GEOLOGY. 2 



along with fury indescribable ; it formed a torrent 100 

 feet in height, which traversed the first 6 leagues, or 18 

 miles, in forty minutes, although kept back in many 

 places by narrow gorges through which it had to pass, 

 carrying off in its course 130 chalets or cottages, a whole 

 forest, and an immense quantity of earth and of stones. 

 Debouching over against Chables, the chief place of the 

 valley, the water was seen pushing before it a moving 

 mountain of all kinds of debris of 300 feet in height, 

 from which was rising a thick black cloud like the smoke 

 of a conflagration. An English traveller, Mr P., of 

 Lausanne, accompanied by a young artist, and a guide, 

 was returning from seeing the works, and going towards 

 Chables; happening by chance to turn round, he saw 

 advancing with fearful rapidity the moving column, the 

 distant roar of which he had not heard through the noise 

 made by the Drause. He hastily warned his two com- 

 panions and three other travellers who had joined them ; 

 all leapt from their mules, scrambled up the mountains, 

 and got safely beyond the sweep of the deluge, which 

 filled in an instant the whole gorge beneath them. But 

 Mr P. was nowhere to be seen ; for some hours they 

 believed him to be lost ; but then they learned that his 

 mule, shying at an overturned tree which she saw on the 

 road, wheeling round, saw all at once an object far more 

 dreadful close upon her, and, darting off to wards the moun- 

 tain, had carried him far away from the scene of danger. 



'From Chables the debacle arrived at Martingy 4 leagues, 

 or 12 miles distant in 50 minutes, carrying off, as it 

 advanced, 35 houses, 8 mills, 95 barns, but only 9 people, 

 and no cattle, the inhabitants having all been warned to 

 be on guard. The village of Bo vernier was saved by a 

 jutting rock turning off the flow of the torrent; and the 

 people saw it pass like a shot by the side of the village 

 without touching it, although much higher than their 

 heads. The rocks and stones were dropped before it 

 arrived at Marti^ny, blasting with sterility extensive 

 meadows and fertile fields. 



