Ch. XV. I 



IN THE TYROL. 



339 



it to be 10 feet in diameter, and the pillar which supports it, 

 (>0 feet high. It seems to have owed its superior height to the 

 large dimensions of the capping-stone, which has served as a 

 shed to protect the indurated mud from the rain and sun. 

 Near the edge of the cliff in the neighbourhood of this large 

 column a wooden roof has been constructed, to prevent that 



* 



part of the terrace bordering the edge of the ravine along 

 which the road passes from being split up into columns by the 

 action of the sun and rain. The necessity of this shed attests 

 the manner in which the denudation proceeds, and shows how 

 its progress can be arrested. Some pillars on the Katzenbach 

 have an elegant appearance, being perfectly round and verti- 



;*rooved or fluted. These grooves are caused by inclu- 



rows 



which descend from the edge of the terrace 



cally 



ded stones which at different heights project slightly and 

 give rise to an unequal rate of waste. In various instances 

 such stones give origin to small lateral pillars producing 

 what may be called cluster columns. Both in the main 

 valley and its tributaries the columns are arranged in 



to the 



torrent, as represented between h and i; but between such 

 parallel groups or rows are spaces devoid of columns and 

 filled with wood, for the most part fir-trees, which form a 

 picturesque background to the pillars when seen in profile. 

 These intermediate spaces were probably all once occupied 

 by columns, which have been undermined and swept away 

 by occasional and temporary floods. . 



I was informed by Herr von Kaschnitz that in 1849, in 

 cutting the road near the bridge over the Finsterbach, some 

 trees and bushes being removed, the water was able to collect 

 during heavy rains, and scoop out a small channel in the 

 moraine matter, which it deepened yearly, until it under- 

 mined and removed, in the course of fifteen years, no less than 

 twenty pillars or pyramids, and left in their place a straight 

 empty gulley which I saw, and which in the course of time will 



no doubt be filled with forest trees. The natural fall of trees 

 or landslips may sometimes afford an opportunity for such 

 torrential action to come into play. In the absence of this, 

 or of an earthquake, the columns, which often take centuries 

 to form, seem capable of enduring for ages. 



z 2 



