274 



GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS IN FRANCE, &C. 



cliffs more than 180 toises high. In these meadows, which 

 form a natural amphitheatre, are huts, where you may spend 

 the night on occasion, and whence there is a pleasant view 

 of part of lake Annecy and the surrounding country. From 

 this station you gain the summit of the mountain in an hour 

 and three quarters. Nothing can be more dreary than the 



Extensive baie top of mount Pormonaz. Figure to yourself a vast flat of 



flat * ^imestone rock, perfectly bare and destitute of vegetation, 



intersected by clefts in every direction, like the table-land 

 of mount Plattet, and you will have a just idea of it. Here 

 and there at the bottom of these clefts are seen the dry 

 trunks of some lifeless firs, the brown colour of which forms 

 a striking contrast with the whiteness of the rocks amidst 

 which they are found. 



Flints. In no part of the chain did I find nodules and caps of 



flints so abundant. The analysis of one of these nodules 

 gave me 0*87 of siliceous earth : yet when reduced to pow- 

 der an acid excited a slight effervescence in it, from a small 

 quantity of calcareous earth, either forming a constituent 

 part of it, or from which the surface could not be completely 

 freed. 



Touraette. From the summit of Pormonaz Tournette appears to ad- 



vantage. It is seen directly south, and exceeding in height 

 most of the mountains around it as much as Mont Blanc 

 surpasses the summits in its vicinity. 



Ascent to it. Tournette may be ascended by the way of Talloires, but 

 more easily by that of Thones, a small but very ancient 

 town, now the chief place of a circle, which is seated at its 



Th6nes. east foot. This town is built in a very narrow valley, which 



on this account enjoys a warmer temperature than the larger 

 vale, as is evident from the plants it produces. 



From Thones you proceed along the bottom of this val- 

 ley for half an hour, then cross a branch of the Siere on a 



Clefs. wooden bridge, and reach the hamlet of Clefs. Thence 



the road continues through a wood of beech and firs, not 

 very thick, to about one third the height of the mountain. 

 At this place are a few summer huts. The first time I 



JRecent glacier, ascended Tournette, which was in 1799* I found on the 

 12th of August, some distance above these huts, a cake of 

 frozen snow, several feet thick at bottom, the only place 



where 



