Fig. 32.—View in the Rhone Valley, showing the slope of a river cone.
The Rhone itself has not only filled up what was once the upper end of the lake, but has built out a strip of land into the water.
Fig. 33.—Shore of the Lake of Geneva, near Vevey.
That the lake formerly extended some distance up the Valais no one can doubt who looks at the flat ground about Villeneuve. The Plate opposite, from a photograph taken above Vevey, shows this clearly. It is quite evident that the lake must formerly have extended further up the valley, and that it has been filled up by material brought down by the Rhone, a process which is still continuing.
At the other end of the lake the river rushes out 15 feet deep of "not flowing, but flying water; not water neither—melted glacier matter, one should call it; the force of the ice is in it, and the wreathing of the clouds, the gladness of the sky, and the countenance of time."[51]
VIEW UP THE VALAIS FROM THE LAKE OF GENEVA. To face page 270.