10 
POPULAR SCIENCE REVIEW. 
currents we must not fail to recommend. This is to Randanne , 
and it may be taken en route to Mont Dore les Bains. Oppo- 
site the little hostel is a kind of summer-house, with very 
comfortable bedrooms, where quarters may be had for a night 
or two. This is a most extraordinary scene, when viewed from 
the summit of one of the volcanic Puys, and was selected by the 
Count de Montlosier as his home on his return to France in 
1820, after many years of exile. His “ Essai sur la Theorie des 
Yolcans d’ Auvergne ” was published in 1789, and thirty year? 
afterwards he returned to spend his last days among the moun- 
tains of the Puy de Dome. He planted woods and cultivated 
the sterile soil, and when he died he was refused burial by the 
bishop of Clermont. This persecution was on account of his 
having written against the Jesuits in early life, urging them to 
use a cross of wood instead of one of gold, saying “ c’est la croix 
de bois qui a sauve le monde.” 
In May last we found the wood of Pandanne, before entering 
the village, actually carpeted with spring flowers. There were 
violets, and primulas, and Anemone montana in thousands, 
Anemone ranunculoides and two or three orchids. The July 
list of Sir William Cruise gives Trifolium alpinum , Saxifraga 
stellaris , Sedum villosum , Geranium phceum , and Centaurea 
montana . 
The Puy de la Taupe rises close to the village, and a lava 
stream has flowed from its western flank. The view from thence* 
right into the craters of the Puys to the north, backed by the 
distant Puy de Dome towering above all, can best be cha- 
racterized by the term weird. The Puys de la Kodde and de la 
Yache should be especially visited. Their craters, and the way in 
which their lava streams dam up rivulets and give rise to the 
lakes of Aidat and la Caissiere must be seen to be compre- 
hended. 
The Older Basalts and Freshivater Beds of the Limagne . — 
We now revert to the older basalts, the products of much 
earlier volcanic eruptions than those we have just indicated, and 
masses of which are to be found capping many of the hills in 
Auvergne, sometimes more than 1,000 feet above the plains of 
the Limagne. 
The Plateau de Prudelle is a mass of this ancient basalt, 
which overlies granite, and is within a short walk of Clermont. 
Two valleys, Yillar and Grresinier, have been eroded on the 
south and north, down which have flowed recent lava streams 
from Pariou ; but the old basalt of Prudelle has protected the 
granite promontory it overlies, and granite and basalt now 
stand out as grand witnesses of the gradual erosion of valleys, 
the resistance of hard lava, and the antiquity of the basalt. But 
the basaltic plateau, par excellence , for investigation, is that of 
