“Few phenomena gave me more delight than to observe the forms which thawing sand and clay assume in flowing down the sides of a deep cut on the railroad through which I passed on my way to the village, a phenomenon not very common on so large a scale....When the frost comes out in the spring, and even in a thawing day in the winter, thesand begins to flow down the slopes like lava, sometimes bursting out through the snow and overflowing it where no sand was to be seenbefore. Innumerable little streams overlap and interlace one with another, exhibiting asort of hybrid product, whichobeys half way the law of currents, and half way that ofvegetation. As it flows it takesthe forms of sappy leaves or vines, making heaps of pulpy sprays a foot or more in depth, and resembling, as youlook down on them, the lacinated, lobed, and imbricated thalluses of some lichens; or you are reminded of coral, of leopard's paws or birds' feet, of brains or lungs or bowels, and excrements of all kinds. It is a truly grotesque vegetation.”
