HISTORY OF MAURITIUS. 
83 
now operating on the mountain of Moka; and every year the ravaging progress of 
the hurricanes and rains, in despoiling it of its ground and trees, is visible. During 
the heavy rains, these naked places are lost in waterfalls of a transient nature, 
which form agreeable objects. It is thus that the mountains called Trois Ma- 
melles, Pieterbot, Sec. have been deprived of their earthy covering. It may indeed 
be said, that pumice stones have been found in the Isle of France ; but this circum¬ 
stance may be easily explained. The only spot where they are to be seen, is on the 
windward side of the islandj towards the isles of Amber, which have isles of coral, 
and are consequently open. It may therefore be reasonably supposed that these 
pumice stones come from the volcano in the Isle of Bourbon, and are driven to the 
isles of Amber by the winds and currents; in the same manner as in India, those 
extraordinary cocoa nuts have been brought, whose origin has not been known 
more than fourteen years. 
As a last resource, the partizans of volcanoes throw themselves into the caverns, 
which they insist have been the mouths of the volcanoes, that have produced the 
present appearance of the island; but, on visiting them, they seem to be nothing 
more than quarries of stone, originally resting upon earth, which has abandoned 
them. They now sustain themselves like vaults formed by human labour; and the 
proof is, that all these quarries are situated on gentle declivities. Some of them 
are to be seen on the plains of Willems, Sec. 
The most difficult circumstance to explain in these quarries are the parapets that 
crown them, which are of equal breadth and height; particularly on the cavern of 
Piton de la Decouverte, in the plantation of the late M. Le }uge, first in rank in 
the supreme council. Immediately before the entrance of it, there is a kind of 
cylindrical opening, about twenty paces diameter, and worked in the rock like the 
coating of a well. This hole may be twelve feet in depth, and its stones are whole 
and entire, a proof that they have not suffered the operation of fire: the descent 
into this hole is by an easy declivity, which consists of a rude mass of rocks and 
earth, and immediately faces the entran.ee of the cavern, from whence the same decli¬ 
vity passes under a kind of arcade, and descends eight or ten feet. A large cave 
succeeds, from seventy to eighty paces wide, and from twelve to fifteen feet in 
height. It presents a fine vault formed with free stones of an enormous size, through 
which the water filters in every part: the ground, that is of black hue, is conse¬ 
quently soft; and the drops of water, which mark the place where they fall by a 
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