Summit of Mont Verdu. $6$ 



which might be supposed recently formed, have preserved 

 so well their salient and re-entering angles, that every thing 

 perfectly corresponds on both sides — their sinuosities and 

 undulations — so that one might think their edges, in order to 

 unite, waited only for a new effort of the power which dis- 

 joined them. 



One might traverse these crevices without any advantage, 

 were they not seen from above. Their extent, their depth, 

 and the gigantic size of all their proportions, would not al- 

 low one to conjecture their origin and nature. To approach 

 them, one must seek for the opening in the Val de Broto or 

 of Fanlo. They are vast and majestic valleys covered with 

 forests as old as the world, and which are known only to 

 some shepherds who conduct thither their migratory flocks, 

 I spent two days in that called Val d'Ordera. I never 

 saw any thing more striking or extraordinary. The soil is 

 a series of terraces, perfectly horizontal, formed by banks 

 of gres, between which is observed red gres, considered by 

 geologists as one of the oldest on the globe. The torrent 

 falls in cascades so regular, that the long ramp down which 

 it pours seems to have been formed by the art of man. On 

 the other hand rise, as far as the eye can reach, the sides of 

 this vast fissure disposed in stories of a prodigious height, 

 and of which the steepness, the matter, the colour and join- 

 ings excite so much the idea of human structures, that the 

 spectator thinks he sees an immense edifice in ruins. From 

 the bottom of this fissure I ascended to the plateau. Its 

 elevation is 2430 metres or 1 200 toises above the level of 

 the sea, and the depth of the fissure is 900 metres or 460 

 toises towards its middle, and 1257 metres or 645 toises to- 

 wards its mouth. 



Every thing is secondary in these enormous masses. Pud* 

 ding stones, gres, calcareous and foetid shell-stones, are 

 the materials ; and among the marine bodies inclosed in 

 them the most predominant genus is that of the numis- 

 mals, which are found every where in such prodigious abun- 

 dance, that it strikes with awe the mind the best accus- 

 tomed to the idea of the grand devastations of nature. 



In regard to the plateau itself, it is a frightful desert. 

 Being too high to produce trees, it stifles the small vegeta- 

 tion which exists by the mobility of the ruins with which it 

 is covered, and scarcelv are there seen here and there a few 

 meagre grass-plats. The heights even of Mont Perdu are 

 not so naked : as far as the last stories I found rare and 

 superb plants; and I collected, at the distance of some 

 metres below the summit, the cerastium alpimtm and the 



aretiq 



