Effects attending the Blowing up of a Powder Mill. 507 
tain rock, in a plane parallel to the general direction of the 
mountain chain, has been seen one of the strongest proofs of 
the stratification of that rock. The same disposition may be 
observed in the mountains formed of old red sandstone in the 
vicinity of Alet, &c. 
It is almost needless to mention how much the external as- 
pect of the mountains varies between the lateral and the prin- 
cipal chains: the latter present everywhere bold yet beautiful 
features, the tints of a Gu'do with the colouring of a Raphael. 
They are nowhere more striking in their outline than in the 
central part of the chain. To him who has visited the Py- 
renees, the names of the Port de Benasque d’Or, and the Col 
de Moines, recal scenes of irregular beauty and wildness 
equalled in few parts of the world. 
It is of Tavernie that the French say, ‘ Il nous faudroit 
ici Buffon pour la décrire, et Delille pour la chanter.” * 
The eloquent and lamented Ramond, speaking of the 
Breach of Roland, says, ‘ Figure to yourself a wall of rocks 
from three to six hundred feet high, elevated between France 
and Spain, and physically separating them: suppose, again, 
this wall curved in the form of a crescent, with its convexity 
towards France : and finally imagine that, in the very centre, 
Roland himself, mounted on his war-horse, wished to force a 
passage ; and that, with a single blow of his famous sword, he 
made a breach of three hundred feet in width, and you will 
have an idea of what the mountaineer calls La Bréche de 
Roland,” 
Art. III. Certain Effects attending the Blowing up of Stobs’s 
Powder Mill in Peebleshire, and other Matters. By AGRONOME. 
Sir, 
As you have thought well to treat your readers with my 
live toad and dead cockle, it is but natural that I should en- 
deavour to find you something better by way of second course. 
I think I may as well go a hunting and fishing for articles in 
the same track which I pursued in my youth, from the days 
of my flaxen hair to the days of my hoary hairs and bald pate. 
This, I think, will be my most natural track, as I can take up 
every thing in succession worth noting down; or rather, in 
sportsman’s phrase, “* worth bagging or basketing.” But 
though I may esteem “ all fish that comes in the net,” you 
are quite at liberty to pick and cull as you think proper. You 
* “ Tt would require Buffon to describe it, and Delille to sing it.” 
LL@ 
