CHAPTER IX
THE WOOD OF PAÏOLIVE
LE BOIS DE PAÏOLIVE is in repute among the inhabitants of the plain and its great cities as one of the wonders of the world, at least of that self-contained world of France, in which is everything, outside of which nothing. Païolive is Pagus Olivæ. Curious the wood is, but cannot compare with Mourèze or Montpellier le Vieux, which have characteristics in common with it. The characteristics are these. There is an extensive elevated platform of cretaceous limestone of very unequal consistency. The result of this inequality has been that the softer matter has been washed away, whether at the retreat of the Tertiary ocean, or whether by atmospheric degradation alone is uncertain, leaving the cores of greater resistance isolated, as turrets, obelisks, bridges. And these cores themselves containing soluble matter have been riddled in all directions by the rain that, resting on them for a moment, has been then absorbed, and has carried forth through every crevice what it was able to dissolve. But even the masses of hardest texture are so soft that
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