An extensive and gently sloping plain has thus been created, appearing thinly dotted by the cones which have been thrown up to the East of the principal line. Each of these, has in all probability, furnished its contingent to the mass of basalt that overspreads the plain, but all appropriation is out of the question. The cone that has attracted most observation, is that of the Montagne de Denise. The summit and flanks of this oblong hill, are covered with large accumulations of very fresh looking scoriæ, lapillo, and puzzolana, out of which masses of basalt project into the valley around and beneath. One of these forms a bulky promontory descending to the level of the river Borne on the South, and exhibiting two colossal ranges of columns, one above the other. At its sides and base, this basaltic mass is enveloped by, and passes into a stratified and sometimes laminated tufa or breccia of no great coherence, which clothes the outer slopes of the hill. Other massive rocks of a breccia or peperino, constitute the nucleus of the hill itself, and through these, the eruption of the more recent lavas and scoriæ evidently broke out. This massive, indurated peperino, is of much earlier formation than that which accompanies the erupted lavas and scoriæ. This would be little remarkable, were it not that in the stratified deposits, large quantities of bones are found of elephants, rhinoceroses, stags, and other large mammifera, and in one locality, the undoubted remains of at least two human skeletons. A block of this breccia, containing the greater portion of a human skull, and several other bones, is preserved in the museum of the town of Le Puy. The mass in which these fragments are firmly embedded, is unquestionably a portion of a stratum of in durated tufa, which envelopes and passes into the basaltic lava of Denise. It was discovered in 1844, and at the meeting of the Scientific Congress of France, which took place at Le Puy in 1856, the question of the genuineness of these remains was discussed; and the great majority of the savans were of the opinion that they were perfectly genuine. In fact, the surprising point of these discoveries is, not that there should be human bones found in these beds of lava, but that they should be found there in company with the remains of extinct mammifera of the genera rhinoceros, elephant, etc. etc. In this chain, as in the Monts Dôme and Mont Dore, lakes are met with, occupying wide, deep, and nearly circular basins, which bear every appearance of having resulted from some violent volcanic explosions, but different from ordinary craters, not only in their greater dimensions, but in the nature and disposition of their enclosure. This is usually of primary, or, at all events, preexisting rocks, merely covered, more or less copiously, with scoriæ and puzzolana, little, if at all, elevated above the surrounding country. In the region of the Vivarais, the general characteristics of the volcanic remains, were found to resemble those of the Haute Loire, with one or two noteworthy distinctions. The cone of Jaujac, called La Coupe de Jaujac, from its cup-shaped crater, was found to rise from a coal formation, occupying the bottom of a long transverse valley, between elevated ranges of granite and gneiss, and would thus appear to countenance the exploded notion that volcanic fires are nourished by immense beds of coal. The primitive fragments found enveloped by its scoriæ and basalt sufficiently prove, if proof were stream as Aubenas, few are to be met with, as large as a man's head; further on, they are reduced to mere pebbles, and are, no doubt, still more comminuted before the Ar needed, that the source of the ish in size, and as far down the erupted matters existed below the sandstone which encloses the coal strata. The crater of this cone is very large and regular; its figure elliptical, with the longer axis directed North and South. The dèche carries them with it into the sides, as well as those of the cone, Rhone. This observation illusare thickly covered with chestnut trates the process by which both woods; and here, as elsewhere, it basalt and granite, that once filled is to be remarked, that those trees these valleys, have- disappeared. which grow on the volcanic, are A wintry flood undermines and much larger and more productive detaches a prism of basalt from one than those on the primitive soil of the columnar ranges. The next around. The earth formed by the flood drives it on a few inches; or, decomposition of recent basalt, if by its form and position, it is seems peculiarly favorable to the enabled to roll without much diffivegetation of the Spanish chestnut, culty onward, a few feet. This On the North, the crater of Janjac operation is repeated, year after is breached, and from that position year, and in the meantime, even may be traced a vast current of ba- when remaining stationary, it is salt descending the valley of the exposed to the immense friction of Alignon to a distance of between all the smaller boulders and pebbles, two and three miles. On this bed which are drifted over it by the exof basalt, stands the village of Jau- traordinary force of the current. jac, on the brink of a mural preci- By the continuance of this process, pice, which is continued to the ter- it is at the same time carried for mination of the current and every wards, reduced in size, and brought where