So Large Were The Fragments,
That Being Overtaken By A Shower Of Rain, I Readily Found
Shelter Beneath One Of Them.
Their little inclination is the most remarkable circumstance
in these "streams of stones." On the hill-sides I have
Seen them sloping at an angle of ten degrees with the horizon;
but in some of the level, broad-bottomed valleys, the
inclination is only just sufficient to be clearly perceived.
On so rugged a surface there was no means of measuring the
angle, but to give a common illustration, I may say that the
slope would not have checked the speed of an English mail-coach.
In some places, a continuous stream of these fragments
followed up the course of a valley, and even
extended to the very crest of the hill. On these crests huge
masses, exceeding in dimensions any small building, seemed
to stand arrested in their headlong course: there, also, the
curved strata of the archways lay piled on each other, like
the ruins of some vast and ancient cathedral. In endeavouring
to describe these scenes of violence one is tempted to pass
from one simile to another. We may imagine that streams
of white lava had flowed from many parts of the mountains
into the lower country, and that when solidified they had been
rent by some enormous convulsion into myriads of fragments.
The expression "streams of stones," which immediately
occurred to every one, conveys the same idea. These
scenes are on the spot rendered more striking by the contrast
of the low rounded forms of the neighbouring hills.
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