Dr Daubcny on the Diluvial Theory^ 



a channel nearly fifty feet deep through a bed of lava which 

 had interrupted its progress, derived from the crater of the Puy 

 tie Come, the loose texture and perfect preservation of which 

 establishes its post-diluvial origin. 



In the second instance, that of Chaluzet, he has been less 

 •^iccessful in making out his case ; for although the lava which 

 overhangs the river at this point is seen at the height of 240 

 feet on its right bank, not a trace of it is discoverable on its left, 

 so that all we are entitled in this place to attribute to the action 

 of the river since the date of the lava, is the wearing away of 

 the subjacent gneiss, and probably the undermining and remo- 

 val of the extreme portion of the current, which, as it rests up- 

 on a bed of pebbles, might have been effected without difficulty. 



But what, after all, is the date of the lava here alluded to ? 

 The crater from which it is supposed to have proceeded cer- 

 tainly affords, in its imperfect condition, satisfactory proof of 

 the extreme antiquity of the coulee, but it supplied me with 

 no data from whence to determine the post-diluvial origin of the 

 volcano which ejected it. The materials composing its summit, 

 now called the Puy Rouge, possess by no means that want of 

 Coherence which we have noticed in some of the more modern 

 Puys, as inconsistent with the idea of their ante-diluvial origin. 

 They are, on the coiTtrary,bdUtid together, at least externally, 

 in such a manner, by the soil resulting from their decomposi- 

 tion, and by the turf which covers them, that they appeared to 

 me as capable of resisting the violence of such a catastrophe 

 as any oi' the rocks in their neighbourhood. 



I cannot, therefore, admit, that Mr Scrope is warranted in 

 pronouncing such a crater as that of Chaluzet to be necessarily 

 post-diluvial, unless, indeed, he is also prepared to maintain, that 

 Ihe existence of hills in any part of the world, whose summits 

 consist of sandstone or the looser kinds of conglomerate, is irre- 

 concilable with the notion of a deluge having swept over the 

 country since they acquired their present form. 



On the other side of Pont Gibaud, many geologists, and my- 

 self among the rest, notice the remarkable instance first cor- 

 rectly described by Montlosier, in which a kind of lake, called 

 the Etaiig de Fung, would appear to have been formed by a 



