CURIOUS OBSERVATIONS ON EGYPT. 85 



by their bearing the name of Eamses Miamun, 

 who is supposed to have reigned in the fourteenth 

 century before the birth of our Lord, still 

 retain their original hardness and firm position in 

 the temples, pyramids, and tombs for which they 

 have been used, together with all their architec- 

 tural ornaments. 



Materials thus worn down by the chemical 

 agency spoken of is called debris, a word which 

 signifies a wreck, or waste of anything, and is 

 therefore very appropriately employed to de- 

 signate the wreck or waste of the cliffs under 

 the slow but certain powers of the chemistry of 

 nature. Debris generally collects at the base of 

 the cliffs, by the decomposition of which it has 

 been formed, and does so generally in the form 

 of conical heaps, the upper point of the cone 

 resting against the side of the rock. Some- 

 times, and particularly in the stupendous moun- 

 tains of South America, great masses of this 

 " waste " slide down into the valleys like huge 

 avalanches, overwhelming every object in their 

 course. It is at the base of these mighty 

 mountains, that the " waste " rises sometimes 

 to the enormous height of two thousand feet 

 the accumulated result of the action of 

 water, gas, and air, for innumerable centuries. 

 But these heaps, vast as they are, are only 

 the visible monuments of the power and ex- 



