banks. As we were walking mournfully along towards Schweitz, we met with the dead body of a woman, which had been just found. It was stretched out on a board, and barely covered with a white cloth. Two men, preceded by a priest, were carrying it to a more decent burial. We hoped that this sight would have concluded the horrours of this day's scenery, and that we should soon escape from every painful vestige of the calamity of Schweitz. But we continued to

find relicks of ruined buildings for a league along the whole extent of the lake; and a little beyond the two islands, men tioned above, we saw, lying on the shore, the stiff body of a peasant, which had been washed up by the waves, and which two men were examining, to ascertain where he belonged. Our guide instantly knew it to be one of the inhabitants of Goldau. But I will mention no more particulars. Some perhaps that have been related to me are not credible, and others which are credible are too painful.

The immediate cause of this calamitous event is not yet sufficiently ascertained and probably never will be. The fall of parts of hills is not uncommon; and in Switzerland especially there are several instances recorded of the descent of large masses of earth and stones. But so sudden and extensive a ruin, as this, was, perhaps, never produced by the fall of a mountain. It can be compared only to the destruction made by the tremendous eruptions of Etna and Vesuvius. Many persons suppose that the long and copious rains, which they have lately had in this part of Switzerland, may have swelled the mountains, in the Rossberg, sufficiently to push this part of the mountain off its inclined base. But we saw no marks of streams issuing from any part of the bed which is laid bare. Perhaps the consistency of the earth in the interiour of the mountain was so much altered by the moisture which penetrated into it, that the projection of the Spitzberg was no longer held by a sufficiently strong cohesion, and its own weight carried it over. Perhaps, as the earth is calcareous, a kind of fermentation took place sufficient to loosen its foundations. Bnt there is no end to conjectures. The mountain has fallen, and the villages are no more.

I cannot but reflect upon my weakness in complaining of our long delay at Strasburg. If we had not been detained there ten days, waiting for our passports, we should have been in Switzerland the 3d of September, probably in the

vicinity of the lake of Lowertz-perhaps under the ruins of Goldau. Several travellers or rather strangers, were destroyed; but whether they were there on business or for pleasure, I know not. Among them are several respectable inhabitants of Berne, and a young lady of fine accomplishments and amiable character, whose loss is much lamented. My dear friend, bless God that we are alive and enjoying so many comforts.

[In the Monthly Magazine for July, 1807, a part of the above letter is quoted, together with other particulars of this event, translated from a memoir of M. Saussure, communicated to the Philosophical Society at Geneva, and the narrative of M. J. H. Meyer. The number of individuals, who perished, was, according to these accounts, considerably less than that stated by Mr. Buckminster.

Something of the manner, in which Mr. Buckminster was affected by the Alpine scenery, will be seen by the following extract.]

You find in some of the rudest passes in the Alps homely inns, which publick beneficence has erected for the convenience of the weary and benighted traveller. In most of these inns albums are kept to record the names of those, whose curiosity has led them into these regions of barrenness, and the album is not unfrequently the only book in the house. In the album of the Grande Chartreuse, Gray, on his way to Geneva, recorded his deathless name, and left that exquisite Latin ode, beginnning 'O! tu severi religio loci;' an ode which is indeed pure nectar.' It is curious to observe in these books the differences of national character. The Englishman usually writes his name only, with out explanation or comment. The Frenchman records something of his feelings, destination, or business; commonly adding a line of poetry, an epigram, or some exclamation of

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pleasure or disgust. The German leaves a long dissertation upon the state of the roads, the accommodations, &c. detailing at full length whence he came, and whither he is going, through long pages of crabbed writing.

In one of the highest regions of the Swiss Alps, after a day of excessive labour in reaching the summit of our journey, near those thrones erected ages ago for the majesty of nature, we stopped, fatigued and dispirited, on a spot destined to eternal barrenness, where we found one of these rude but hospitable inns open to receive us. There was not another human habitation within many miles. All the soil, which we could see, had been brought thither, and placed carefully round the cottage to nourish a few cabbages and lettuces. There were some goats, which supplied the cottagers with milk; a few fowls lived in the house; and the greatest luxuries of the place were new-made cheeses, and some wild alpine mutton, the rare provision for the traveller. Yet here nature had thrown off the veil, and appeared in all her sublimity. Summits of bare granite rose all around us. The snow-clad tops of distant Alps seemed to chill the moon-beams that lighted on them; and we felt all the charms of the picturesque, mingled with the awe inspired by unchangeable grandeur. We seemed to have reached the original elevations of the globe, o'ertopping forever the tumults, the vices, and the miseries of ordinary existence, far out of the hearing of the murmurs of a busy world, which discord ravages and luxury corrupts. We asked for the Album, and a large folio was brought us, almost filled with the scrawls of every nation on earth that could write. Ine stantly our fatigue was forgotten, and the evening passed away pleasantly in the entertainment, which this book afforded us. I copied the following French couplet :

Dans ces sauvages lieux tout orgueil s'humanise ;
Dieu s'y montre plus grand; l'homme s'y pulverise!

Signed,

p. ed. trenir.