presents a columnar range to approach a globulous form, the of almost unexampled beauty, of most favorable to its transport; and about 150 feet in height. in this form the rapidity of its progress, along the channel of the river, is progressively accelerated till, diminished to the size of gravel or silt, it is taken into complete suspension, and carried sooner or later in this state, into the ocean. Not far from the extremity of this range, the river joins the Ardèche. In the bed of the latter at and for some distance below this point, may be seen in summer, when the stream is inconsiderable, a number of articulated columns, in which a nice observer may recognize the mineral characters of the different lava currents of the tributary valleys. Following the course of the river, these columns show themselves less frequently, and are more water-worn, till, at the distance of a mile or two, they are reduced to little more than rounded blocks, and assimilated to the other boulders, which cover the dry channel of the river. These basaltic boulders continue to dimin We have endeavored to present, in this brief space, some of the more striking portions of Mr. Scrope's highly interesting volume, without doing injustice to the thoroughness of research and careful study manifested by the author. His conclusions seem to be based on the soundest reasoning, and the main object of his work, the verification of the volcanic origin of the mountains he has described, must be considered as established beyond all doubt. THE ACTRESS IN HIGH LIFE: AN EPISODE IN WINTER QUARTERS. CHAPTER V. L'Isle meanwhile, after spending an unwonted time at his toilet, drew himself up to the utmost of the five feet ten, which nature had allotted to him, to shake off the stoop which he imagined himself to have contracted during his long hours of languor and suffering. He then inspected himself most critically in the glass, to see how far he had recovered his usual good looks. But that truthful counsellor presented to him cheeks still sunken and pallid, and sharpened features. The clear, grey eye, looked out from a cavern, and the rich nut brown hair hung over a brow covered with parchment. His lean figure no longer filled the uniform which once fitted it so well. He stood before his glass in no peacock mood of self-admiration; but was compelled to own that he was not, just now at least, the man to fascinate a lady's eye; so he resolved to take Lady Mabel by the ear, which is, in fact, the surest way to catch a woman. Lord Strathern kept his promise: to have no noisy fellows at dinner to-day. Perhaps an occasional visitor, who hovered near, the gout, made him more readily dispense with his more jovial companions. The only guest besides L'Isle, was Major Conway, of the light drag oons. A party of four is an excellent number for conversation, especially if there be no rivalry among them. The Major had served long in India, but had arrived in the Peninsula only towards the end of the last campaign. He wished to learn all he could of the country, the people and the war; and nearly five years of close observation, industrious inquiry, and active service had rendered L'Isle just the man to gratify his wishes. Lord Strathern too, in a long and varied military career, had seen much; and the old soldier had not failed to lay in a stock of shrewd observations and amusing anecdotes. So that to a young listener like Lady Mabel, eager to learn and quick to appre hend, two or three hours glided away in striking and agreeable contrast with the more jovial and somewhat noisy festivities of yesterday and many a previous day. L'Isle made no attempt to engross her attention. Major Conway had left a wife in England, which shut out any feelings of rivalry with him. L'Isle was thus quite at his ease, and showed to much advantage; for it is surprising how agreeable some people can make themselves when they are bent upon it. He combined the qualities of a good talker and a good listener, was communicative to the Major; yet more attentive to his Lordship; and most careful, above all things, to turn the conversation to topics interesting to Lady Mabel, who, while listening, asking questions, and offering an occasional remark, was fast coming to the conclusion that L'Isle, young as he was, was in sight and I cannot explore it. I am eager to visit the Alhambra and Escurial, and other show places, and take a long ramble in the Sierra Morena. I would wish to engage the most skilful arriero in all Spain, and mounted on his best mule, roam all over the country, by far the best informed and most she. "It is most provoking to be considerate man in the brigade. thus tantalized; the cup at my She more particularly wondered lips, and I cannot taste of it. Spain how, while tied down to his military duties, he had found time to master the languages, history, topography, and even the antiquities of the peninsula. He knew personally, many a Spaniard and Portuguese, who had made himself conspicuous for good or ill, at this fearful crisis of his country's his- through every mountain pass, and tory. He thoroughly understood the people, with all their virtues, and their vices, that perhaps outweigh those virtues; yet he seemed means to despise them. Amidst the too common baseness and corruption, he could paint vividly their nobler traits, and illustrate them by many a pointed anecdote and thrilling