342 



DWARFS TOWER. 



[Ch. XV. 



at its upper extremity, at an elevation of 200 feet above the 

 Visp, and the depth increased gradually nearer the river. 

 The shock of 1855 is believed to have shaken the Alps and 

 the adjoining country over an area 300 miles long and 200 

 broad. We know not what changes of level it effected, whe- 

 ther the whole country was upheaved or sunk an inch, or a 

 foot, or a yard by the event, or whether its position was 

 unaltered. But we cannot doubt, that it is to a repetition of 

 such movements reiterated throughout indefinite ages that 

 we owe the very existence of land above the level of the sea. 

 We may also be assured that the shape of every district, some- 

 times even the minor details of its topography, are to a cer- 

 tain extent modified by the same agency. 



Fig. 18. 



Dwarf's Tower (Zwergli-Thurm) near Viesch in the Canton of Valais. 



From a sketch by Lady Lyell, taken Sept. 1857. 



x 



Dwarfs Tower near Viesch.— In most of the valleys which 

 communicate with the principal valley of the Ehone above 

 the lake of Geneva, there is still a large remnant of that 

 superficial drift and moraine matter which was left there at 

 the close of the Glacial epoch. But even where we find no 



Avalanches had, in 1857, thrown down some trees, but the artist lias removed 

 others to produce the clearing here represented. 





