112 IIISTOIIY OF 



resistible force, and produces the same effect as gunpowder, 

 splitting the most solid rocks, and thus shattering the summits 

 of the mountain. 



But Jiot 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 corres- 

 pond with the opposite, that no douht can be made of their hav- 

 ing been once joined together. At Cajeta,' in Italy, a mouii- 

 tiin was split in this manner by an earthquake ; and there is a 

 passage opened through it, that appears as if elaborately done by 

 the industry of man. In the Andes these breaches are frequent- 

 ly seen. That at Thermopylte, in Greece, has long been famous. 

 The mountain of the Troglodytes, in Arabia, has thus a passage 

 through it : and that in Savoy, \\'hich nature began, and which 

 Victor Amadeus completed, is an instance of the same kind. 



We have accounts of some of these disruptions, immediately 



after their happening. " In the month of June,^in the year 17 LI, 



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 weather being very calm and serene. It 



was of a conical figure, and destroyed fifty-five cottages in the 



fall. Fifteen persons, together with about a hundred beasts, 



were also crushed beneath its ruins, which covered in extent 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 lan along the plain, which is now formed into 



several new and deep lakes. There appeared throug'i the whole 



of this rubbish none of those substances that seemed to indicate 



that this disruption had been by means of subterraneous fires. 



l\Iost probably, the base of this rocky mountain was rotted and 



decayed ; and thus fell, without any extraneous violence." In the 



same manner, in the year 1G18, the town of Pleurs, in France, 



was buried beneath a rocky mountain, at the foot of which is 



was situated.* 



1 Buffon, vol. ii. p. 36t. 2 Hist, de I'Academie des Sciences, p. 4. An. 1715 

 X On tl!e 2d of September, 1806, an immense projection of the mountain « 

 Rusfiherg in Switzerland gave way, and was precipitated into the valley lA 

 Lowertz. In four mimites it completely overwhelined three villages, and 

 part of two otliers. i'hc torrent of earth and Ktones v.as more rapid than 



