ALPINE SCULPTURE. 175 
CHAPTER IX. 
ALPINE SCULPTURE. 
1864. 
To ACCOUNT for the conformation of the Alps, two 
hypotheses have been advanced, which may be respectively 
named the hypothesis of fracture and the hypothesis of 
erosion. The former assumes that the forces by which the 
mountains were elevated produced fissures in the earth's 
crust, and that the valleys of the Alps are the tracks of 
these fissures; while the hitter maintains that the valleys 
have been cut out by the action of ice and water, the 
mountains themselves being the residual forms of this 
grand sculpture. I had heard the Via Mala cited as a 
conspicuous illustration of the fissure theory the pro- 
found chasm thus named, and through which the Hinter- 
Rhein now flows, could, it was alleged, be nothing else 
than a crack in the earth's crust. To the Via Mala I 
therefore went in 1804 to instruct myself upon the point 
in question. 
The gorge commences about a quarter of an hour above 
Tusis; and, on entering it, the first impression certainly is 
that it must be a fissure. This conclusion in my case was 
modified as I advanced. Some distance up the gorge I 
found upon the slopes to my right quantities of rolled 
stones, evidently rounded by water-action. Still further 
up, and just before reaching the first bridge which spans 
the chasm, I found more rolled stones, associated with 
sand and gravel. Through this mass of detritus, fortu- 
nately, a vertical cutting had been made, which exhibited a 
section showing perfect stratification. There was no 
agency in the place to roll these stones, and to deposic 
these alternating layers of sand and pebbles, but the river 
which now rushes some hundreds of feet below them. At 
one period of the Via Mala's history the river must have 
run at this high level. Other evidences of water-action 
soon revealed themselves. From the parapet of the first 
bridge I could see the solid rock 200 feet above the bed of 
the river scooped and eroded. 
It is stated in the guide-books that the river, which usu- 
ally runs along the bottom of the gorge, has been known 
Almost to fill it during violent thunder-storms; and it may 
