snow-capped mountains. I call the country
on the south of the river a plain, for so
it appears, when compared with the chain
of the Alps which bounds it ; but this
plain is in reality diversified with numerous
cultivated hills of considerable elevation. As
far as I could judge at that distance, these
hills, which range near the southern side
of the river, rise to the height of four or
five hundred feet. They are principally
composed of the débris of rocks and alluvial
soil, brought down from the Alps.
The Isere flows along a very broad bed,
surrounding numerous small islands in its
course. Near Fretterive, about ten miles below
Conflans, it receives the river Arc, from
the valley of the Maurienne ; and the Isere
now contains all the waters that flow northward
or westward, from the west of Mount
Joli and the Col de Bon Homme, the little
St. Bernard, Mount Iseran, Mount Cenis,
and the mountains west of the Maurienne,
along a waving line of one hundred and
twenty miles, comprising all the higher
Alps in the south of Savoy. It may easily
be conceived, that the numerous streams
and torrents from such an extensive range
ôf mountains, swelled by the melting of the
r
snows, and united in one channel, would
occasion, at times, vast inundations. These
inundations have brought down immense
quantities of stones, which have covered
great part of the valley on each side of the
river. Thus more than thirty thousand acres
of the richest land have been rendered entirely
barren and useless, between Conflans
and Montmellian. The Sardinian government
has long had it in contemplation to
restrain these inundations by strong embankments
; but I am inclined to believe,
that, by widening and deepening the channels
between some of the islands and shallows
in the bed of the river, the ravage
of these inundations would be more effectually
checked, and at a much less
expence.*
* Excepting at the times of great inundations, the
Isere is a much smaller river than might be expected.
When standing on the bridge at Montmellian, we may
see all the waters of the south of Savoy, comprising an
extent of 2000 square miles of the highest Alpine land
of Europe, pass under our feet, in a stream not broader
than the Thames at Richmond. If this fact were not
sufficient to make us doubt the truth of the generally-
received opinion, that lofty mountains are essential to
the formation of large rivers, we may also instance the
Rhone as it enters France at the Fort d’Ecluse. After
receiving all the waters from the Haut Vallois, bounded
H 4