observable in Switzerland, 



653 





a, Nant d'Arpenaz in perspective distance [represented too wide in our engraving], 

 from St. Martin, passing in the direction of the arrows. 



66, Road 



upon the summit of the cliffs, which here appear sunk and 

 shattered, the traveller is greeted with a view of what he 

 at first believes to be an ancient castle, citadeled in the 

 mountains. Seen, as the writer and his companion saw it, 

 lit up by the bright rays of a setting sun, while the neigh- 

 bouring rocks were in shade, it had a most beautiful and 

 magical appearance : but it afterwards was found to be pro- 

 duced by a portion of the rock, which, by some cause, has 

 been tossed over from its horizontal position, and piled up 

 perpendicularly into the fanciful forms of turrets, towers, and 

 bastions : there are even openings in these fragments in the 

 exact position and shape of windows. (See^. 77.) 



Immediately in conjunction with these, the subjacent and 

 adjacent strata are bent upwards in their centre, at an 

 angle of about 30°, and then continued regularly to the edge 

 of the waterfall, which comes from a deep fissure through the 

 mountain, and probably communicates with the feeders of 

 Nant d'Orli, of which it may be only another branch: but 

 of this it is almost impossible to be convinced by actual ob- 

 servation, on account of the steepness and distance of the 

 mountains. On the right of the fall, instead of a horizontal 

 position, the strata are deposited in concentric arches upon a 

 diameter which forms the right cheek of the fissure. (See^^. 

 75.) By what extraordinary convulsion this can have been 

 produced, there is no means of determining: for, although 

 there are in this neighbourhood unequivocal marks of most ex- 

 traordinary derangement, the extreme variety of forms which 

 the strata assume baffles investigation. The concentric arches, 

 above mentioned, are at first perfectly circular, but, as the 

 middles of the strata are thicker than the extremities, they 

 gradually become more and more eccentric, until, as they 

 appear a few hundred paces farther up the river, they assume 



