478 
Corrcspondcnce — Mr. A. J. Jakes Browne. 
tliis, and, wishing to gain a better view of tlie country, I dismounted, 
and ascended tlie steep slope which formed its northem side ; I tben 
found inyself on a flat-topped ridge looking down into tbree valleys 
at once (as sbown in diagram at A). 
The watercourse I had been following (B) was cut off by a 
wider and deeper valley, liere making a magnificent curve ; and on 
rny left was a deep, broad, and short hollow (C), only separated 
from tlie same valley by a narrow ridge or knife-edge. Its sides 
presented a succession of irregulär steps, resulting from the weather- 
ing of the hard and soft beds of the liniestone ; but these wero 
interrupted by nmnerous small cliannels and gulleys, and the heaps 
of debris which choked up the bottom testified clearly to the mode 
of its formation. Althougli evidently a rain-gorge, its cirque-like 
form struclc me at first siglit., and the reason of its taking this shape 
was easily perceived ; having been cut backwards tili a ruere knife- 
edge remained between it and the valley beyond, elongate extension 
had become impossible, but the runlets which drained the flat-topped 
heights on each side had so extended it laterally that its width was 
already more than half its length. 
Now is not this very suggestive of the origin of other cirques ? 
Mr. Heiland finds a difficulty in the fact that the part of the crest 
surrounding the cirque, and sloping to it, is so narrow that it cannot 
feed even a small stream. Mr. Bonney has shown that he should 
have said, “can only feed very small streams,” and with this cor- 
rection the sentence would fairly indicate the very conditions which 
I conceive to be essential to the formation of a cirque, viz. the con- 
centration of small streams falling off a narrow mountain crest. 
Mr. Heliand liimself says (p. 165) : “ The cirques which occur 
isolated in the mountains are not essentially different from the 
valleys which end in a cirque They both occur in the same 
way, except that the valleys are longer, their area being as much as 
25 times as great as that of the cirques.” Surely he would not have 
us believe that these valleys are likewise the result of glacial action ; 
and if not the valleys, tlien why the cirques ? 
