644 



Facts and Considerations 



the district, and the residence of the governor. All this was 

 owing to a hot-headed captain of volunteers taking it into his 

 mind that I must needs be one of the two foreigners he had 

 shortly before (such at least was the excuse made for him by 

 the authorities, when called to account for such extraordinary 

 conduct by the British ambassador at Madrid) received orders 

 to search for, arrest, and send under a strong escort to Talarn 

 to be shot ! The governor, after examining my passport, and 

 asking me a great many questions, of course set me at liberty ; 

 but, on my expressing my indignation at the brutal treatment 

 to which I had been subjected, he had the audacity to tell me 

 that I had no right to complain, for Spaniards were every bit 

 as free as Englishmen, and the same thing might have hap- 

 pened to himself, had he been travelling in England ; and that, 

 as I had stated my chief object, in wandering about the moun- 

 tains, to be, to collect pieles and piedras {skins and stones), he 

 really did not feel very much surprised at what had happened ! 

 Such an unknown species of biped is a naturalist in Spain. 

 Sept. 27. 1834. 



Art. VII. Facts and Considerations on the Strata of Mont Blanc ; 

 and on some Instances of Twisted Strata observable in Stoitzer- 

 land; by J. R. : luith Remarks thereon^ by the Rev. W. B. 

 Clarke, A.M. F.G.S, &c. 



The granite ranges of Mont Blanc are as interesting to the 

 geologist as they are to the painter. The granite is dark 



red, often enclos- 

 ing veins of quartz, 

 crystallised and 

 compact, and like- 



y ^.-^^^^r^ fM'iwmWfllBmiil^'''rww '^'^W^'' ^^^^ well-formed 

 V -^_^_^ "" ' " " "' ' " crystals of schorl. 



'-^^m'^\^ KKMIilMXiMIKV^-' / y/ ^ Mil The average ele- 

 vation of its range 

 of peaks, which ex- 

 tends from Mont 

 Blanc to the Tete 

 Noire, is about 

 12,000 English feet 

 above the level of 

 the sea. [Its high- 

 est culminating 

 point is 15,744 



feet] The Aiguille de Servoz (^^.70.), and that of Dru 



