On. XV.] 



OF SWITZERLAND. 



:m 



position of mica-schist, is of a whitish colour, but some in- 

 cluded stones of serpentine, greenstone, and limestone, with 

 surfaces distinctly glaciated, betray the glacier origin of the 





formation. 



columns 



miles below Zermatt, were more numerous and beautiful in 

 1821 than they are now. This I ascertained by comparing 

 their present condition with a drawing made in that year by 

 Sir John Herschel. In July 1855, an earthquake inflicted 

 much injury on the town of Yisp, so that in passing through 

 it three years afterwards, I saw rents still open in the walls 

 of many of the houses. I then learnt that the same shock 

 had thrown down a large part of one of the principal 



mor 



& 



the capping-stone was 15 feet in diameter. The channel of 

 the torrent, a small tributary of the Visp, had been deranged 

 by landslips, and I observed that the active denudation which 

 I saw beginning in 1857, had committed no small havoc 

 among the pillars, in the eight years which intervened be- 

 tween that date and my second visit in 1865. 



It is probable that few great valleys have been excavated 

 in any part of the world, by rain and running water alone. 

 During some part of their formation, subterranean move- 

 ments have lent their aid in accelerating* the process of ero- 



sion. 



movements 

 id in many 



any vibratory jar, their influence may easily be underrated 

 or overlooked by geologists. At a lower point on the Visp- 

 bach, half-way between the towns of Stalden and Visp, my 



me 



the right bank of the river, which had never been seen until 

 1855, when it was laid open by a landslip, which consisted 

 of a great mass of drift, probably moraine matter belonging 

 to the old river terrace. A powerful rill of water flowing from 

 this spring had already in three years scooped out a gulley, 

 and eight years afterwards, in 1865, 1 found that it had cut its 



much 



small 



chasm 





moi 



yards wide. This modern ravine was about fifteen feet deep 



