Discoveries on the Schnalser Ferner: Remains of a Man Missing Since 1804

Tyrol.

On 23 August of this year, human bones were found on the surface of the Schnalser Ferner, together with ironware and some remains of men's clothing. The ironware lying beside the bones made it, according to all inquiries, very probable that these were the earthly remains of the master locksmith Blasius Moriggl of Schlanders, who had perished on the Schnalser Ferner back in 1804. In the spring of 1804, a resident of Sölden placed an order with the aforementioned master locksmith in Schlanders for several locks and window fittings for his newly built house, with the agreement that the latter was to deliver the ordered goods to Sölden between 15 August and 8 September of that same year. Moriggl indeed departed from Schlanders around the agreed time with the ordered iron goods, intending to reach Sölden by way of Schnals across the Schnalser Ferner and Vent. From that time on, however, he had disappeared, and no trace of him was ever found, so that even then it was generally presumed that he had fallen into a crevasse of the glacier and found his grave there. That the unfortunate man had fallen into a crevasse of the glacier and not met his death upon its surface may be assumed with certainty, for otherwise he would have had to be discovered long ago, given that every year in the summertime many people take the path across the said glacier. Through what confluence of natural forces, however, he was raised again from the interior of the glacier to its surface after so many years, and during this year's unusually hot summer in particular, is a phenomenon that presents itself as a task worthy of the inquiring spirit of natural scientists. On the highest isolated summits of the Oetzthaler Ferner, stones are not infrequently found whose presence there cannot otherwise be explained except that they are lifted up from their bed by the crevasses that form from time to time. The loud cracking observed from time to time this summer in several glaciers, and the phenomenon that some have noticeably increased in extension and outer perimeter during the prolonged heat, suggest a mighty working of forces in their depths, the further elucidation of which is reserved for natural scientists.