ummits to the valley. And this surprised me the more because I had
always heard it stated that the beds of the lateral crests, _a_ and _b_,
Fig. 56, varied in slope, getting less and less inclined as they
descended, so as to arrange themselves somewhat in the form of a fan. It
may be so; but I can only say that all my observations and drawings give
an opposite report, and that the beds seemed invariably to present
themselves to the eye and the pencil in parallelism, modified only by
the phenomena just explained (Sec.Sec. 9, 10). Thus the entire mass of the
Aiguille Bouchard, of which only the top is represented in Plate +33+,
appeared to me in profile, as in Fig. 57, dependent for all its effect
and character on the descent of the beds in the directions of the dotted
lines, _a_, _b_, _d_. The interrupting space, _g g_, is the Glacier des
Bois; M is the Montanvert; _c_, _c_, the rocks under the glacier, much
worn by the fall of avalanches, but, for all that, showing the steep
lines still with the greatest distinctness. Again, looking down the
valley instead of up, so as to put the Mont Blanc on the left hand, the
principal crests which support it, Taconay and La Cote, always appeared
to me constructed as in Plate +35+ (p. 212), they also depending for all
their effect on the descent of the beds in diagonal lines towards the
left. Nay, half-way up the Breven, whence the structure of the Mont
Blanc is commanded, as far as these lower buttresses are concerned,
better than from the top of the Breven, I drew carefully the cleavages
of the beds, as high as the edge of the Aiguille de Goute, and found
them exquisitely parallel throughout; and again on the Cormayeur side,
though less steep, the beds _a_, _b_, Fig. 58, traversing the vertical
irregular fissures of the great aiguille of the Allee Blanche, as seen
over the Lac de Combal, still appeared to me perfectly regular and
parallel.[71] I have not had time to trace them round, through the
Aiguille de Bionassay, and above the Col de Bonhomme, though I know the
relations of the beds of limestone to the gneiss on the latter col are
most notable and interesting. But, as far as was required for any
artistical purposes, I perfectly ascertained the fact that, whatever
their real structure might be, these beds did appear, through the softer
contours of the hill, as straight and parallel; that they continued to
appear so until near the tops of the crests; and that those tops seemed,
in