I!
This rock or mountain, which seems to be of the compound order, containing
quartz, mica, and horn-stone, is wooded to the summit, and has even some good meadow
iand on it.
As the road approaches nearer to St. Branchier, a village seven miles from Martignie,
I perceived that I was imperceptibly getting farther into the Alps; for the mountains
became more stupendous, the air considerably rarer than in the plain, and the goitrous
appearances much less frequent; and, in f5ne, I had already arrived at the zone where
vines cannot grow. Nearly opposite stood lofty and majestic spiry rocks, in the shape
of needles, serving as supports to the mountain, which contains, and in that part
conceals, the great glacier of Triant ; whiie, on my left, a range of hills, formed of fragments
belonging to the primitive mountains, presented themselves to view. This circumstance
did nol surprise me, because the village of St. Branchier is seated at the
junction of the extensive valleys of Bagnes and Entremont, and I have invariably remarked
the same singularity in every part of the Alps,—it being a constant rule, that,
at the junction of one or more valleys, hills of similar composition to the above afe
invariably to be found in their vicinity. This last village may be computed at fifteen
hundred and eighty-five feet and a half above the level of the sea, and Martignie
only four hundred and fifty-seven and three-quarters,—a difference which not
only is extremely perceptible with regard to climate, but wonderfully influences the
inhabitants themselves, who are infinitely more lively, affable, and good-humoured,
than those of the latter, and answer more to the character given of the Vallaisans by
Jean Jaques Rousseau.
On quitting St. Branchier, the ascent begins to be rapid, and the stones are so
placed, in several spots, as to resemble a flight of steps, which, for "the space of a
couple of miles, is difficult and fatiguing, but afterwards becomes less inclined. The
mountains, both on the right and left, vary in a remarkable manner, during that short
distance, in colour and species, though the greater part are calcareous and lamellated,
mixed with particles of mica, very like the calcareous particulis scintiUantibus of
Wallerius, spec. 42. In the neighbourhood of Orsi^re, a considerable village three
miles from the former, the road is less rapid and more regular, and the valley in such a
state of cultivation, as not to appear arid and unpleasant, though totally wedged within
the midst of a stupendous pile of mountains. Its situation does not, however, admit of
the culture of walnut-trees, which even begin to be less abundant at some distance
prior to reaching this village. It is certain that its height is considerable, and may be
computed at two thousand eight hundred artd nine feet and a half above the level of
the sea, or three hundred and ninety-two more elevated than St. Branchier.
At nearly midway between the above-mentioned villages, I passed, on my right, the
road which leads across the Col du Ferret (another formidable pass) to Courmayeur, a
town situate in the valley of Aosta, which in that part continues along a narrow valley
that tends in a direction from east to west. This valley, as well as the bed or channel
of the Drance, is filled with immense pieces of granite, and different species of compound
rock, having their angles rounded, and many of their surfaces very much polished,—
a circumstance the more remarkable, as there does not exist a single mountain
of granite in the environs, not even the Great St. Bernard itself, which is of a different
species of rock, but which has nevertheless so far influenced monsieur de Saussure, by
the extreme analogy in the composition and structure of those same masses with those
in the environs of Martignie, and the granites which form the Col du Ferret, as to
induce me to believe that they may be considered as owing their origin totally to fragments
detached from that same Col, and that the narrow vaJley might be presumed to
have been the road through which they were hurled from its summit at the last retreat
of the sea. These suppositions certainly appear very probable, when it is considered that
on the other side of Orsiere those immense pieces of rock become less conspicuous, and
above the village of Lides not any are to be met with. In the vicinity of the former,
the lateral mountains again change, and appear to be nearly all composed of a lamellated
calcareous stone, more or less mixed with mica, and strata nearly parallel. The
valley here contracts considerably, and in many parts the road shelves, as it were, over
the Drance, to a terrific height,—so that the traveler, who is unaccustomed to such
scenes, must doubtless be filled with a mktur e of terror and surprise, while following
the different mjeanderings, formed at an immense depth, and almost perpendicular, in
the main rock, by the impetuosity of its current.
After six miles successive ascent from Orsiere, stands Lides, a village much pleasanter
than could be expected, from being absolutely seated between two ranges or piles
of mountains, the most stupendous I ever met with, but which, from having their sides
cultivated (producing not only corn, but vegetables, for the inhabitants, and meadows
for their cattle), have really a beautiful effect. Nearly contiguous to this village I
remarked a species of lapis allaris or apyrus, resembling the lapis colubrinus, the melri