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the turbid waters of the Var, whose river bed, now all but dry, is filled 

 with stones like those on the Crau, and differs from it only in extent ; 

 yet, by and by, that river bed will be filled with a rushing stream, the 

 noisy waters of which are rendered hoarser still by the constant rolling 

 of the stones that whirl along its bottom. We take a walk up some of 

 the olive and vine clad valleys towards the southern slopes of the 

 Alpine Spurs. Our road is formed by the dry bed of a torrent, and 

 with steep banks on either side we go on until we are brought up by a 

 perpendicular wall of rock. We look at it with surprise. It looks a 

 " pudding stone," which is only half solidified, and, as the water has 

 coursed down its sides, it has worn away a groove, which seems as if 

 made by some gigantic gouge chisel. We turn upon our steps and 

 take another valley, where we see on one side of us, a gentle slope, and 

 on the other a precipice, four hundred feet or so in height, all made up 

 of this ill-conditioned breccia. We still go on ascending the valley, till 

 at last the gorge is so narrow that we can touch its sides with our out- 

 stretched hands. Its course has evidently been worn to its present 

 depth by the watery violence of many hundred years, and its steep 

 walls are now covered with abundance of elegant ferns. We emerge 

 from this " obscure valley," as it is well designated, and come again to 

 another wall of rock, so ill cemented that large masses are constantly 

 falling down. We go to examine these, and find amongst them boulders 

 of granite, limestone, syenite, and other rocks, not to be found in the 

 district. They are all waiterwoin, and the granite, where long exj^osed, 

 crumbles in our hands. Struck by tlie enormous depth of the deposit, 

 we determined"' to ascertain its upper level, (its lower one we cannot 

 even guess,) and climbing onwards, made towards the highest 

 mountain, and when we are about 2500 feet above the sea we find the 

 waterworn stones are no longer to be met with, and we come upon a 

 hard limestone rock. We still ascend until we are at the summit, 

 some 3300 feet high, and have a magnificent view : but what strikes 

 our eye the most is the mamillated appearance of the hill tops below, 

 showing unmistakeable evidence of the denuding power of heavy rain, 

 an I we are no longer surprised at the enormous quantity of detritus in 

 the bed of the rivers. The eye then wanders over ground it already 

 knows, and the mind wonders how it is that there shall be at least 

 2500 feet depth of pudding-stone rock in one locality, while only three 

 miles away none can be found. In our descent we notice the care with 

 which every moist part of the mountain, where springs seem to promise 

 a steady supply of water, is terraced up and supplied by painful 

 industry with such soil as tlie implacable rains leave in the limestone 

 pockets ; and as wo descend by another side of tlic mountain, we are 



