Fig. 33.
Angles with the horizon x y.
a f 56°
a e 12¾
e b(from point to point)44½
b c( ditto, ditto )67¼
c d(overhanging)79°
a x(irrespective of irregularities)56
a y 38¾

§ 12. I say "perfectly horizontal," meaning, of course, in general tendency. It is more or less irregular and broken, but so nearly horizontal that, after some prolonged examination of the data I have collected about the Matterhorn, I am at this moment in doubt which is its top. For as, in order to examine the beds on its flanks, I walked up the Zmutt glacier, I saw that the line a b in [Fig. 31] gradually lost its steepness; and about half-way up the glacier, the conjectural summit a then bearing nearly S. E. (forty degrees east of south), I found the contour was as in [Fig. 32]. In [Fig. 33], I have given the contour as seen from Zermatt; and in all three, the same letters indicate the same points. In the Figures 32 and 33 I measured the angles with the greatest care,[61] from the base lines x y, which are accurately horizontal; and their general truth, irrespective of mere ruggedness, may be depended upon. Now in this flank view, [Fig. 32], what was the summit at Zermatt, a, becomes quite subordinate, and the point b, far down the flank in Forbes's view taken from the Riffelhorn, is here the apparent summit. I was for some time in considerable doubt which of the appearances was most trustworthy; and believe now that they are both deceptive; for I found, on ascending the flank of the hills on the other side of the Valais, to a height of about five thousand feet above Brieg, between the Aletsch glacier and Bietsch-horn; being thus high enough to get a view of the Matterhorn on something like distant terms of equality, up the St. Nicholas valley, it presented itself under the outline [Fig. 34], which seems to be conclusive for the supremacy of the point e, between a and b in [Fig. 33]. But the impossibility of determining, at the foot of it, without a trigonometrical observation, which is the top of such an apparent peak as the Matterhorn, may serve to show the reader how little the eye is to be trusted for the verification of peaked outline.

Fig. 34.

§ 13. In like manner, the aiguilles of Chamouni, which present themselves to the traveller, as he looks up to them from the village, under an outline approximating to that rudely indicated at C in the next figure, are in reality buttresses projecting from an intermediate ridge. Let A be supposed to be a castle wall, with slightly elevated masses of square-built buttresses at intervals. Then, by a process of dilapidation, these buttresses might easily be brought to assume in their perspective of ruin the forms indicated at B, which, with certain modifications, is the actual shape of the Chamouni aiguilles. The top of the Aiguille Charmoz is not the point under d, but that under e. The deception is much increased by the elevation of the whole castle wall on the green bank before spoken of, which raises its foundation several thousand feet above the eye, and thus, giving amazing steepness to all the perspective lines, produces an impression of the utmost possible isolation of peaks, where, in reality, there is a well-supported, and more or less continuous, though sharply jagged, pile of solid walls.

Fig. 35.

§ 14. There is, however, this great difference between the castle wall and aiguilles, that the dilapidation in the one would take place by the fall of horizontal bricks or stones; in the aiguilles it takes place in quite an opposite manner by the flaking away of nearly vertical ones.

This is the next point of great interest respecting them. Observe, the object of their construction appears to be the attainment of the utmost possible peakedness in aspect, with the least possible danger to the inhabitants of the valleys. As, therefore, they are first thrown into transverse ridges, which take, in perspective, a more or less peaked outline, so, in their dilapidation, they split into narrow flakes, which, if seen edgeways, look as sharp as a lance-point, but are nevertheless still strong; being each of them, in reality, not a lance-point or needle, but a hatchet edge.

§ 15. And since if these sharp flakes broke straight across the masses of mountain, when once the fissure took place, all hold would be lost between flake and flake, it is ordered (and herein is the most notable thing in the whole matter) that they shall not break straight, but in curves, round the body of the aiguilles, somewhat in the manner of the coats of an onion; so that, even after fissure has taken place, the detached film or flake clings to and leans upon the central mass, and will not fall from it till centuries of piercing frost have wedged it utterly from its hold; and, even then, will not fall all at once, but drop to pieces slowly, and flake by flake. Consider a little the beneficence of this ordinance;[62] supposing the cliffs had been built like the castle wall, the mouldering away of a few bricks, more or less, at the bottom would have brought down huge masses above, as it constantly does in ruins, and in the mouldering cliffs of the slaty coherents; while yet the top of the mountain would have been always blunt and rounded, as at a, [Fig. 36], when seen against the sky. But the aiguille being built in these nearly vertical curved flakes, the worst that the frost can do to it is to push its undermost rocks asunder into forms such as at b, of which, when many of the edges have fallen, the lower ones are more or less supported by the very débris accumulated at their feet; and yet all the while the tops sustain themselves in the most fantastic and incredible fineness of peak against the sky.

J. Ruskin.J. C. Armytage.
31. The Aiguille Blaitière.
Fig. 36.