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304 A P P E A R A N C E OE T H E A U V E R G N A T S .
situated. I t was market day, and we met a
long train of carts with wood, each drawn
bv four oxen, coming to Clermont. The
road was so precipitous and winding, that
they seemed to be moving in different directions
as they descended, and we saw
them approaching us for nearly an hour
before they passed us on the road. The
dress and appearance of the mountaineers
who were conducting the carts, were very
striking ; with immense broad-brimmed
hats, long lank hair, gaunt features, and
striped cloth cloaks, that reached nearly
to their feet, they bore no resemblance to
Frenchmen, and they spoke a different language.
I believe they are the descendants
from the same race who resisted Cæsar, for
whatever changes may have taken place in
other parts of France, none of the warlike
hordes who ravaged the more fertile parts
of the country in succeeding ages, would
have wished to take possession of the sterile
mountains of Auvergne, or to undertake
the task of driving out the original inhabitants.
I was much surprised, in entering
some of the houses, to observe that the
lamps, water pots, and other earthen-ware
vessels were of the same form as the Ftrusi
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C U R R E N T S O P L A V A . 305
can vessels from Herculaneum, and are
doubtless made after models transmitted
from very remote antiquity, as vessels of
these forms are not common in any other
parts of France that I have visited. The
music of the Auvergnats is the bagpipe. In
a history of Auvergne which I met with at
Clermont,! found that some of the strongest
castles in the country were at one period in
possession of the Fnglish.
In ascending we passed various volcanic
rocks, and before we arrived at the little
hamlet, called la Barraque, we saw part of
the great current of lava from the Puy de
Pariou. The road made a section through
it, but I suspect it is here intermixed with
more ancient lavas. Some men were getting
stone by the road side, and had opened
a bed of basalt, which was divided into
regular columns ; it contained a great quantity
of olivine in nodules, which had a granular
structure: it is what the French call
peridot granuliforme. The basalt was in
some parts compact, in others cellular;
passing by gradation into scoriaceous lava.
The columnar basalt, I found was divided
by seams, cutting each column at
right angles to the axis, into thin plates.
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