550 APPENDAGE TO THB VOLCANIC. 



ens his house* ; and occupies a surface of earth 

 with a slope towards the north or north-west ; its 

 extent may be in length from east to west, 

 about 65 fathoms, and in breadth, from north to 

 south, 56 fathoms. 



Appearance. All the surface on the side towards Fon- 

 taynes, variously coloured, but more particu- 

 larly with red, visibly burnt, no longer regularly 

 following the slope of the mountain, is entirely 

 broken, deranged, furrowed in clefts, in crevices, 

 in trenches or a kind of small ravines, which an- 

 nounce an interior and pretty deep convulsion; 

 and, by its appearance, it might be supposed to 

 have been lately shaken and overturned. In 

 some places it is hollowed into pits, in others it 

 is lifted up in small eminences or little hills, 

 formed, some of masses of large cinders, and of 

 ashes, the remains of substances which have 

 escaped calcination: others of stones, sometimes 

 in large detached pieces. The variegated co- 



* " The accident about to be described is but of late origin, it. 

 dates from the grant of 1763, before which the grantees, who at 

 Sudalia and Bouquie's only worked small coal for the forges, caused 

 all the proprietor's mines to be shut up, and would only allow the in- 

 habitants of the country, to furnish themselves with what coal they 

 wanted from the mine of Fontaynes. It is said, that the considerable 

 number of purchasers not allowing time to raise the small coal, thd 

 inhabitants taking none but the large blocks for their use, the smalt 

 coal fermented and took fire." 



