ls _k_ and _l_.[74]

[Illustration: FIG. 61.]

Sec. 18. The reader may imagine what strange harmonies and changes of line
must result throughout the mass of the mountain from the varied
prevalence of one or other of these secret inclinations of its rocks
(modified, also, as they are by perpetual deceptions of perspective),
and how completely the rigidity or parallelism of any one of them is
conquered by the fitful urgencies of the rest,--a sevenfold action
seeming to run through every atom of crag. For the sake of clearness, I
have shown in this plate merely leading lines; the next (Plate +35+,
opposite) will give some idea of the complete aspect of two of the
principal crests on the Mont Blanc flanks, known as the Montagne de la
Cote, and Montagne de Taconay, _c_ and _t_ in Fig. 22, at page 163. In
which note, first, that the eminences marked _a a_, _b b_, _c c_, here,
in the reference figure (61), are in each of the mountains
correspondent, and indicate certain changes in the conditions of their
beds at those points. I have no doubt the two mountains were once one
mass, and that they have been sawn asunder by the great glacier of
Taconay, which descends between them; and similarly the Montagne de
la Cote sawn from the Tapia by the glacier des Bossons, B B in reference
figure.

[Illustration: 35. Crests of La Cote and Taconay.]

[Illustration: 36. Crest of La Cote.]

Sec. 19. Note, secondly, the general tendency in each mountain to throw
itself into concave curves towards the Mont Blanc, and descend in
rounded slopes to the valley; more or less interrupted by the direct
manifestation of the straight beds, which are indeed, in this view of
Taconay, the principal features of it. They necessarily become, however,
more prominent in the outline etching than in the scene itself, because
in reality the delicate cleavages are lost in distance or in mist, and
the effects of light bring out the rounded forms of the larger masses;
and wherever the clouds fill the hollows between, as they are apt to do,
(the glaciers causing a chillness in the ravines, while the wind,
blowing _up_ the larger valleys, clears the edges of the crests,) the
summits show themselves as in Plate 36, dividing, with their dark
frontlets, the perpetual sweep of the glaciers and the clouds.[75]

Sec. 20. Of the aqueous curvatures of this crest, we shall have more to say
presently; meantime let us especially observe how the providential laws
of beauty,