consistence of a paste, more or less dry; in some
places brittle, and breaking, like a cake, fairly across; in others
moist and tough, and tearing like dough, or bending like hot iron; and,
in others, crushed and shivering into dust, like unannealed glass. And
in these various states they are either bent or broken, or shivered, as
the case may be, into fragments of various shapes, which are usually
tossed one on top of another, as above described; but, of course, under
such circumstances, presenting, not the uniform edges of the books, but
jagged edges, as in Fig. 9.

[Illustration: FIG. 10.]

Sec. 12. Do not let it be said that I am passing my prescribed limits, and
that I have tried to enter the clouds, and am describing operations
which have never been witnessed. I describe facts or semblances, not
operations. I say "_seem_ to have been," not "have been." I say "_are_
bent;" I do not say "_have been_ bent." Most travellers must remember
the entrance to the valley of Cluse, from the plain of Bonneville, on
the road from Geneva to Chamouni. They remember that immediately after
entering it they find a great precipice on their left, not less than two
thousand feet in perpendicular height. That precipice is formed by beds
of limestone bent like a rainbow, as in Fig. 10. Their edges constitute
the cliff; the flat arch which they form with their backs is covered
with pine forests and meadows, extending for three or four leagues in
the direction of Sixt. Whether the whole mountain was called out of
nothing into the form it possesses, or created first in the form of a
level mass, and then actually bent and broken by external force, is
quite irrelevant to our present purpose; but it is impossible to
describe its form without appearing to imply the latter alternative; and
all the distinct evidence which can be obtained upon the subject points
to such a conclusion, although there are certain features in such
mountains which, up to the present time, have rendered all positive
conclusion impossible, not because they contradict the theories in
question, but because they are utterly inexplicable on any theory
whatever.

Sec. 13. We return then to our Fig. 9, representing beds which _appear_ to
have been broken short off at the edges. "If they ever were actually
broken," the reader asks, "what could have become of the bits?"
Sometimes they seem to have been lost, carried away no one knows where.
Sometimes they are really found in