TOKRENTS IN FRANCE. 247 



«,nd the scorching sun bakes it to the consistence of porphyiy. 

 "Wlien moistened by the rain, as it has neither support nor cohesion, 

 it rolls down to the valleys, sometimes in floods resembhng black, 

 yellow, or reddish lava, sometimes in streams of pebbles, and even 

 huge blocks of stone, which pour down with a frightful roar, and 

 in their swift course exhibit the most convulsive movements. If 

 you overlook from an eminence one of these landscapes furrowed 

 with so many ravines, it presents only images of desolation and of 

 death. Yast deposits of flinty pebbles, many feet in thickness, 

 which have rolled down and spread far over the plain, surround 

 large trees, bury even their tops, and rise above them, leaving to 

 the husbandman no longer a ray of hope. One can imagine no 

 sadder spectacle than the deep fissures in the flanks of the moun- 

 tains, which seem to have burst forth in eruption to cover the 

 plains with their ruins. These gorges, under the influence of the 

 sun which cracks and shivers to fragments the very rocks, and of 

 the rain which sweeps them down, penetrate deeper and deeper 

 into the heart of the mountain, while the beds of the torrents 

 issuing from them are sometimes raised several feet in a single 

 year, by the debris, so that they reach the level of the bridges, 

 which, of course, are then carried off. The torrent-beds are recog- 

 nized at a great distance, as they issue from the mountains, and 

 they spread themselves over the low grounds, in fan-shaped ex- 

 pansions, Hke a mantle of stone, sometimes ten thousand feet 

 wide, rising high at the centre, and curving towards the circum 

 ference till their lower edges meet the plain. 



" Such is their aspect in dry weather. But no tongue can give 

 an adequate description of their devastations in one of those sud- 

 den floods which resemble, in almost none of their phenomena, 

 the action of ordinary river-water. They are now no longer over- 

 flowing brooks, but real seas, tumbling down in cataracts, and 

 roUing before them blocks of stone, which are hurled forwards 

 by the shock of the waves hke balls shot out by the explosion of 

 gunpowder. Sometimes ridges of pebbles are driven down when 

 the transporting torrent does not rise high enough to show itself, 

 and then the movement is accompanied with a roar louder than 

 the crash of thunder. A furious wind precedes the rushing 

 water and announces its approach. Then comes a violent erup- 

 tion, followed by a flow of muddy waves, and after a few hours 



