them. I think the speaker did not misstate or exaggerate anything in a
single word, but as he could in an hour's talk tell only one tenth of what
one ought to know, in order to form a correct notion of what the Alps look
like, my fanciful imagination promptly supplied the coloring of the other
nine tenths of the picture which he left untouched; and consequently when
I came to see the Alps, I found them entirely different from what I had
anticipated.

The ordinary school maps represent the Alps as extending along the borders
of Switzerland, as if they consisted of a single range, or possibly of
several parallel ranges, and Mount Blanc as its towering peak. With what
surprise a scholar who only saw these maps, will look about him, when he
reaches the summit of any high peak in Switzerland! On the Rigi, for
example, one sees an extent of territory almost 300 miles in circuit,
every part of which is studded with ice-capped peaks. These range not in
any one particular direction, nor do they number only several dozen, but
many hundreds of them stand around the beholder toward every point of the
compass and at variable distances, from the Pilatus near by to the most
distant part of the horizon--more than 50 miles away. The snow-clad crowns
of many of these rise high above the clouds, so that

"Through the parting clouds only
The earth can be seen,
Far down 'neath the vapour
The meadows of green."

Those forms of clouds called cumuli, (P.G. Gewitter Wolken), presenting
themselves the appearance of mountains covered with ice, often creep
around these peaks at less than half their height! At Zurich I first
beheld the strange sight of mountains and clouds piled upon each other so
that I could not well distinguish them. It was on a sunny afternoon that I
stood on the banks of the _Zuricher See_ (Lake Zurich) and, looking over
its calm waters, I beheld in the distant southeast a strange phenomenon.
There stood the high glittering banks of clouds, and over them I saw the
black sides of a towering peak whose top was covered with ice and snow. I
then visited the Rigi and looked at Alpine Switzerland from its giddy
heights. This, since the railroad has been completed to its top, is one
of the most famous mountains in Switzerland. Though it stands beneath the
line of perpectual snow, its top being covered with grass in summer, still
it commands a panoramic view of indescribable grandeur. Numerous hotels
stand around the top wh