244 THE LIFE OF JAMES D. FORBES. [CHAP. 



To the Sam* 

 ' MONTPEZAT, DEPARTEMENT DE L'ARDECHE, June 2. 



' .... I arrived from Le Puy on Friday, and am as- 

 tonished at the beauty and interest of this country, which 

 rivals even the Italian Alps and the Pyrenees. In a 

 geological sense it is interesting in the highest degree, 

 and I have four or five craters, just as well-defined and as 

 recent-looking as Vesuvius, within a day's walk. But 

 what chiefly delights me is the exquisite beauty of the 

 scenery. There are deep granitic valleys divided by 

 serrated mountains, through which here and there a 

 cindery volcano thrusts his roasted head, while the valleys 

 are clothed with chestnut and mulberry trees in the most 

 exquisite manner. Then the climate, instead of the cold 

 of the Haute Loire, has an Italian feel, tempered however 

 by Alpine freshness. I came here intending to spend 

 half a day, and I shall end by spending four or five, for 

 happily, as I wrote to Jane, things do not press. This is 

 an admirable country for sketching: Jane would never 

 be idle here ; you are as sure to find lava in a valley 

 as water, and Giant's Causeways are innumerable. 



' I was very much interested to- discover accidentally 

 yesterday that a very few years ago a meteoric stone fell 

 in open day in the immediate neighbourhood. The noise 

 was heard by hundreds of people, many of whom have 

 described it to me, and I have to-day been fortunate 

 enough to procure a piece of it. I will try to get more/ 



Journal, July 5. 



' I went in search of the spot where the meteoric stone 

 was said to have fallen, at Libounez, between Juvinas 

 and St. Pierre Colombier, where I found that everybody 

 in the neighbourhood spoke of it as a thing of yesterday, 

 and never to be forgotten. The field was immediately 

 shown to me, a small enclosure just below the village; and 

 I inquired for the actual spectators of the fall. Dolmaas, 

 who had been mentioned to me, was dead, but with some 

 difficulty I found two brothers named Serre, who were 

 working with some others in a potato field when the 



