32 



NA TURE 



\Nov. II, 1875 



the sides slope more or less rapidly, the mass being 

 deeply and widely eaten into on opposite sides by two 

 principal valleys, those of the Dordogne and the 

 Chambon. 



It is with the southern valley, or that of the source of 

 the Dordogne river, that we are concerned, the head of 

 which occupies a noble amphitheatre facing the south, 

 immediately under the highest summit of Mont Dore. 

 My companion and myself were on our way to the sum- 

 mit of the Pic de Sancy, from the village of Latour 

 about seven miles to the westward ; we were skirting the 

 rocky and very steep sides of the amphitheatre at an ele- 

 vation of some 5,000 feet, and were enjoying the view of 

 the snow-streaked mountains of the Cantal which bounded 

 the horizon to the southwards at nearly forty miles' dis- 

 tance, when niy attention was arrested by some large 

 objects on the broad and level (as seen from a height) 

 floor of the valley at our feet. They were presumedly 

 huts, haystacks, or glacially transported blocks, and their 

 position in reference to the head of the valley and amphi- 



FlG. 



-Transported block split into two pieces in the Tranteine Valley, 

 Mont Dore. 



theatre so strongly inclined me to the latter view, that I 

 determined on visiting them before leaving the neighbour- 

 hood. Accordingly, on the following day, I took the high 

 road to Latour, south-eastward to the village of Chastail. 

 Then leaving the road, I descended and crossed a small 

 stream to the eastward. The ascent of its steep opposite 

 bank led through beechwoods to a broad flat ridge with 

 some cheese-makers' huts upon it, from which, still pro- 

 ceeding eastward, I descended by a gentle slope imme- 

 diately upon the floor of the valley, and found myself 

 amongst a group of magnificent boulders that had evi- 

 dently been deposited by an ancient glacier which had 

 flowed from the rocky amphitheatre at the head of the 

 valley. 



The blocks were of trachyte, and what I took to be 

 domite, of the same nature as the rocks towards the top 

 of the pic ; they were scattered over an undulating surface, 

 which I guessed to be about half a mile long by a quarter 

 of a mile broad, and occupied both the floor and the very 

 gentle slopes of this part of the valley, up to perhaps 

 200 feet above the stream. Others were seen further 

 down^ the valley, which however soon contracted ; its 



stream, which meandered in the position of the greatest 

 number of blocks, becoming, beyond it, a torrent. For 

 about a mile above this there were no blocks ; that is, 

 between my position and the base of the steep cliffs 

 forming the amphitheatre where the glaciers had de- 

 scended. The largest blocks were those furthest down the 

 valley ; at least twenty of them appeared to me to be 

 upwards of as many feet in length, and one of greater 

 length was also of greater height. Several were split in 

 two, like blocks that had been fractured by faUing through 

 the crevasse of a glacier. All were weather-worn and 

 covered with lichens, ling, and grass. 



Returning I took a north-westerly direction, ascending 

 the spur I had crossed in coming, passing close under a 

 magnificently mountainous mass of basalt to the east of 

 the Puy de Pouge. Still further eastward and south of 

 this Puy are meadows where brood mares and foals are 

 grazed, upon which were a few large blocks of trachyte or 

 basalt artificially shaped into very odd forms, some like 

 skittles, others like a truncated cone with the earth heaped 

 up round its base ; they may be worthy of further investi- 

 gation, but I had no time to examine them and no oppor- 

 tunity of making inquiry. Thence my direction lay under 

 the Puy de Compaine, and so by a steep descent to 

 the Ruisseau de la Chambasse, which I followed to the 

 village of Sarsenae, and thence ascended to Latour. 



J. D. Hooker 



ASSOCIATION OF GERMAN NATURAL 

 PHILOSOPBERS AND PHYSICIANS 



THE forty-eighth meeting of this Association was 

 held from the i8th to the 25th of September at 

 Gratz, the chief town of Styria, in one of the most beau- 

 tiful valleys of the Austrian Alps. 



The Association is the oldest of its kind ; founded in 

 1822, and preceding, therefore, by several years, the birth 

 of its British sister. In times of political disturbances 

 and wars, such as the years 1848, 1866, and 1870, it 

 held no meetings ; in several previous years the German 

 Governments, who in days gone by regarded every public 

 meeting with suspicious eyes, prohibited them, and thus 

 forty-eight meetings only were held during the fifty-four 

 years of its existence. The German " Naturforscher-Ver- 

 sammlung " owes its formation to one of the founders of 

 comparative anatomy, the celebrated Oken, late Professor 

 of Zoology at Jena, and it cannot be denied that politics 

 entered into the intentions of its founder as well as of many 

 of its original members. When German unity was nothing 

 but a treasonable aim of persecuted patriots, every meet- 

 ing of Germans from different States served to spread and 

 to give fresh vigour to this aim, and was in itself a pro- 

 test against the division into small' States of the common 

 country, and against persecutions such as Oken himself 

 has had to suffer. Aye, even now, when the old wishes 

 have been fulfilled and no division separates Government 

 and nation, remains of the old pohtical undercurrent 

 can still be traced in some of these meetings. 



Gratz has an entirely German population, whose 

 sympathies with the new German realm are increased 

 by their proximity to Slavian provinces. It has 

 taken a prominent part in the Reformation, and al- 

 though brought back to the old religion by threats 

 of fire and sword, by the establishment of Jesuit 

 colleges and the suppression of the Protestant Uni- 

 versity once graced by Kepler, it still glories in its old 

 recollections and carries high the banners of freedom and 

 of its German nationality. In 1842, the " Naturforscher- 

 Versammlung" was invited to Gratz and gave to that town 

 a foretaste of the right of association then proscribed in 

 Austria, and in 1875 the town opened her gates once 

 more to her non-Austrian brethren, principally to assert 

 her intellectual unity with Germany. This idea, and their 

 enthusiasm for the freedom of thought, formed the 



