MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY. 223 



of dejection," rendering passable the portion it overspread of the talus, 

 which, except at like i)hices, is almost inaccessible from its base, being 

 there made up of huge blocks like "monolithic houses tumbled together 

 by an earthquake." The cone was furrowed by no deep channel, such 

 as would have been formed had a large and powerful stream passed over 

 it. In September last the whule had been changed. Without pausing 

 for details, it is enough to say that a gully had been cut to a depth of 

 fifteen feet, down which, at a (piarter of a mile's distance, was piled, 

 twenty feet high, a heap of bowlders, varying from ten feet in diameter 

 down to those of moderate size, all mingled with earth and gravel. 

 Here the first rush of water which effected the change was checked, and 

 its course deflected. Lower down, smaller blocks were distributed in the 

 order of their size ; then came cobbles, next pebbles, then gravel, till at the 

 distance of more than half a mile, and near the Basin Pond, one stepped 

 suddenly down from a square-ending sand terrace two and a half feet 

 high. Such an exhibition of material assorted by water, within so small 

 a space, is rarely to be seen. A water-spout, or " cloud-burst," upon the 

 peaks had wrought the havoc. It must have been confined to a nar- 

 row ai'ea, for signs of disturbance were wholly wanting on the talus half 

 a mile north ; and in the bed of the torrent, less than a mile distant, 

 which descends from the Saddle and was both years our daily route from 

 camp at the Basin Pond to the summits, no change from the previous 

 year had happened. The time of the occurrence was fixed by valid 

 proof. Scrub birches were found in the course of the flood completely 

 stripped of bark, but often retaining at the tips of their highest twigs 

 shrivelled leaves, which showed by their thinness that the shrubs had 

 been torn from place just as the leaves were fully expanded. 



