T H E     D E T U N A T E L E

     From Bucium-Sasa or Bucium-Poieni, one may walk over the hills to Detunata Goala and Detunata Flocoasa, two basaltic rocks rising on the hill, amid fertile vegetation. According to the geologist Von Hauer, these regularly-formed columns belong "incontestably to the most beautiful formations of the sort in western Europe."

     The stone, of which the rock is formed, was forced up here, at some remote period of the earth's existence, in a fluid lava state, and formed, in cooling, into regular columns. On one side of the rock they have taken a pleasing curved form. The colour of the stone is dark grey, in some places black. Below is a pile of the fragments which fall from time to time with a loud noise, whence, it is said, the name of the rock, which means literally, "The thunder-stricken one."