152 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE. 



looking. In some places, however, even the 

 wall does not suffice to use up all the loose 

 fragments ; and then they are often packed 

 in the corners so as to cant the angles with a 

 small flat-topped triangular platform. Of 

 course the very stoniest bits are wholly unen- 

 closed, or given over to mountain sheep, who 

 find a scanty pasture in the chinks between 

 the boulders ; and the valleys of the little 

 rivulets are almost always mere gorges of 

 naked round stones, because here the water 

 has washed away all the soft earth between 

 them. Such denudation is always going on 

 more slowly, even in the other parts ; and 

 the plain or marshland which lies between 

 the foot of the hills and the sea has been 

 built up by the detritus thus carried down 

 from the moraines, and protected from incur- 

 sion by the hillocks of blown sand. 



It is interesting, however, to think that 

 every one of these big round stones has been 

 once like ourselves a tourist, and has travelled 

 on the side or bottom of a glacier to its pre- 



