Not all
the garden scenery about Aubonne and Allaman (_ad Lemannum_), nor all
the vineyards which yield the choice white wine of the Cote, could
counterbalance the united discomfort of the rain, and the cold which
had got into the system in the two glacieres; and matters were not
mended by the discovery that _Bradshaw_ was treacherous, and that a
junction with dry baggage at Neufchatel could not be effected before
eleven at night.
There are some curious natural phenomena in this neighbourhood, due to
the subterranean courses which the fissured limestone of the Jura
affords to the meteoric waters. Not far from Biere, the river Aubonne
springs out at the bottom of an amphitheatre of rock, receiving
additions soon after from a group of twenty natural pits, which the
peasants call unfathomable--an epithet freely applied to the strange
holes found in the Jura. It is remarkable that the way seems to stand
at different levels in the various pits.[24] The plain of Champagne,
in which they occur, is unlike the surrounding soil in being formed of
calcareous detritus, evidently brought down by some means or other
from the Jura, and is dry and parched up to the very edges of the
pits.
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