into which we again entered on going down, and found precisely in the same state as when we started.” It is not uncommon to observe an effect quite contrary to the one given in the last two examples, the high summits of mountains being frequently concealed by heavy clouds of mist, while at a very short distance below them the air is clear and pure. In ascending to the Port of Venasque, one of the mountain passes of the Pyrenees, Mr. Murray found the mists so dense that he despaired of getting above them, or of their clearing away. But fortunately the wind freshened, and the mist, broken by it, “came sweeping,” he says, “over our heads, sometimes enveloping us in darkness, sometimes exposing the blue sky, and a part of the mountains. Section after section of the bald and towering masses which rose above the path were displayed to us, one after another, as if the whole had been a sight too great for us to look upon. Sometimes the clouds opened, and the snows, sparkling in the sun-beams, were before us; at others, an enormous peak of the mountain would shoot its dark head through the mist, and, without visible support, seem as if it were about to fall upon us. Again, when we imagined ourselves hemmed in on all sides by the mountains, and within a few feet of their rugged sides, a passing breeze would disclose the dark waters of the lakes hundreds of feet beneath us. “Thus the effect of light and darkness, of sunshine and of mist, working upon materials of such grandeur as those near the Port of Venasque, was a sight well worthy of admiration, and one which is rarely to be seen. * * * * Excepting the intervals of light which the gusts of wind, by dispersing the mists, had bestowed upon us, we had hitherto, comparatively speaking, been shrouded in darkness, particularly for the ten minutes preceding our arrival at the Port: my astonishment may therefore be imagined when, the instant that I stepped beyond the limits of the Port, I stood in the purest atmosphere—not a particle of mist, not even a cloud, was perceptible. The phenomenon was curious, and its interest greatly heightened from the situation in which it took place. The mist rolling up the valley through which we had passed, was, the moment that it could be said to reach the Spanish frontier,—the moment it encircled the edges of the high ridges which separated the countries, thrown back, as it were, indignantly, by a counter current from the Spanish side. The conflicting currents of air, seemingly of equal strength, and unable to overcome each other, carried the mist perpendicularly from the summits of the ridge, and filling up the crevices and fissures in its uneven surface, formed a wall many thousand feet above it, of dark and (from the appearance of solidity which its massive and perpendicular character bestowed upon it) apparently impenetrable matter.”