Early in the morning the shepherds who were tending their herds on the mountains perceived fresh crevices in the ground and on the rock walls. In many parts the turf appeared as if turned up by a ploughshare, and a cracking noise as if roots were violently snapped asunder was heard in the neighbouring forest. From hour to hour, the rents, the cracking, the rolling down of single stones increased, until finally, at about five in the afternoon, a large chasm opened in the flanks of the mountain, growing every instant deeper, longer, and broader. Then from the opposite Righi the forest might be seen to wave to and fro like a storm- tossed sea, and the whole flank of the mountain to slide down with a constantly increasing velocity, until finally hundreds of millions of cubic feet of rock came sweeping down into the valley with a noise as if the foundations of the earth were giving way. The friction or clash of the huge stones, hurled against each other in their fall, produced so intense a heat that flames were seen to flash forth from the avalanche, and the moisture with which they were saturated, being suddenly changed into steam, caused explosions like those from the crater of a volcano. Dense clouds of dust veiled the scene of destruction, and it was not before they slowly rolled away that the whole extent of the disaster became visible. Where, but a few hours since, four prosperous villages— Goldau, Busingen, Upper and Lower Röthen, and Lowerz—had been gilded by the sun, and numerous herds had been grazing on the rich pastures along the borders of the lake of Lowerz, nothing was now to be seen but a desolate chaos of rocks, beneath which 457 persons lay buried. From this terrible disaster some wonderful escapes are recorded. High on the slope of the Rossberg, lived Bläsi Mettler, with his young wife Agatha. When, in the morning, the first premonitory signs of the disaster appeared, and the labouring mountain began to raise its warning voice, the superstitious peasant, fancying he heard the jubilee of demons, hastened down to Arth, on the bank of the lake of Zug, and begged the parish priest, with tears and lamentations, to accompany him, and exorcise the evil spirits with a copious sprinkling of holy water. While he was still speaking, the catastrophe took place, and he now rushed back again to his hut, where beyond all doubt his beloved wife and his only child, which was but four weeks old, had found a premature grave.