which it clashes, the whole mass
writhes together in strange unity of mountain passion; so that it is
almost impossible to persuade oneself, after long looking at it, that
the crests have not indeed been once fused and tossed into the air by a
tempest which had mastery over them, as the winds have over ocean.

Sec. 12. And yet, if we examine the crest structure closely, we shall find
that nearly all these curvatures are obtained by Nature's skilful
handling of perfectly straight beds,--only the meeting of those two
waves of crest is indeed indicative of the meeting of two masses of
different rocks; it marks that junction of the slaty with the compact
crystallines, which has before been noticed as the principal mystery of
rock structure. To this junction my attention was chiefly directed
during my stay at Chamouni, as I found it was always at that point that
Nature produced the loveliest mountain forms. Perhaps the time I gave to
the study of it may have exaggerated its interest in my eyes; and the
reader who does not care for these geological questions, except in their
direct bearing upon art, may, without much harm, miss the next seven
paragraphs, and go on at the twenty-first. Yet there is one point, in a
Turner drawing presently to be examined, which I cannot explain without
inflicting the tediousness even of these seven upon him.

[Illustration: J. Ruskin. R. P. Cuff.
33. Leading Contours of Aiguille Bouchard.]

Sec. 13. First, then, the right of the Aiguille Bouchard to be called a
crest at all depends, not on the slope from _a_ to _b_, Plate +33+, but
on that from _a_ to _h_. The slope from _a_ to _b_ is a perspective
deception; _b_ is much the highest point of the two. Seen from the
village of Chamouni, the range presents itself under the outline Fig.
54, the same points in each figure being indicated by the same letters.
From the end of the valley the supremacy of the mass _b c_ is still more
notable. It is altogether with mountains as with human spirits, you
never know which is greatest till they are far away.

[Illustration: FIG. 54.]

Sec. 14. It will be observed also, that the beauty of the crest, in both
Plate +33+ and Fig. 54, depends on the gradually increasing steepness of
the lines of slope between _a_ and _b_. This is in great part deceptive,
being obtained by the receding of the crest into a great mountain
crater, or basin, as explained in Sec. 11. But this very