351. One of the largest blocks of granite that we know of, is on the east side of the lake of Geneva, called _Pierre de Gouté_, about ten feet in height, with a horizontal section of fifteen by twenty.[176] Another block not far from it, and nearly of the same size, has some remains of schistus attached to it. These stones very much resemble those which have fallen from the _Aiguilles_, in the valley of Chamouni. The distance from their present situation to those _Aiguilles_ is about thirty English miles, with many mountains and valleys at present interposed. By whatever means, therefore, these blocks were transported, their motion must have been over a surface of much more uniform declivity than the present. If the surface was without great inequalities, and its general declivity about one foot in thirty, as already computed, the glaciers, in the first place, and the torrents afterwards, may have served for the transportation even of these rocks. [Footnote 176: Voyages aux Alpes, tom. i. § 308.] 352. Again, in the narrow vale or glen which separates the Great from the Little Saleve, the strata are all calcareous, but a great number of loose blocks of granite and primary schistus are scattered over the surface. A block of the former, near the lower end of the valley, is about the size of 1200 cubic feet. Two other large blocks of the same kind of stone rest on a base of horizontal limestone, elevated two or three feet above the rest of the surface. This elevation arises no doubt from the protection which the stones have afforded to the calcareous beds on which they lie, so that these beds do not wear away so fast as those which are fully exposed to the weather. But it is surely to take a very limited view of the operations on the surface, to suppose, with Saussure, that the parts of the calcareous rock under these stones has suffered no waste whatsoever, so that the stones remain now in the identical spot where they were placed by the great _debacle_ which brought them down from the high Alps.[177] For my part, I have no doubt that the Arve, which is still at no great distance, when it ran on a higher level, and in a line different from the present, aided by the glaciers and superior elevation of the mountains, was an engine sufficiently powerful for effecting the transportation of these stones. [Footnote 177: _Ibid._ § 227.] 353. These phenomena are not peculiar to the Alps, but prevail, in a greater or less degree, in the vicinity of all primary or granite mountains. In the island of Arran, a fragment of the same kind with that which constitutes the upper part of Goatfield, is found on the sea shore, at least three miles from the nearest granite rock, and with a bay of the sea intervening. Its dimensions are not far from those of the _pierre de gouté_. In some former state of the granitic mountains in that island, the declivity from the top of Goatfield may have been very uniform, and more rapid than it is at present.