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It will also be noticed that the amount of debris is small, and that it consists principally of rounded river bowlders.
"The perched bowlders which are found in the Alpine valleys, at considerable distances from the glaciers, occupy at times positions so extraordinary that they excite in a high degree the curiosity of those who see them.
They were charging down upon us, and with a general and frightful war-whoop they began firing. We deployed as skirmishers. The men fired by volleys, sheltering themselves behind bowlders, logs, and ridges. Instantly, at the head of the mounted column, there was an emptying of saddles. The onset was suddenly checked, and the Indians broke into two divisions.
It descended quite gradually from the edge of the bank, so that he gained a partial view of the rocks and bowlders upon the opposite side. Some of the trees growing in the narrow valley rose to such a height that one-half or two-thirds of them were exposed to view.
Muir, also, in his Studies in the Sierra, gives many examples of undoubted rock-breaking by ancient glaciers. Angular blocks are mostly, therefore, the ruins of crumbling cliffs, borne on the surface of the glacier and deposited at its foot. Many rounded bowlders also have a similar origin, having found their way to the bed of the glacier through crevasses, or along the sides of the glacier.
It will be noticed that the masonry was composed of river bowlders not dressed or prepared in any way, and that the débris on the ground would raise the walls scarcely to the height of a single low story.
The midday glow of the sun burned down upon the yellowish gray wall of cliff into which the promenade of Nervi is hewn, and which slopes down to the sea in a zigzag of towering bowlders. Upon the blue mirror of the sea sparkled a silvery meshwork of sunbeams.
"The extraordinary phenomenon of perched stones could not escape the observing eye of De Saussure, who noticed several at Saleve, of which he described the positions in the following manner: 'One sees, said he, 'upon the slope of an inclined meadow, two of these great bowlders of granite, elevated one upon the other, above the grass at a height of two or three feet, upon a base of limestone rock on which both rest.
"Go," he said; "don't lose an instant; they are not on that side; you can slip off without being seen." The youth saw the force of the words. Crouching as low as possible, with the Sioux rifle in his hand, he passed between the bowlders opposite to the point at which Tim had fired, and which, therefore, was in the direction of the open prairie.
Stetsons were pursuing the men who were after him, but he could not join them. The Lewallens were scattered everywhere between him and his own man, and a descent might lead him to the muzzle of an enemy's Winchester. So he climbed over a ledge of rock and lay there, peeping through a crevice between two bowlders, gaining his breath. The firing was far below him now, and was sharp.
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