INFLUENCE OF STRATA UPON SCENERY. 277 
Among other great rockfalls, or perhaps bosses 
of the solid rock which have been left by the river, 
may be mentioned those of Antrona Piana on the 
26th June 1642, which destroyed the Parish Church 
and many houses, causing also much loss of life: 
those of the Diablerets in 1714 and 1749, of 
Montbiel in Prattigau in 1804, of the Dents du 
Midi in 1835, and that of Elm in 1881. The pretty 
little lake of Chede, on the road between Geneva 
and Chamouni, was filled up by a rockfall in the 
year 1837. 
Nor must rockslips pass altogether unmentioned. 
Sometimes the movement is continuous, though very 
slow. In the chains of the Gumfluh, between Chateau 
D’Oex on the Sarine and the Diablerets, which are 
composed of hard calcareous rock on which vegeta- 
tion establishes itself with difficulty, the cone of talus 
descends slowly towards the valley almost like a 
river.* 
Again at Soglio in the Val Bregaglia a mass of 
detritus which has itself fallen from the steeper pre- 
cipices, was for a long time, and probably is still, 
slowly moving downwards. The firs which grow on 
it do not stand upright, but cross one another at 
* Favre and Schardt, Beitr. z. Geol, K. d. Schw., L. XXII. 
