Page:Whymper - Scrambles amongst the Alps.djvu/490

428 On the 9th we returned again to the Col, and whilst climbing the rocks of the Stockje, discovered the dead chamois which was mentioned upon. It rained as far as our camp, and thenceforward we had to fight our way up through continuously falling snow, against an easterly gale. It blew dead in our teeth, and our progress was painfully slow. The snow was writhing all around, as if tormented; or caught by whirlwinds, and sent eddying high aloft; or seized by gusts and borne onwards in clouds which seemed to be driven right through us. The wind was appalling; once I was fairly blown down, although tied to Biener, and many times we were sent staggering back for ten or a dozen paces against our will. Our track was obliterated at the summit, and we could not find the pit. We tried east, west, north, and south, to no purpose. At last we heard a shout! We halted, panting for breath. Another! It came with the wind, and we had to face the storm again. After a long search we arrived at the pit, which by this time was a huge hole twenty feet deep. The inclined plane had had to be abandoned, and a regular staircase led down to the bottom. The men had again struck work, having, they said, arrived at glacier; the fact was, they were completely cowed by the weather, and had taken to shouting, expecting that we should be lost. I descended, and with two strokes of the pick went through their glacier, which was only another thick stratum of ice.

The last day had arrived, and the next was to see me en route for London. I drove the men to their work, and stood over them once more. The stuff which came up in the baskets was different to that which I had seen last! It was not ice of a compact kind like the horizontal layers, still it was not snow. Sometimes one could say, This is snow; but at others no one would have said that it was snow. On inquiry, they said that it had been like this for several feet. I went down, took the tools in my own hands, and hewed the walls smooth. It was then apparent that vertical glacification (if I may be permitted to use such an expression) had commenced (see A A on section).

The men were anxious to leave, for the weather was terrible. The wind howled over our heads in a true hurricane. I was unwilling to go until it was absolutely necessary. At length they refused to work any longer; I concluded the measurements ; we tied in line, and floundered downwards, and at 9 arrived at Zermatt.

I will now proceed to describe what we saw. For 11 inches from the surface the snow was soft and white, or what is usually termed new snow. There was then a very decided increase in density, and all the snow beneath had a slight bluish tint. At 21 inches from the surface the tone of the snow seemed somewhat deeper than that which was above, but below this point there was little or no increase in colour until the depth of 15 feet was passed. The density of the snow naturally increased as we descended, although much less rapidly than I expected. Down to the depth of 13½ feet (or to just above the broad blue band on the right-hand column of the section) the mass was decidedly and unmistakably snowy; that is to say,