Dr Daubeny on the Volcanoes of Central France. 121 



to have added, that in its vicinity, too, as in that of Baise, there was 

 a mountain vomiting forth flames, supposing any such phenomenon 

 to have been familiar to him near the spot where he resided ! When, 

 therefore, as I remarked in my former edition, Sidonius, under the 

 apprehension of an attack from the Goths, informs the Bishop of 

 Vienne that he is going to enjoin public prayers, similar to those 

 which the bishop established at the time when " earthquakes demo- 

 lished the ivalls of Vienne ; when the mountaijis opened, and vo- 

 mited forth torrents of inflamed materials ; and when the wild 

 beasts, driven from the woods hy fire and terror, retired into the 

 towns, where they made great ravages;'"' — I conceive, that even ad- 

 mitting that he may have afforded some evidence in favour of the 

 modern date of certain of the volcanoes in the neighbouring province 

 of the Vivarais, his silence as to anything similar having happened 

 in his own neighbourhood, speaks strongly in favour of the antiquity 

 of the latter, and disposes us to assign to them an era as remote as 

 is consistent with the fact of their posteriority to the formation of 

 the principal valleys of the country. With regard to the silence of 

 the elder Pliny as to the existence of volcanoes in Auvergne, al- 

 though I should not bring it forward as conclusive, yet it cannot but 

 be regarded as an extraoi'dinary circumstance, that, in his enumera- 

 tion of the burning mountains existing in Sicily, in Pamphylia, in 

 Lycia, in Bactria, in Media, in Ethiopia, and in so many other less 

 known localities, he should have made no mention of those in Au- 

 vergne, had their slumbers been at that period interrupted. 



On the other hand, Mr Lyell has shewn (Quarterly Journal of 

 Geological Society, No. 6.) that one of the most recent of the lava 

 currents, that from the Piiy de Tartaret, which occupies the bottom 

 of a valley at the lower end of the Lac de Chambon, rests upon an 

 alluvial deposit of red sandy clay, containing remains of animals, 

 closely allied, indeed, to existing' species, but with some points of 

 difference, indicating that the mammalian fauna was very distinct as 

 a whole from that now inhabiting Auvergne. And that the current 

 which has issued from the Puy de Tartaret was anterior to the pe- 

 riod referred to, appears from the fact that a Roman bridge, of such 

 form and construction as continued in use down to the fifth century, 

 but which may be older, is now seen at a place about a mile and a 

 half from this spot. The ancient bridge spans the river Couze in 

 two arches, which spring from the lava on both banks, shewing that 

 a ravine precisely like that now existing had already been excavated 

 by the river, thirteen or fourteen centuries ago. — Daubeny on Vol- 

 canoes, 2d edition, p. 31. 



