c est perce;' in
effect, a hole was now distinctly visible in the cup which turned
the stream, through which the water whizzed as from a burst pipe.
The cascade, however, continued to increase, until this new channel
was concealed, and I was maintaining to Coutet that he must have
been mistaken (and that the water only _struck_ on the outer rock,
having changed its mode of fall above), when again it fell; and the
two girls, who had come up from the chalet, expressed their opinion
at once, that the 'cascade est finie.' This time all was plain; the
water gushed in a violent jet d'eau through the new aperture, hardly
any of it escaping above. It rose again gradually, as the hole was
choked with stones, and again fell; but presently sprang out almost
to its first elevation (the water being by this time in much less
body), and retained very nearly the form it had yesterday, until I
got tired of looking at it, and went down to the little chalet, and
sat down before its door. I had not been there five minutes before
the cascade fell, and rose no more."

[92] It might be thought at first that the line to which such curves
would approximate would be the cycloid, as the line of quickest
descent. But in reality the contour is modified by perpetual sliding
of the debris under the influence of rain; and by the bounding of
detached fragments with continually increased momentum. I was quite
unable to get at anything like the expression of a constant law
among the examples I studied in the Alps, except only the great laws
of delicacy and changefulness in all curves whatsoever.

[93] I owe Mr. Le Keux sincere thanks, and not a little admiration,
for the care and skill with which he has followed, on a much reduced
scale, the detail of this drawing.

[94] Allow ten feet square for average space to each pine; suppose
the valley seen only for five miles of its length, and the pine
district two miles broad on each side--a low estimate of breadth
also: this would give five millions.

[95] The white spots on the brow of the little cliff are lichens,
only four or five inches broad.

[96] What a _comfortable_, as well as intelligent, operation,
sketching from nature must have been in those days!

[97] It is not one of the highest points of the Carrara chain. The
chief summits are much more jagged, and very