418 AN ACCOUNT OF THE PROCEEDINGS 
in distress. It is utterly impossible to conceive anything more truly 
absurd: the perspective is worthy of a Chinese artist, but the faces 
and dresses are essentially European; and the funny looking chil- 
dren in squabby Dutch petticoats, contrasted with papas in bright 
blue coats, with gilt buttons and very short square coat-tails, and 
mammas in all the magnificence of wide frills and gay colours, is in- 
expressibly droll; what, however, all these had to do with religion it is 
difficult to say, at least to us sober protestants. The view from a 
cross just outside the chapel is very extensive and interesting, as it 
commands, not only the whole length of the gorge through which 
the river runs, but also the longitudinal valley which it is just leay- 
ing. There are not wanting in the distance, ancient ruined castles 
and village spires, to add the interest which man could contribute. 
I should not forget to mention that we were received by a deputa- 
tion from Délémont, and requested to partake of a very handsome 
dejéuner a la fourchette, to which, I believe, we all did ample justice. 
After leaving the chapel we descended to a place where the pisolitic 
iron of the oolite formation is so plentiful that it is worked in con- 
siderable quantities, and then proceeded on our journey, crossing the 
tertiary valley already alluded to, and soon entering the gorge ex- 
tending from Montier to Courrendlin. I am nut aware of anything 
in Switzerland so truly extraordinary as this; and although I have 
seen much that is grand, bold, and picturesque, especially in the 
Oberland Alps, yet, looking with the eye of a geologist as well as 
a traveller, I must still say that this is the most extraordinary. To 
describe it I feel to be a vain attempt, for a great part of the wonder 
consists in the incessant shifting and changing of the scenery, and 
the extreme difference which every step we take seems to produce. 
Both the entrance to and exit from the gorge are quite sudden. In 
coming to it from Delémont we quit the open country, and in one 
moment find ourselves among bare, rugged rocks, rising perpendicu- 
larly on either side, presenting the most grotesque appearances, and 
giving natural sections of beds so utterly in disorder, and apparently 
inclined so variably, and without any plan, that the mind is lost and 
bewildered in attempting to follow the disarrangement, and trace 
anything like order in such confusion. Anticlinal and synclinal 
axes here follow so rapidly that all idea of counting their number is 
out of the question. At length, however, they cease, and there is 
the mark of a most violent disruption ; the beds are first perpen- 
dicular, and then, within a hundred yards, they are seen to bend ra- 
pidly, until, at the top of the high exposed cliff, they are perfectly 
horizontal. So sudden a bend of rocks, which are now hard and 
