extended over all the reſt of the mountains, which ſeemed to form ſo many gradations, that muſt firſt be ſurmounted before we can arrive at this commanding eminence.
At the place called La Ramblette, ſituated on the north-eaſt ſide of the peak, our curioſity was excited by ſome clefts made in the rock, a few of which were three inches wide; the reſt were merely cracks, from which iſſued an aqueous vapour that had no ſmell, although the ſides of the chinks were covered with cryſtals of ſulphur, ſhooting out from a very white earth, which appeared to be of an argillaceous nature.
A mercurial thermometer being introduced into one of the clefts, the quickſilver roſe, in the ſpace of a minute, to 43° above 0 of Reaumur's ſcale. In ſeveral of the others it did not riſe higher than 30°.
We were now engaged in the moſt toilſome part of our journey, the acclivity of the peak being exceedingly ſteep. When we had ſurmounted about a third part of the aſcent, I made a hole about three inches deep into the earth, from whence an aqueous inodorous vapour iſſued, and though the heat of the ſurface of the earth was not greater than it uſually is at an equal elevation, upon plunging a thermometer into it the mercury roſe to 51° above 0.
