University of Virginia Library


179

TO THE READER.

THIS story is not a fiction;—the principal circumstances stand on record. On the 3d of September, 1806, about sunset, the Spitzberg, a part of mount Rosburg, in the canton of Schweitz, Switzerland, slid from its base; and from a height of more than two thousand feet, overwhelmed three whole villages, and upward of fifteen hundred peasants; leaving the rocks all naked in its path, and transforming an extensive valley into a hill. Among the villages destroyed was Goldau, the most romantick and beautiful of the three.