254 FALKLAND ISLANDS. 



of ten degi-ees with the horizon ; but in some of 

 the level, broad-bottomed valleys, the inclination 

 is only just sufficient to be clearly perceived. On 

 so rugged a surface there was no means of meas- 

 uring the angle ; but, to give a common illustra- 

 tion, I may say that the slope would not have 

 checked the speed of an English mail-coach. In 

 some places, a continuous stream of these frag- 

 ments followed up the course of a valley, and even 

 extended to the very crest of the hill. On these 

 crests huge masses, exceeding in dimensions any 

 small building, seemed to stand arrested in their 

 headlong course : there, also, the curved strata of 

 the archways lay piled on each other, like the 

 mins of some vast and ancient cathedral. In en- 

 deavouring to describe these scenes of violence, 

 one is tempted to pass from one simile to another. 

 We may imagine that streams of white lava had 

 flowed from many parts of the mountains into the 

 lower country, and that when solidified they had 

 been rent by some enormous convulsion into myr- 

 iads of fragments. The expression " streams of 

 stones," which immediately occurred to every one, 

 conveys the same idea. These scenes are on the 

 spot rendered more striking by the contrast of the 

 low, rounded forms of the neighbouring hills. 



I was interested by finding on the highest peak 

 of one range (about 700 feet above the sea) a great 

 arched fragment, lying on its convex side, or back 

 downwards. Must we believe that it was fairly 

 pitched up in the air, and thus turned 1 Or, with 

 more probability, that there existed formerly a part 

 of the same range more elevated than the point on 

 which this monument of a great convulsion of na- 

 ture now lies. As the fragments in the valleys are 

 neither rounded, nor the crevices filled up with 

 sand, we must infer that the period of violence 



