nd cushioned with moss, while outside of it, all is smooth
pasture. The pines enjoy the stony ground particularly, and hold
large meetings upon it, but the alders are shy of it; and, when
it has come to an end, form a triumphal procession all round its
edge, following the concave line. The correspondent curves above
are caused by similar lines in which the debris has formerly
stopped.

[Illustration: 45. Debris Curvature.]

Sec. 31. I found it a matter of the greatest difficulty to investigate the
picturesque characters of these lines of projection and escape, because,
as presented to the eye, they are always modified by perspective; and
it is almost a physical impossibility to get a true profile of any of
the slopes, they round and melt so constantly into one another. Many of
them, roughly measured, are nearly circular in tendency;[92] but I
believe they are all portions of infinite curves either modified by the
concealment or destruction of the lower lips of debris, or by their
junction with straight lines of slope above, throwing the longest limb
of the curve upwards. Fig. 1, in Plate +45+ opposite, is a simple but
complete example from Chamouni; the various overlapping and concave
lines at the bottom being the limits of the mass at various periods,
more or less broken afterwards by the peasants, either by removing
stones for building, or throwing them back at the edges here and there,
out of the way of the plough; but even with all these breaks, their
natural unity is so sweet and perfect, that, if the reader will turn the
plate upside down, he will see I have no difficulty (merely adding a
quill or two) in turning them into a bird's wing (Fig. 2), a little
ruffled indeed, but still graceful, and not of such a form as one would
have supposed likely to be designed and drawn, as indeed it was, by the
rage of a torrent.

But we saw in Chap. VII. Sec. 10 that this very rage was, in fact, a
beneficent power,--creative, not destructive; and as all its apparent
cruelty is overruled by the law of love, so all its apparent disorder is
overruled by the law of loveliness: the hand of God, leading the wrath
of the torrent to minister to the life of mankind, guides also its grim
surges by the laws of their delight; and bridles the bounding rocks, and
appeases the flying foam, till they lie down in the same lines that lead
forth the fibres of the down on a cygnet's breast.

Sec. 32. T