DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.70301#0177
PERSONS BURIED UNDER THE SNOW
155
every thing before them with irresistible violence. Some-
times, too, a very considerable quantity of snow happens to
be whirled about by the wind, with sufficient force to tear up
the thickest and stoutest trees from their roots, to beat down
animals to the ground, and to suffocate them, as is too often
the case with persons who are indiscreet enough to attempt
the passing of the Alps, especially of Mount Cenis, at a
time judged improper by those who continually reside in such
situations, and can therefore foretell, by certain signs, the
sudden rise of these terrible whirlwinds.
The heaps of snow which thus fall by their own weight,
or are whirled about by the wind, are called valancas by the
Alpineers, who but too often experience the fatal effects of
them. In the months of February and March, of the year
1755, there had been at Turin a great fall of rain; and, as it
generally snows in the mountains when it only rains in the
plain, it cannot appear surprizing, that during this interval,
there fell vast quantities of snow in the mountains, which, of
course, formed several valancas. The bad weather prevailed
likewise at Bergemoletto, a little hamlet seated in that part
of the Alps, which separates the valley of Stura and Pied-
mont from Dauphine and the county of Nice.
On the JQth of March, many of the inhabitants of this
hamlet began to apprehend that the weight of the snow,
which was already fallen, and still continued to fall, might
crush their houses, built with stones peculiar to the country,
and held together by nothing but mud, and a very small por-
tion of lime, and covered with thatch laid on a roof of shin-
gles and large thin stones, supported by thick beams. They
therefore got upon their roofs to lighten them of the snow.
At a little distance from the church stood the house of Joseph
Roccia, a man of about fifty, wrho, with his son James, a lad
of fifteen, had, like his neighbours, got upon the roof of his
house, in order to lessen the weight on it, and thereby pre-
x 2
155
every thing before them with irresistible violence. Some-
times, too, a very considerable quantity of snow happens to
be whirled about by the wind, with sufficient force to tear up
the thickest and stoutest trees from their roots, to beat down
animals to the ground, and to suffocate them, as is too often
the case with persons who are indiscreet enough to attempt
the passing of the Alps, especially of Mount Cenis, at a
time judged improper by those who continually reside in such
situations, and can therefore foretell, by certain signs, the
sudden rise of these terrible whirlwinds.
The heaps of snow which thus fall by their own weight,
or are whirled about by the wind, are called valancas by the
Alpineers, who but too often experience the fatal effects of
them. In the months of February and March, of the year
1755, there had been at Turin a great fall of rain; and, as it
generally snows in the mountains when it only rains in the
plain, it cannot appear surprizing, that during this interval,
there fell vast quantities of snow in the mountains, which, of
course, formed several valancas. The bad weather prevailed
likewise at Bergemoletto, a little hamlet seated in that part
of the Alps, which separates the valley of Stura and Pied-
mont from Dauphine and the county of Nice.
On the JQth of March, many of the inhabitants of this
hamlet began to apprehend that the weight of the snow,
which was already fallen, and still continued to fall, might
crush their houses, built with stones peculiar to the country,
and held together by nothing but mud, and a very small por-
tion of lime, and covered with thatch laid on a roof of shin-
gles and large thin stones, supported by thick beams. They
therefore got upon their roofs to lighten them of the snow.
At a little distance from the church stood the house of Joseph
Roccia, a man of about fifty, wrho, with his son James, a lad
of fifteen, had, like his neighbours, got upon the roof of his
house, in order to lessen the weight on it, and thereby pre-
x 2