Concentrations of dissolved (conductivity, Ca, Mg, K, SIO2, P and N-NO3) and suspended solids were studied in the flow of a small basin lying on schist and covered by alpine grassland. Most solutes are diluted during the two-month period of intense snow melting (April-June). Levels rise in lowflow summer and fall in the rainy autumn, to increase again in winter. In the melting-season the flow is organised in daily pulses during which most solutes dilute with the rise of flow. In late summer, small rains provoke rapid changes in the concentrations of base-flow, lowering conductivity, Ca, Mg, SIO2 but rising K, P and N-NO3. Suspended solids rise during the melting, but undergo higher increases in October, an unusually rainy month (700 mm) in 1987. They respond positively to the daily increments of melting flow, and the maximum value registered was caused by a small storm.