he straight slopes with which these curves unite themselves
below, in Plate +33+ (_f g_ in reference figure), are those spoken of
in the outset as lines of rest. But I defer to the next chapter the
examination of these, which are a separate family of lines (not curves
at all), in order to reassemble the conclusions we have now obtained
respecting _curvature_ in mountains, and apply them to questions of art.

And, first, it is of course not to be supposed that these symmetrical
laws are so manifest in their operation as to force themselves on the
observance of men in general. They are interrupted, necessarily, by
every fantastic accident in the original conformation of the hills,
which, according to the hardness of their rocks, more or less accept or
refuse the authority of general law. Still, the farther we extend our
observance of hills, the more we shall be struck by the continual
roundness and softness which it seems the object of nature to give to
every form; so that, when crags look sharp and distorted, it is not so
much that they are unrounded, as that the various curves are more subtly
accommodated to the angles, and that, instead of being worn into one
sweeping and smooth descent, like the surface of a knoll or down, the
rock is wrought into innumerable minor undulations, its own fine anatomy
showing through all.

[Illustration: J. Ruskin. J. H. Le Keux.
46. The Buttresses of an Alp.]

Sec. 33. Perhaps the mountain which I have drawn on the opposite page
(Plate +46+[93]) is, in its original sternness of mass, and in the
complexity of lines into which it has been chiselled, as characteristic
an instance as could be given by way of general type. It is one of no
name or popular interest, but of singular importance in the geography of
Switzerland, being the angle buttress of the great northern chain of the
Alps (the chain of the Jungfrau and Gemmi), and forming the promontory
round which the Rhone turns to the north-west, at Martigny. It is
composed of an intensely hard gneiss (slaty crystalline), in which the
plates of mica are set for the most part against the angle, running
nearly north and south, as in Fig. 105, and giving the point, therefore,
the utmost possible strength, which, however, cannot prevent it from
being rent gradually by enormous curved fissures, and separated into
huge vertical flakes and chasms, just at the lower promontory, as seen
in Plate +46+, and (in plan) in Fig. 105.