98 gilptn's tobest scenery. 



athwart some yawning chasm, where it affords a 

 tremendous passage from cliff to cliff, while the 

 cataract roaring many fathoms below, is seen only 

 in surges of rising vapour. 



In ancient times the Larch was employed in 

 still more arduous service. When Hannibal laid 

 the cliffs bare and heaped up piles of timber to 

 melt the rocks (so Livy tells us) the Larch was 

 his fuel : its unctuous sides soon spread the 

 flame ; and, as the gloom of evening came on, the 

 appendages of a numerous host, elephants, and 

 floating banners and gleaming arms, formed ter- 

 rific images through the night, while the lofty 

 summits of the Alps were illumined far and wide. 



Strabo speaks of Alpine trees (which most 

 probably were Larches) of a very great size. 

 Many of them, he says, would measure eight feet 

 in diameter.* And, at this day, masts of single 

 Larches, measuring from a hundred and ten to a 

 hundred and twenty feet in length, have been 

 floated from Yalais, through the lake of Geneva, 

 and down the Rhone, to Toulon ; though I have 



* Lib. iv., p. 202. 



