O U 



EARTH-PILLARS 



[Ch. XV. 



e 



valleys. Botzen is situated on the Eisack, two miles abov 

 the junction of that river with the Adige, and is 836 feet 

 above the sea. It is in the valleys of two tributary streams 

 which join the Eisack a short distance above Botzen, that 

 the principal groups of pillars occur. Those, nearest to the 

 town and situated about a mile and a half to the ISLE, of it 

 are in the ravine of the Katzenbach, elevated about 1,700 

 feet above Botzen ; they are the most remarkable of any for 

 their number, size, and beauty. The other pillars occur in 

 the ravine of the Einsterbach, near Klobenstein, at the 

 height of about 2,200 feet above Botzen, and three and a 



C — 7 * 



half miles N.E. of that town. These I shall describe more 

 particularly, as Sir John E. W. Herschel has had the kind- 

 ness to enable me to give an accurate representation of them 

 drawn by himself in 1824, by .the aid of the Camera Lucida. 

 I have not room to give his entire drawing, but have selected 



ex 



a part of it, representing the entrance of a tributary ravin 

 into the main valley. (See Plate II.) In such smaller 

 ravines, the same features which are seen on the boundary 

 cliffs of the main valley are repeated, with no other difference 

 than the diminished distance which separates the opposite 

 banks, and the lesser size and number of the columns 

 stretching from the top of each bank down to the brook 

 which flows at the bottom. The breadth of the valley of the 

 Finsterbach is between 600 and 700 feet, and its depth from 

 400 to 500. The pillars are many hundreds in number, and 

 the precipitous banks from which they spring slope at angles 

 of from 32° to 45° degrees. The lower part of each column 

 has usually several flat sides, so that it assumes a pyra- 

 midal instead of a conical shape. The columns consist of 

 red unstratified mud, with pebbles and angular pieces of 

 stone, large and small, irregularly dispersed through them. 

 The whole mass, in short, out of which they are .shaped 

 answers in character to the moraine of a glacier, and some of 

 the included fragments of rock have one or more of their 

 faces smoothed or polished, furrowed and scratched, in a 

 manner which clearly indicates their glacial origin. The 

 stones have not their longer axes arranged in one direction, 

 as would be the case if they had been deposited by running 















