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desirous of icaclimg, I ventured to try my experiments, whicli I found to bs nearly tlic
same as those made by monsieur de Saussure, some time prior to mine ; tlrat is, the heat
at the bottom of the pit, which was sixty-three degrees and a half above 0, by Fahrenheit's
thermometer, surpassed that of the medium temperature at the stirface, all
round the globe, by about seven degrees and a half,—a circumstance which would
astonish, or appear singular, were it not known that this part of the Alps contains vast
quantities of pyrites, or sulphat of iron. As for the structure or arrangement of the
mountain itself, it may be considered as circumstanced pretty nearly as follows i -
First, that the summit, or external surface, is of gypsum, the most predominant colour of
which seems to be greyish, though there are some white, and others inclining to red,
but in general without much coherency; the red is likewise intermixed with a species
of marly earth, which crosses, in every direction, in wide veins or streaks. Under the
gypsum, also, lies a kind of soft or tender sand-stone, striated with gypsum, sand, and
argil i and though this species of stone cannot be considered as very hard, yet does it
not admit the water to penetrate, or filter through, on account of the argil. And,
lastly, I consider the nucleus of the mountain to be formed of a kind of argillaceous
earth, contaming iron, mica, and some particles of gypsum,—its colour being a greyish
black, inclining to blue. It is out of the nucleus that the saline springs take their
source ; and in the interstices of that kind of stone are found the pieces of crystallised
salt, or gemma;, which the people of the country offer to travelers.
From Aigle to Bex, which may be about four English miles, the high road continues
the whole way along the bottom of the valley. The mountains which skirt it on both
sides are in genera! calcareous, though their bases are, for the most part, covered by
hills of gypsum. Before arriving at Bex, I visited the church of Ollon, purposely to see
a column, or kind of Roman mile-stone, which has the following inscription : " CL.-^Un
i i VALLENSEUM OcTODtrRUM," with the Roman cipher " xvii," which is the
exact distance, reckoning by miles, from Martignie to that village. I likewise passed
by the singular and extraordinary hills of Champigny and Triphon, which may truly he
deemed such, from their extreme elevation, and their standing isolated, as it were, in the
centre of a plain, which in that part literally forms the bottom of the Valley of the
Rhône, as also from the circumstance of having nearly the whole of their mass formed
of a hard calcareous stone, similar to the kind which forms the nuclei of the Jur a and
the Saleve, and, like those, equally without fossils. 1 however discovered, on the side of