EFFECTS OF DECOMPOSITION. 255 



Of the ruin of mountains, one of the most Ruin of 



, , . , , . , or Pleurs. 



ancient examples recorded is that which occa- 

 sioned the melancholy fate of the town of Piura, 

 by the Swiss called Pleurs, in the county of 

 Chiavenna ; a handsome and commercial town, 

 which was overwhelmed by the fall of Mount 

 Conto, in 1618; when the inhabitants, in num- 

 ber 2430, were crushed or buried alive under the 

 ruins*. The manufacture of ollite, which yield- 

 ed to the town a revenue of 60,000 ducats, is 

 said by some to have led to this disaster ; the 

 quarries having been so improvidently conducted 

 as to undermine the mountain. But other 

 writers regard it as proceeding from those na- 

 tural causes, which have occasioned the fall of 

 other mountains, in Svvisserland and other 

 countries. 



Burnet introduces his account of this melan- 

 choly event by some observations on pot-stone, 

 or ollite, which are indeed materially connected 

 with the subject. 



" There is a sort of pots of stone, that is used omte. 

 not only in all the kitchens here, but almost all 

 Lombardy over, called Lavege; the stone feels 

 oily and scaly, so that a scale sticks to one's 

 finger that touches it, and is somewhat of the 



* Bourrit, Glaciers, iii. 120- 



