93 UTEBATURE ON TOBBBNTS, 



argillaceous character and their state of saturation the night before. While 

 the torrent of Saint-Phalez flowed, filled from bank to bank, seizing and 

 carrying off rocks which had been employed to form a road which was 

 believed to be safe against all contingencies, that of the Combe-d'Yeuse and 

 all those traversing wooded lands remained dry, or gave only an insignifi- 

 cant quantity of water. 



" On the slope opposite to that of which I have been speaking, in the valley 

 of the Peyne, a carriage-road newly formed did not experience the least 

 injury throughout the whole of the portion of it passing through the forest 

 ' of the domain ; but at its issue, on the lands of the Libaude and of the 

 Koquette, it had been, so to say, destroyed. A cart loaded with faggots was 

 upset and smashed by the waters, which flowed from all the cultivated 

 slopes, and tore along, with the noise of thunder, at the bottom of the ravine. 

 " My good fortune secured to me another subject of study on the same 

 ground. 



" On the 25th October following I went to the sale of the fellings of the 

 Tarascon, where there fell an abundant rain. The next day (the 26th) the 

 weather was clouded. I set off for the Luberon in the hope of arriving 

 there at the same time as would a storm of rain, which I saw approaching. 

 I arrived first ; the ravine of Saint-Phalez was still moist, from the passage 

 in small quantity of the waters of the night before ; they had served, as 

 appeared, to saturate the lands of the domain, as had previously happened 

 on the 7th [3rd 1] September. 



" I had scarcely gone over two kilometres in the ravine when the water 

 began to rush with great violence ; ten minutes later it precipitated itself 

 in its ordinary canal d'ecoulement, completing the work of destruction begun 

 in the month of September. The lands of Saint-Phalez had then absorbed 

 but little or none of the water that day. 



" The storm was not of long duration — an hour at most. The time was 

 unfavourable for collecting on the ground exact measurements, but I reckon 

 that the torrent deUvered, at its maximum, somewhat less water, perhaps, 

 than on the ith of September. The flood, however, was more frightful ; it 

 swept away rocks with so much the greater ease that nothing had been 

 repaired since the first storm, which had left the stones dug out, and 

 without bond of cohesion among themselves. 



" To gain the forester's house, which was on the slope of the left bank, it 

 was necessary to make a long circuit — ^to go round the domain of Saint- 

 Phalez, and to cross the grounds belonging to it, in which one sank to the 

 depth of 0'30 mfetres, or 12 inches. Before arriving at my home I had 

 still before me the ravine of the Combe-d'Yeuse, and I feared I should be 

 stopped there by a new obstacle. I was agreeably surprised to find it dry. 

 An hour after the storm the ravine of Saint-Phalez had ceased to flow. 



" It rained throughout the whole of the 28th without there being anything 

 to remark similar to what had happened on the preceding days. The 

 only effect of this was that, on the evening of the 30th, near the forester's 

 house, and at 200 or 300 metres from the ravine of Saint-Phalez, there was 

 seen coming down, in that of Yeuse, a small fillet of clear water ; its volume 

 increased perceptibly during three days, to diminish in like manner during 

 the two which followed ; its passage broke down a little of the foot-path 

 which goes along the valley, but caused only a damage easily repaired. 

 This foot"path did not present the same solidity of structure as that of 

 the Combe de Saint-Phalez, built on enormous blocks of rock which had 



