rible combustions of nature which produced it, fuch a spot would be chofen for fecurity and defence. To have given one's name to a caftle, without any lofty pre-eminence or fingularity of nature, in the midft, for instance, of a rich plain, is not equally flattering to our feelings: all antiquity of family is derived from ages of great barbarism, when civil commotions and wars fwept away and confounded the inhabitants of fuch fituations. The Bretons of the plains of England were driven to Bretagne; but the fame people, in the mountains of Wales, ftuck fecure, and remain there to this day. About a gun-fhot from Polignac is another rock, nci fo large, but equally remarkable; and in the town of Le Puy, another commanding one rifes to a vaft height; with another more fingular for its tower-like form-on the top of which St. Michael's church is built. Gypfum and lime-ftone abound; and the whole country is volcanic; the very meadows are on lava: every thing, in a word, is either the product of fire, or has been disturbed or toffed about by it. At Le Puy, fair day, and a table d'hôte, with ignorance, as ufual. Many coffee-houses, and even confiderable ones, but not a fingle newspaper to be found in any.-15 miles.

The 18th. Leaving Puy, the hill which the road mounts on the way to Cofterous, for four or five miles, commands a view of the town far more picturesque than that of Clermont. The mountain, covered with its conical town, crowned by a vast rock, with thofe of St. Michael and of Polignac, form a molt fingular fcene. The road is a noble one, formed of lava and pozzolana. The adjacent declivities have a strong dif pofition to run into bafaltic pentagons and fexagons, the ftones put up in the road, by way of pofts, are parts of bafaltic columns. The inn at Pradelles, kept by three filters, Pichots, is one of the worst I have met with in France. Contraction, poverty, dirt, and darknefs.-20 miles.

The oth. To Thuytz; pine woods abound; there are faw-mills, and with ratchet wheels to bring the tree to the faw, without the conftant attention of a.man, as in the Pyrenees a great improvement. Pafs by a new and beautiful road, along the fide of immenfe mountains of granite; chefnut trees ipread in every quarter, and cover with luxuriance of vegetation rocks apparently fo naked, that earth feems a ftranger. This beautiful tree is known to delight in volcanic foils and fituations: many are very large; I measured one fifteen feet in circumference, at five from the ground; and many are nine to ten feet, and fifty to fixty high. At Maiffe the fine road ends, and then a rocky, almoft natural one for fome miles; but for half a mile before Thuytz recover the new one again, which is here equal to the finest to be seen, formed of volcanic materials, forty feet broad, without the leaft ftone, a firm and naturally level cemented furface. They tell me that one thoufand eight hundred toifes of it, or about two and a half miles, coft 180,000 livres (8250l.) It conducts according to custom, to a miferable inn, but with a large ftable; and in every refpect Monfieur Grenadier excels the Demoifelles Pichots. Here mulberries first appear, and with them flies; for this is the first day I have been incommoded. At Thuytz I had an object which I fuppofed would demand a whole day: it is within four hours ride of the Montagne de la coup au Colet d'Aifa, of which M. Faujas de St. Fond has given a plate, in his Researches fur les volcanoes eteints, that fhews it to be a remarkable ob. ject: I began to make enquiries, and arrangements for having a mule and a guide to thither the next morning; the man and his wife attended me at dinner, and did not feem, from the difficulties they raised at every moment, to approve my plan: having asked them fome questions about the price of provifions, and other things, I fuppofe they regarded me with fufpicious eyes, and thought that I had no good intentions. I defired however to have the mule-fome difficulties were made-I muft

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