narrative. Lady Mabel could not help thinking what a delightful companion he would be on a tour through these countries; if she found so much pleasure in merely listening to his account of what he had seen and witnessed there. make a pilgrimage to every spot hallowed by poetic or historic fame. I would search out as a shrine of chivalry each field, on which the Cid displayed the gleaming blade of Tizona, and on which the hoofs of his Babieca trampled on the Moor. I wonder if my guide could not show me, too, the foundation stones of the manor house of the good knight of La Mancha, the site at least of the bower of Dulcinea del Toboso, and Gil Blas's robber's caves?" "Just at this time," said L'Isle, "the cave of Capt. Rolando and his comrades, being in the North of Leon, is particularly inaccessible, for there are some ninety thousand similar gentry wintering between us and it." "Those fellows have been very quiet of late, and it will probably be some time before they are stirring again," said Lord Strathern. "Travelling is my passion," said Lady Mabel. "From childhood I have longed to see foreign lands, and to find myself surrounded by outlandish people. I suppose it is owing to my having been kept close at home, yet encouraged to follow the footsteps of travelers over page after page of their ram- We will give them reason to bles. My journey hither, through bestir themselves as soon as the the wilderness of Alemtejo has corn is enough grown to fodder our but whetted my appetite. And horses," answered L'Isle; meanthere is something peculiarly fasci- while, Lady Mabel, there is much nating in the idea of travelling in worth seeing in Portugal. All is Spain, the land of adventure and not like the wilderness of Alemromance." tigo. If you will believe the Portuguese, it was not to the imagination of the poet, but to the eye of the traveller in Lusitania that we owe the poetic pictures of the Elysian fields. All the Portuguese agree that their country is crowded with the choice beauties and won "Just now is no good time for such a journey," said L'Isle; "there are too many French and other robbers besetting the roads." "There would be too little of romance and too much of adventure in meeting with them," said "Not more wonderful," said L'Isle, " than the fountain in the village of Friexada. Its water, too, is excessively cold, and of so hungry a nature, than in less than an hour it consumes a joint of meat, leaving the bones quite bare." ders of nature, and they certainly ity more wondrous than the virtue should know their own country of the spring. Yet it is a pity you best. I have seen enough of it to could not test the virtues of this satisfy me, that though but a little wonderful spring," said she. corner of the smallest of the continent, it is a lovely and remarkable part of the earth. Its beautiful mountains, not sublime, perhaps, like the Alps and Pyrenees, but exquisitely rich and wonderful in coloring, with a variety of romantic and ever shifting scenery, are perhaps unrivaled in Europe; its grand rivers, often uniting on their banks, the wildest rocks with the loveliest woodland scenes; its balmy climate fosters in many places an ever green foliage and a perpetual spring." "From your description of the country," said Lady Mabel, "one might take you for a Portuguese." "You of course tested that," said she. "Unluckily," said L'Isle, “our party had only one leg of mutton in store, and were too hungry to risk their dinner in the fountain's mercy." never to "You are a bad traveller," said Lady Mabel," and seem have with you the means of testing the truth of what you are told." "Yet they themselves have little perception of the real beauties of "I take with me a good stock of nature," said L'Isle. "They will faith," said L'Isle, "and believe, or lead you away from the loveliest seem to believe, all that I am told. scenes in their land, to point This pleases these people wonderout some curiosity, more to their fully well, and keeping them in taste-some miraculous image, good humor is the main point just some saintly relic brought by angels now. There is, however, near Esfrom the Holy Land, or perhaps tremoz, which place you passed some local natural phenomenon, through coming hither, a curiosity which has a dash of the wonder- of somewhat a similar kind. It is ful about it. For instance, when a spring which is dry in winter, but at Braga, three years ago, with my pours out a considerable stream in hands full of business, and anxious summer. Its waters are of so petat the same time to learn all I rifying a quality, that the wheels could of the country around, my of the mills it works are said to be Portuguese companion compelled soon turned into stone. me to waste a precious hour in visiting a famous spring in the garden of a convent of St. Augustine. The water is intensely cold, and if a bottle of wine be immersed in it, it is instantly turned into vinegar." "Did you see that," asked Lady Mabel. "I trust, for your credit as a traveller," said Lady Mabel," that you will be able to say that you, for once, proved the truth or falsehood what you heard." "I did, and found them incrusted with stone. But that is not so curious as the prophetic spring of Xido, which foretells to the rustics around a fruitful season, by pouring forth but little water, or a year of scarcity, by an abundant flow. These are little things; but were I |