I Was Interested By Finding On The Highest Peak Of One
Range (About 700 Feet Above The Sea) A Great Arched Fragment,
Lying On Its Convex Side, Or Back Downwards.
Must
we believe that it was fairly pitched up in the air, and thus
turned?
Or, with more probability, that there existed formerly
a part of the same range more elevated than the point
on which this monument of a great convulsion of nature now
lies. As the fragments in the valleys are neither rounded
nor the crevices filled up with sand, we must infer that the
period of violence was subsequent to the land having been
raised above the waters of the sea. In a transverse section
within these valleys, the bottom is nearly level, or rises but
very little towards either side. Hence the fragments appear
to have travelled from the head of the valley; but in reality
it seems more probable that they have been hurled down from
the nearest slopes; and that since, by a vibratory movement
of overwhelming force, [9] the fragments have been levelled
into one continuous sheet. If during the earthquake [10] which
in 1835 overthrew Concepcion, in Chile, it was thought wonderful
that small bodies should have been pitched a few
inches from the ground, what must we say to a movement
which has caused fragments many tons in weight, to move
onwards like so much sand on a vibrating board, and find
their level? I have seen, in the Cordillera of the Andes, the
evident marks where stupendous mountains have been broken
into pieces like so much thin crust, and the strata thrown of
their vertical edges; but never did any scene, like these
"streams of stones," so forcibly convey to my mind the idea
of a convulsion, of which in historical records we might in
vain seek for any counterpart:
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