spects closely resembles ice, in order that it may be analysed by some competent chemist.

[We purpose to send the specimens, as soon as we have a printed copy of our correspondent's communication ready to be sent with them, to some friend versed in chemical analysis, whose report upon the salts we hope to give in a future Number.]

Notwithstanding the immense quantity of salt which might be drawn from these works, sufficient for the supply, not only of all Spain, but, I might perhaps say, the whole of Europe, such are the absurd regulations prevailing in every branch of industry in that lovely but unfortunate country, that the sale of it is confined to a circle of about seven leagues, including the large manufacturing town of Manresa: beyond which it is contraband. The surrounding country, though patches of the most beautiful woodland occasionally occur, has, for the most part, a sad, dreary, desolate look: for miles and miles, with the exception of here and there a train of asses or mules laden with sacks containing salt, and the whirr of a covey of red-legged partridges started up from their heathy roost, not a sound is heard, not a living creature is seen. The rugged barren nature of the country, indeed, joined to the fierce vindictive character of its inhabitants, had the effect of scaring the French off during the Peninsular war; and the castle of Cardona, which, though situated on an eminence, and strongly fortified, is by no means impregnable, was one of the very few fortresses which never, during that six years' bloody warfare, received a French garrison within its walls. It was also the only fortress never taken during the war of succession, but was delivered up in 1715, after the glorious but fruitless defence of Barcelona by the Catalans, against the united forces of France and Spain: a defence unparalleled in the annals of history, save by those of Gerona and Saragossa in later times.

There are thirty-five labourers employed on these saltworks, who receive five rials, about 13d. a day; and twenty guards keep watch night and day in order to prevent any of the salt being stolen: such is the wretched character for robbery and murder borne by the surrounding inhabitants; a character, indeed, which seems vindictive in the extreme. Nowhere, in any of my rides in Spain, did I meet with crosses, those Spanish signs of blood and vengeance, in such numbers as on the by bridle-road from Cardona to Cervera.

The salt mountain formerly belonged to the Duke of Medina-Celi, and the manner by which it fell into royal hands

is rather amusing, and was told me with great glee by my host at Cardona. Charles III., the only wise man in his family, as the Spaniards call him, hearing of the great value of the mountain, determined to get it into his own clutches; and for that purpose observed carelessly one day to the Duke of Medina-Celi, that he understood his salt possessions brought him in a large annual rent. "A mere trifle," replied the duke, who, like all Spaniards, wished to conceal his wealth, naming about one third of the actual amount. "If that is the case," rejoined the king, "I will give you double, and make as much more out of them as I can." To hear, in those despotic times, was to obey; and thus the Duke of Medina-Celi lost one of the fairest possessions of his powerful house: for, as may easily be imagined, from the proverbial good faith of a Bourbon, after the death of that king, the promised tribute was never paid, and they now belong entirely to the queen regent, who farms them out to a merchant at Barcelona.

"Spain," said Bowles (an Englishman by birth, but a Spaniard by adoption, who was employed by Charles III. to inspect and report on the then state of the mines), sixty or seventy years ago, "is, to the naturalist, a virgin land" (una tierra virgen); and such-in spite of her beautiful marbles, unrivalled by those of any country upon earth; her noble forests; her numerous mines; and splendidly plumaged-birds (among them the roller; the bee-eater, which I met with in May last, as common as swallows, along the banks of the Tagus, between Toledo and Aranjuez; the azure-winged jay, &c.), vying with the most magnificent species of the torrid zone, in brilliancy and variety of colouring-she has since continued, and appears still destined to remain. No one, indeed, in their senses, would naturalise in a country, where, in addition to the chance of being stripped naked, soundly bastinadoed, and left tied to a tree all night (for such is the mode of punishment inflicted by those worthies, Spanish robbers, on any person who has the misfortune to fall into their clutches, and whose purse does not appear to them sufficiently well lined with dollars), a naturalist is subject to such barbarous treatment as I received, though my passport was perfectly regular, in January last, in the Catalonian Pyrenees. For four nights I slept in dungeons on straw; one of these nights with irons of the most barbarous description on my feet; for two days and a half I was marched through the country bound, like a robber or a cut-throat, hand and foot to my horse with cords; in company with my guide, who was treated in a similar manner; under a guard of twelve armed men, to Talarn, the capital of

the district, and the residence of the governor. All this was owing to a hot-headed captain of volunteers taking it into his mind that I must needs be one of the two foreigners he had shortly before (such at least was the excuse made for him by the authorities, when called to account for such extraordinary conduct by the British ambassador at Madrid) received orders to search for, arrest, and send under a strong escort to Talarn to be shot! The governor, after examining my passport, and asking me a great many questions, of course set me at liberty; but, on my expressing my indignation at the brutal treatment to which I had been subjected, he had the audacity to tell me that I had no right to complain, for Spaniards were every bit as free as Englishmen, and the same thing might have happened to himself, had he been travelling in England; and that, as I had stated my chief object, in wandering about the mountains, to be, to collect pieles and piedras (skins and stones), he really did not feel very much surprised at what had happened! Such an unknown species of biped is a naturalist in Spain. Sept. 27. 1834.

