JOURNEY THROUGH JERSEY 25 



marks of powerful dislocations at one time sustained. 

 Stones appeared as if pulled apart and again cemented 

 together. In other places the declivities seemed as it 

 were composed of plates lying one over the other but 

 fast bound together.* 



In this narrow valley we were unspeakably oppressed 

 by the heat and the company insisted on returning, 

 earlier than I should have liked. At the same time, 

 in Dr. Griffith's house, the thermometer stood 94 Fahr. 

 in the shade, and I am convinced that in the valley at 

 midday and with no wind we suffered a temperature of 

 at least 120. We all groaned for refreshment, but there 

 was nothing to be had except brook-water, and water 

 alone did not suffice. 



The first chain of mountains in this region is dis- 

 tinguished from those lying behind it and running in 



* Later, in Philadelphia, I came upon the Abbe Robin's New 

 Travels in North America. The Abbe came through Jersey 

 with the army of Count Rochambeau and cast a cursory 

 glance, only in Jersey, at the mountains. ' I was at the 

 trouble,' says he, 'to inspect the summits of the high moun- 

 tains (not high) of Jersey, and I find that they consist chiefly 

 of granite of several varieties, closely associated; aqua fortis 

 causes no effervescence Mica is also found in great quantity 

 If these mountains, which must be reckoned as primitive, 

 owed their origin to a vitreous mass, several thousand years 

 in that state, they would necessarily be homogeneous, but I 

 do not remember having seen here a mixture of various sub- 

 stances brought together in grains of regular figure and differ- 

 ing color. However that may be, these mountains must cer- 

 tainly have undergone a great revolution, for in many places 

 they have been burst apart, and fragments of appreciable size 

 are found at some distance from their first position.' The 

 Abbe had doubtless read shortly before the Epochs of Buffon 

 and attempted, but in vain, to discover traces of fire. 



