ALPINE ACCIDENTS.

Globe, Volume XXI, Issue 1775, 28 October 1879, Page 3

ALPINE ACCIDENTS.

The Swiss and Austrian papers publish a correspondence from Liezen, in Styria, describing a lamentable accident to a mountain climber in that vicinity, which lies to the north-east of Q-astein. On the 18th of August Dr, Karl Foeltz, of Linz, on the Danube, resolved to make the ascent of the Taufig, cno of the highest peaks of the Styrian Alps, and leaving his knapsack with the occupants of a oTlalet on the mountain, he set out on his dangerous expedition alone, armed with nothing beyond his telescope and guide book. Efforts were mode to dissuade him from attempting the ascent without a guide, as the Taufig is extraordinarily precipitous, and even practised natives and guides by profession oannot reach the summit without the greatest difficulty and danger. Dr. Foeltz, however, would not listen to any argument, but started out from the Sonnwendkoeperl on his ascent. For nearly a week afterwards nothing was heard of him, but at length, on the 84th August, four officers, acting under the chief of the Commune of Weissenbach, made a search for the missing gentleman, and succeeded in finding his body in a deep cleft or ravine on the High Taufig. Decomposition had already set in, so that it was evident the unfortunate traveller had been but a short time on the mountain before the accident befell him which resulted in -his death. The fearful injuries to the head, which were such that death must have been instantaneous, had, as was also shown by the position where the body was found, been sustained by a fall down a rocky precipice of terrible height. The searchers and discoverers had to draw up the body from the bottom of the abyss by means of ropes, after which it was forwarded to Woorschaoh for interment. In the deceased’s pocket was found a letter, with the address of his brother in Vienna, a circumstance which facilitated the identification of the body. The deceased, who was a son of Herr K. Foeltz, a member of the Austrian Parliament, was only twenty-seven years of of ago, and is described as a very talented young man, whose University career had given great promise for the future. From tho Bernese Oberland another fatal accident is reported to have occurred almost on the very spot where the young G-erman student, Herr Wedding, met with serious, if not fatal, injuries little more than a week before. This time, however, it was a native of the locality whom misfortune befell, M. Leuonberger, a teacher of Berne, after a successful ascent, was coming down from the Schyniger Platt on the 25tb August, when he , slipped on the smooth grass, and was preoipi- , tated into the depths below. He was at once i taken to tho nearest inn, where his injuries were found to bo fortunately of a legs serious

I nature than had been anticipated, and are not expected to prove fatal. Some [extraordinary fatalities hare likewise recently occurred _in the Alps to non-human subjects. In addition to the destruction of a whole flock of sheep, 147 in number, by lightning at Lens, in the Canton Orisons, a similar case happened about the same time at Domleschg, above the Flimserstein, a large number of sheep and goats having been killed by the electric fluid there during a severe thunderstorm.