GEOLOGY. 263 
along with fury indescribable ; it formed a torrent 100 
feet in height, which traversed the first 6 leagues, or 18 
miles, in forty minutes, although kept back in many 
places by narrow gorges through which it had to pass, 
carrying off in its course 130 chalets or cottages, a whole 
forest, and an immense quantity of earth and of stones. 
Debouching over against Chables, the chief place of the 
valley, the water was seen pushing before it a moving 
mountain of all kinds of débris of 300 feet in height, 
from which was rising a thick black cloud like the smoke 
of a conflagration. An English traveller, Mr P., of 
Lausanne, accompanied by a young artist, and a guide, 
was returning from seeing the works, and going towards 
Chables; happening by chance to turn round, he saw 
advancing with fearful rapidity the moving column, the 
distant roar of which he had not heard through the noise 
made by the Drause. He hastily warned his two com- 
panions and three other travellers who had joined them ; 
all leapt from their mules, scrambled up the mountains, 
and got safely beyond the sweep of the deluge, which 
filled in an instant the whole gorge beneath them. But 
Mr P. was nowhere to be seen; for some hours they 
believed him to be lost; but then they learned that his 
mule, shying at an overturned tree which she saw on the 
road, wheeling round, saw all at once an object far more 
dreadful close upon her, and, darting off towards the moun- 
tain, had carried him far away from the scene of danger. 
‘From Chables the débacle arrived at Martingy--4 leagues, 
or 12 miles distant—in 50 minutes, carrying off, as it 
advanced, 35 houses, 8 mills, 95 barns, but only 9 people, 
and no cattle, the inhabitants having all been warned to 
be on guard. The village of Bovernier was saved by a 
jutting rock turning off the flow of the torrent; and the 
people saw it pass like a shot by the side of the village 
without touching it, although much higher than their 
heads. The rocks and stones were dropped before it 
arrived at Martigny, blasting with sterility extensive 
meadows and fertile fields. 
