instance, knew of the sudden
appearance of a hot spring in the Lake of Thun, and Gregory of Tours
notes that the land-slip in 563 at the foot of the Dent du Midi,
above the point where the Rhine enters the Lake of Geneva, was a
dreadful event. Not only was the Castle of Tauretunum overwhelmed,
but the blocking of the Rhine caused a deluge felt as far as Geneva.
The pious prince of the Church explained this as a portent of another
catastrophe, the pest, which ravaged Gaul soon after.

There was much fabling at that time in the legends of saints, about
great mines of iron, gold, and silver, and about chamois and buck,
cattle-breeding and Alpine husbandry in the 'regio montana'; for
example, in von Aribo's _Vita S. Emmerani_. When the Alps became more
frequented, especially when, through Charlemagne, a political bridge
came to unite Italy and Germany, new roads were made and the whole
region was better known--in fact, early in mediaeval times, not only
political, but ecclesiastical and mercantile life spread its threads
over a great part of the known world, and began to bind the lives of
nations together, so that the Alps no longer remained _terra
incognita_ to dwellers far and near.

We have accounts of Alpine journeys by the Abbe Majolus v. Clugny
(970), Bernard v. Hildesheim (1101), Aribert v. Mailand, Anno v.
Coeln[5], but without a trace of orography. They scarcely refer to
the snow and glacier regions from the side of physical geography, or
even of aesthetic feeling; and do not mention the mountain monarchs so
familiar to-day--Mt. Blanc, the Jungfrau, Ortner, Glockner,
etc.--which were of no value to their life, practical or scientific.
These writers record nothing but names of places and their own
troubles and dangers in travelling, especially in winter. And even at
the end of the fifteenth century, German travels across the Alps were
written in the same strain--for example, the account of the voyage of
the Elector-Palatine Alexander v. Zweibruecken and Count Joh. Ludwig
zu Nassau (1495-96) from Zurich Rapperschwyl and Wesen to Wallensee:
'This is the real Switzerland; has few villages, just a house here
and a house there, but beautiful meadows, much cattle, and very high
mountains, on which snow lies, which falls before Christmas, and is
as hard as any rock.' As an exception to this we have a vivid and
poetic description of the famous Verona Pass in Latin verse by
Guntherus Ligurinus.

Guenther's description o