160 Mr Poulett Scrope's observations on the Volcanic 



lyzed. If the taste is to be trusted to, it has now few or no 

 mineral ingredients. The savour is, as nearly as possible, that 

 of pure fountain water. 



I cannot quit this spot without mentioning that the beauty 

 of the scenery on the banks of the Moselle, south of Bertrich, 

 and indeed along its whole course through the transition slate 

 formation between Treves and Coblentz, is scarcely to be pa- 

 ralleled by the far more known and vaunted beauties of the 

 Rhine, even on its most picturesque parts. The want of a 

 post-road along its banks, and the numerous windings of its 

 course, which renders its navigation tedious, has alone pre- 

 vented the charms of the Moselle from sharing the celebri- 

 ty of its more travelled neighbour. In a geological view 

 this river is not devoid of interest. Its valley is worn across 

 the whole transition slate district in a direction transverse 

 to that of the stratification. The sinuosities which have 

 been occasioned by this circumstance are so extreme, that in 

 some instances, as near Zell, the river returns to within a few 

 hundred yards of a point it left sixteen miles behind, accord- 

 ing to the course of its current. Such windings are not un- 

 common among rivers meandering slowly through flat alluvial 

 plains ; but in a rocky mountain district, where the banks rise 

 steeply to a height of 12 or 1500 feet above the river, they 

 are more remarkable. In either case they are wholly incom- 

 patible with the notion of a rapid and powerful excavating 

 force, such as a debacle or deluge, and can only be referred to 

 the slow and gradual erosion of the river itself, which is yet 

 continuing to deepen its bed, and to hollow out still further 

 the concave elbows of its valley, by the double action of its 

 vertical and lateral abrasive force. If the valley of the Mo- 

 selle is thus incontestably shown to have been excavated by 

 the slow agency of causes similar to those still in operation, 

 why should we look for another and hypothetical agent to ac- 

 count for that of the neighbouring Rhine, the dimensions of 

 which are greater only in proportion to the greater mass of its 

 waters, and the different solidity of the rocks through which 

 it has worn its channel. I need not carry on the argument 

 from the Rhine to other rivers. All this is in fact a digres- 



4 



