y geological outlines aside, and take up Turner's vignette of the Alps
at Daybreak. After what has been said, a single glance at it will be
enough. Observe the exquisite decision with which the edge of the
uppermost plank of the great peak is indicated by its clear dark side
and sharp shadow; then the rise of the second low ridge on its side,
only to descend again precisely in the same line; the two fissures of
this peak, one pointing to its summit, the other rigidly parallel to the
great slope which descends towards the sun; then the sharp white
_aiguille_ on the right, with the great fissure from its summit, rigidly
and severely square, as marked below, where another edge of rock is laid
upon it. But this is not all; the black rock in the foreground is
equally a member of the mass, its chief slope parallel with that of the
mountain, and all its fissures and lines inclined in the same direction;
and, to complete the mass of evidence more forcibly still, we have the
dark mass on the left articulated with absolute right lines, as parallel
as if they had been drawn with a ruler, indicating the tops of two of
these huge plates or planks, pointing, with the universal tendency, to
the great ridge, and intersected by fissures parallel to it. Throughout
the extent of mountain, not one horizontal line, nor an approach to it,
is discernible. This cannot be chance--it cannot be composition--it may
not be beautiful--perhaps nature is very wrong to be so parallel, and
very disagreeable in being so straight;--but this _is_ nature, whether
we admire it or not.

Sec. 5. Vignette of the Andes and others.

In the vignette illustration to Jacqueline, we have another series of
peaks, whose structure is less developed, owing to their distance, but
equally clear and faithful in all points, as far as it is given. But the
vignette of Aosta, in Italy, is perhaps more striking than any that
could be named for its rendering of the perfect parallelism of the lower
and smaller peaks with the great lines of the mass they compose; and
that of the Andes, the second in Campbell, for its indication of the
multitudes of the vertical and plank-like beds arranged almost like the
leaves of a flower. This last especially, one of the very noblest, most
faithful, most scientific statements of mountain form which even Turner
has ever made, can leave little more to be said or doubted.

Sec. 6. Necessary distance, and consequent aerial effect on all such