240 William Brown, Esq., on the Flood at Frastanz, 



stones, or boulders (bowls, as the country-people call them), 

 will move more easily, and therefore to greater distances. I 

 have no intention of indulging in further remarks of a gene- 

 ral character, my purpose being to give a short notice of an 

 example of this kind, but with some unusual circumstances, 

 which occurred, under my own observation, in the autumn of 

 1846, when I resided for some weeks in the Vorarlberg. 



The district to which the name of Vorarlberg is given, is 

 popularly considered as part of the Tyrol. This is not, however, 

 strictly correct, for it has a separate political existence as a 

 province, and is divided from North and South Tyrol, by the 

 mountain-ridge called the Adlerberg. It forms the north- 

 western frontier of the Austrian empire in Germany, having 

 as its neighbours, Bavaria, Wirtemberg, and Switzerland. 

 The surface extent of the province may be about 47 German, 

 or about 200 English square miles. Its population is about 

 120,000. A considerable portion consists of one side of the 

 great Rhine Valley, of the valleys which open into it, and of the 

 subordinate valleys which open into these. It is thoroughly 

 a mountainous region, but none of the heights exceed 5000 

 feet above the Lake of Constance, which is, however, between 

 2900 and 3000 feet above the ocean. There are mountains 

 8000 feet higher in the immediate neighbourhood of the pro- 

 vince. The inhabitants are generally of an industrious aiid 

 peaceful character. Few of them are of great wealth, but 

 there is little of abject poverty. The land is extensively sub- 

 divided, but not as yet to an extent that is injurious. The 

 peasants cultivate their own lands, and frequently one or 

 more of the family are engaged in a trade, or work at one of 

 the cotton-mills which have recently sprung up under the 

 fostering care of the Austrian government. The scenery, al- 

 though wanting the magnitude of Tyrol proper, yet is of 

 an interesting character. The broad valleys are covered with 

 numerous small, but rich fields of Indian corn, potatoes and 

 hemp. The lower mountain-sides have frequently thriving 

 vine-rows, and always fruit-trees ; and in every part we see 

 those rich grassy slopes, dotted with the rude but substantial 

 hay houses, which form so striking a feature in Swiss scenery. 

 Luxuriant forest-trees occupy the higher ridges, and now and 



