The Opposite Side Of This Great Valley
Appears Like A Range Of Lofty Mountains, And The Descent Into It
About A Mile, Which, Measured Perpendicularly, May Be From A Thousand
To Twelve Hundred Feet.
Emerging from the gloomy forests of Londa,
this magnificent prospect made us all feel as if a weight had been lifted
off our eyelids.
A cloud was passing across the middle of the valley,
from which rolling thunder pealed, while above all was glorious sunlight;
and when we went down to the part where we saw it passing, we found
that a very heavy thunder-shower had fallen under the path of the cloud;
and the bottom of the valley, which from above seemed quite smooth,
we discovered to be intersected and furrowed by great numbers
of deep-cut streams. Looking back from below, the descent appears
as the edge of a table-land, with numerous indented dells and spurs
jutting out all along, giving it a serrated appearance.
Both the top and sides of the sierra are covered with trees,
but large patches of the more perpendicular parts are bare,
and exhibit the red soil, which is general over the region
we have now entered.
The hollow affords a section of this part of the country; and we find
that the uppermost stratum is the ferruginous conglomerate already mentioned.
The matrix is rust of iron (or hydrous peroxide of iron and hematite),
and in it are imbedded water-worn pebbles of sandstone and quartz.
As this is the rock underlying the soil of a large part of Londa,
its formation must have preceded the work of denudation by an arm of the sea,
which washed away the enormous mass of matter required
before the valley of Cassange could assume its present form.
The strata under the conglomerate are all of red clay shale
of different degrees of hardness, the most indurated being at the bottom.
This red clay shale is named "keele" in Scotland, and has always been
considered as an indication of gold; but the only thing we discovered
was that it had given rise to a very slippery clay soil, so different
from that which we had just left that Mashauana, who always prided himself
on being an adept at balancing himself in the canoe on water,
and so sure of foot on land that he could afford to express contempt
for any one less gifted, came down in a very sudden and undignified manner,
to the delight of all whom he had previously scolded for falling.
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