46 



A HISTORY OF 



ments of the same, still preserving its motion, 

 'travelled over the plain below, crossed a ri- 

 vulet in the midst, and at last stopped on the 

 other side of the bank ! These fragments, as 

 was said, arc often struck offby lightning, and 

 sometimes undermined by rains ; but the most 

 usual manner in which they are disunited from 

 the mountain, is by frost : the rains insinua- 

 ting between the interstices of the mountain, 

 continue there until there comes a frost, and 

 then, when converted into ice, the water swells 

 with an irresistible force, and produces the 

 same effect as gunpowder, splitting the most 

 solid rocks, and thus shattering the summits 

 of the mountain. 



But not rocks alone, but whole mountains 

 are, by various causes, disunited from each 

 other. We see in many parts of the Alps, 

 amazing clefts, the sides of which so exactly 

 correspond with the opposite, that no doubt 

 can be made of their having been once joined 

 together. At Cajeta," in Italy, a mountain was 

 split in this manner by an earthquake ; and 

 there is a passage opened through it, that ap- 

 pears as if elaborately done by the industry 

 of man. In the Andes these breaches are 

 frequently seen. That at Thermopyle, in 

 Greece, has been long famous. The mountain 

 of the Troglodytes, in Arabia, .has thus a pas- 

 sage through it : and that in Savoy, which na- 

 ture began, and which Victor Amadeus com- 

 pleted, is an instance of the same kind. 



We have accounts of some of these disrup- 

 tions, immediately after their happening. " In 

 the month of June, b in the year 1714, a part 

 of the mountain of Diableret, in the district of 

 Valais, in France, suddenly fell down between 

 two and three o'clock in the afternoon, the 

 Aveather being very calm and serene. It 

 was of a conical figure, and destroyed fifty- 

 five cottages in the fall. Fifteen persons, to- 

 gether with about a hundred beasts, were 

 also crushed beneath its ruins, which cover- 

 ed an extent of a good league square. The 

 dust it occasioned instantly covered all the 

 neighbourhood in darkness. The heaps of 

 rubbish were more than three hundred feet 

 high. They stopped the current of a river 

 that ran along the plain, which is now form- 

 ed into several new and deep lakes. There 



" Burton, vol. ii. p. 364. 



appeared, through the whole of this rubbish, 

 none of those substances that seemed to indi- 

 cate that this disruption had been by means 

 of subterraneous fires. Most probably, the 

 base of this rocky mountain was rotted and 

 decayed ; and thus fell, without any extrane- 

 ous violence." In the same manner, in the 

 year 1018, the town ofPleurs, in France, v>as 

 buried beneath a rocky mountain, at the ion) 

 of which it was situated. 



These accidents, and many more that might 

 be enumerated of the same kind, have been 

 produced by various causes; by earthquakes, 

 as in the mountain at Cajeta; or by being de- 

 cayed at the bottom, as at Diableret. But 

 the most general way is, by the foundation of 

 one part of the mountain being hollowed by 

 waters, and thus wanting a support, breaking 

 from the other. Thus it generally has been 

 found in the great chasms in the Alps; and 

 thus it almost always is known in those dis- 

 ruptions of hills, which are known by the 

 name of land-slips. These are nothing more 

 than the slidings down of a higher piece- of 

 ground, disrooted from its situation by sub- 

 terraneous inundations, and settling itself 

 upon the plain below. 



There is not an appearance in all nature 

 that so much astonished our ancestors, as 

 these land-slips. In fact, to behold a large 

 upland with its houses, its corn, and cattle,"at 

 once loosened from its place, and iloating, as 

 it were, upon the subjacent water ; to behold 

 it quitting its ancient situation, and travelling 

 forward like a ship in quest of new adven- 

 tures; this is certainly one of the most extra- 

 ordinary appearances that can be imagined; 

 and (o a people, ignorant of the powers of na- 

 ture, might well be considered as a prodigy. 

 Accordingly, we find all our old historians 

 mentioning it as an omen of approaching ca- 

 lamities. In this more enlightened age. how- 

 ever, its cause is very well known; and, in- 

 stead of exciting ominous apprehensions in 

 the populace, it only gives rise to some very 

 ridiculous law-suits among them, about whose 

 the property shall be; whether the land 

 which has thus slipt shall belong to the origi- 

 nal possessor, or to him upon whose grounds 

 it has encroached and settled. What has 



b Hist, de 1'Academie dcs Sciences, p. 4. an. 1715. 



