Page:Transactions of the Provincial Medical and Surgical Association, volume 2.djvu/75

 blocks of granite strewn over many of the cultivated fields; the low, round-backed naked hills, always near and always in view; the rude and mean aspect of the cottages; and, above all, the devastation occasioned by the operations of mining. This art, more than any other, tends to destroy the natural beauties of a country, inasmuch as it at once annihilates the whole of the vegetable productions near its operations; and, by covering large tracts with heaps of stones and rubbish from the bowels of the earth, superadds features which are not only ugly and disagreeable in themselves, but which become still more destructive of the charm of scenery, by suggesting ideas of vulgar ruin and desolation. As partly compensating for this cheerless aspect of the general surface, it is but justice to this interesting district to state, that some parts of it─indeed of small extent─more especially the vicinity of its capital, Penzance, are extremely beautiful, rich, and well-wooded, while almost the whole of its sea-views and cliff-scenery are unrivalled in magnificence and picturesqueness.

Alluvial soil and surface.─On the hills and higher grounds in this district, the alluvial deposits, as might be expected, are extremely scanty or altogether wanting; but in the low-grounds and vallies, the deposition is often very abundant.

The nature of this covering varies, generally speaking, with the subjacent rock; being on the killas or slate districts, of a soft clayey character, with a trifling intermixture of small rolled fragments of the strata beneath; and in the granite districts, of a looser and more sandy character, with a large intermixture of rolled masses of granite, often of