ART. VII. Facts and Considerations on the Strata of Mont Blanc ; and on some Instances of Twisted Strata observable in Switzerland; by J. R.: with Remarks thereon, by the Rev. W. B. CLARKE, A.M. F.G.S. &c.

THE granite ranges of Mont Blanc are as interesting to the geologist as they are to the painter. The granite is dark

and

red, often enclosing veins of quartz, crystallised compact, and likewise well-formed crystals of schorl. The average elevation of its range of peaks, which extends from Mont Blanc to the Tête Noire, is about 12,000 English feet above the level of the sea. [Its highest culminating point is 15,744

feet.] The Aiguille de Servoz (fig.70.), and that of Dru

(fig. 71.), are excellent examples of the pyramidal and splintery formation which these granite ranges in general

71

assume. They rise out of immense fields of snow; but, being themselves too steep for snow to rest upon, form red, bare, and inaccessible peaks, which even the chamois scarcely dares to climb. Their

sected, might appear as in fig. 72. a, Granite, forming on the one side (B) the Mont Blanc, on the other (c) the Mont Breven;

72

b, mica slate resting on the base of Mont Blanc, and which contains amianthus and quartz, in which capillary crystals of titanium occur; c, calcareous rock; d, alluvium, forming the Valley of Chamonix. I should have mentioned that the granite appears to contain a small quantity of gold, as that metal is found among the granite debris and siliceous sand of the river Arve [Bakewell, i. 375.]; and I have two or three specimens in which chlorite (both compact and in minute crystals) occupies the place of mica.-J. R. March, 1834.

[REMARKS, obligingly added by the Rev. W. B. Clarke, to whom we had submitted J. R.'s Notes.]

THE granites of the Mont Blanc have already been ably described by various geologists; as Saussure, De Luc, the writer in Ebel, Mr. Bakewell, &c. The latter author has given a coloured view of the Aiguille de Dru as a frontispiece to

vol. ii. of his Travels in the Tarentaise; and a description of the rocks, ii. 12. The granite is not always a "dark red," for the glaciers are strewed with blocks and fragments of differently coloured granites; and, among others, with the peculiar white granite from the summits of the Aiguilles and of the Mont Blanc, which are, perhaps, the most common. This granite is traceable by its character, and may be picked up at the edge of the ice on Montanvert, as well as all along the route of its transport, as far as the Jura. See Bakewell, vol. i. p. 375-6. * J. R.'s sketches give a good idea of the pyramidal forms of the aiguilles. There is a large lithographic plate of Mont Blanc, taken from Servoz, by Villeneuve, which is worth the purchasing, if it fall in the way of a collector. It gives the whole range from Chamonix, with the intermediate mountains, and the vale between it and Servoz.+ Mr. Charles Fellows, a fel

[This state of alpine strata has given rise to the two following comprehensive speculations. They scarcely consort enough with the present subject to be very fitly attached here; but they cannot fail to excite welcomely the imagination of the general reader. On this account we hope that neither Mr. Clarke nor J. R. will disapprove our attachment of them.

"Those naturalists who have seen the glaciers of Savoy, and who have beheld the prodigious magnitude of some fragments conveyed by them from the higher regions of Mont Blanc to the valleys below, to a distance of many leagues, will be prepared to appreciate the effects which a series of earthquakes might produce in this region, if the peaks, or needles' as they are called, of Mont Blanc were shaken as rudely as many parts of the Andes have been in our times."-Lyell's Principles of Geology,

vol. iii.

"The rapid change which is now going on in the greatest altitudes of Switzerland, points out to us the mode in which nature is operating by decomposition, and the attraction of gravitation. When standing on the borders of the Mer de Glace, and while crossing its frozen bosom, this operation was brought most forcibly to my mind. Every moment my ears were saluted with the sound, more or less distant, of rocks precipitated from some height into the abysses below, and which reverberated over this frozen sea. The time may come when the pinnacles of Mont Blanc and other mountains which surround the beautiful valley of Chamouni, will have been precipitated to their bases, and the debris be so completely carried off as to leave, perhaps, that beautiful and fertile spot itself, the highest pinnacle of the country, a naked rock to be gazed at from a dis tance." Lea's Contributions to Geology (Philadelphia, 1833), Introd.

p. 16, 17.]

The allusion to the Valley of Chamonix recalls to my mind that splendid and beautiful poem, upon which alone the lately deceased Mr. Coleridge might have rested his fame as one of the greatest of our modern bards. There is nothing, if we except Milton, in the whole range of English blank verse, at all comparable with the Hymn whence the following extract is made:

"Ye Ice falls! ye that from the mountain's brow

Adown enormous ravines slope amain

Torrents, methinks, that heard a mighty Voice,