[December, 1861.] 353 



BOTANY OF THE MEUSE. 

 Botany of the Fond de Leffe, near Dinant, Belyimn. 



The Fond de LefFe is a small valley, or rather gorge, running 

 lip from the Meuse, just below the Dinant, some five or six miles 

 in the direction of Ciney. The Dinantais proudly name it their 

 '' petite Suisse ;" and though its scenery is scarcely grand enough 

 to warrant the appellation, still there is sufficient picturesque 

 beauty to please and satisfy stay-at-home travellers, who are un- 

 able to make invidious comparisons. 



The hills rise abruptly on either side, now exhibiting masses 

 of rugged rocks, whose forms and tinting would delight the eye 

 of a painter, now wooded to their summit, while at their base 

 flows a little sparkling rill, gurgling over pebbles, or forming 

 tiny rapids where it encounters large stones. Lower down the 

 valley it is converted into a " water-power," and instead of 

 "wandering at its own sweet will," is dammed up, and forced 

 to tur\i the vvheels of paper-mills and " polissoirs/' these latter 

 used for smoothing and polishing the marble, of which several 

 different kinds are quarried hefe, and form a very lucrative 

 branch of commerce. These mills, with the cottages and gar- 

 dens of the workpeople, give life to what, without them, would 

 be a wild and lonely glen. Our valley has various attractions. 

 Its bold masses of weather- and lichen-stained rocks, alternating 

 with dense woods or fresh green meadows, offer charming sub- 

 jects for the artist's pencil ; the geologist would find matter for 

 study in its singularly contorted stratification, and in the fossili- 

 ferous deposits, occasionally laid bare by the quarrymen ; nor is 

 it without interest for the archaeologist. About two miles up 

 the valley, on the side of a hill, is the so-called " Chemiu des 

 Geans," along which the rock is distinctly marked by a groove, 

 apparently worn into it by wheels. 



Popular belief ascribes these tracks to the Romans, who are 

 said to have had a military road here. I Avas even shown the 

 spots where posts were placed at regular intervals, no doubt to 

 support some kind of rail ; a necessary precaution, for the road 

 runs along an almost perpendicular slope, a fact that sadly tests " 

 my credulity ; for I cannot understand how any vehicle could 

 have preserved its centre of gravity on such an inclined plane ; 



N. S. VOL. V. 2 z 



