March, 1834. 



STREAMS OF STONES. 



255 



crests huge masses, exceeding in dimensions any small 

 building, seemed to stand arrested in their headlong course : 

 there, also, the curved strata of the archways lay piled 

 over each other, like the ruins of some vast and ancient 

 cathedral. In endeavouring to describe these scenes of 

 violence, one is tempted to pass from one simile to another. 

 We may imagine, that streams of v^hite lava had flowed 

 from many parts of the mountains into the lower country, 

 and that, when consolidated, they had been rent by some 

 enormous convulsion into myriads of fragments. The ex- 

 pression, streams of stones,^' which immediately occurred 

 to every one, conveyed the same idea. These scenes are, 

 on the spot, rendered more striking, by the contrast of the 

 low, rounded forms of the neighbouring hills. 



I was much interested by finding on the highest peak of one 

 range (about 700 feet above the sea) a great arched fragment, 

 lying on its convex or upper surface. Must we believe that 

 it was fairly pitched up in the air, and thus turned ? Or, 

 with more probability, that there existed formerly a part of 

 the same range more elevated than the point on which this 

 monument of a great convulsion of nature now lies. As the 

 fragments in the valleys are neither rounded nor the crevices 

 filled up with sand, we must infer that the period of violence 

 was subsequent to the land having been raised above the 

 waters of the sea. In a transverse section within these 

 valleys the bottom is nearly level, or rises but very little 

 towards either side. Hence the fragments appear to have 

 travelled from the head of the valley; but in reaUty it 

 seems most probable, either that they have been hurled 

 down from the nearest slopes, or that masses of rock were 

 broken up in the position they formerly occupied ; and that 

 since, by a vibratory movement of overwhelming force,* the 



* " Nous n'avons pas ete moins saisis d'etonnement a la vue de I'in- 

 nombrable quantite de pierres de toutes grandeurs, bouleversees les unes 

 sur les autres, et cependant rangees, comme si elles avoient ete amoncelees 

 negligemment pour remplir des ravins. On ne se lassoit pas d'admirer les 

 effets prodigieux de la nature." — Pernety, p. 526. 



