Modern Painters IV

284 MODERN PAINTERS PT. V An apparent slope, however steep, so that it does not overpass the vertical, may be a horizontal line; but the moment it can be shown literally to overhang, it must be one of two things,—either an actually pendent face of rock, as at a, Fig. 77, or the under-edge of an overhanging cornice of rock, b. Of course the latter condition, on such a scale as this of the Matterhorn, would be the more wonderful of the two; but I was anxious to determine which of these it really was. § 8. My first object was to reach some spot commanding, as nearly as might be, the lateral profile of the Mont Cervin. The most available point for this purpose was the top of the Riffelhorn; which, however, first attempting to climb by its deceitful western side, and being stopped, for the moment, by the singular moat and wall which defend its Malakhoff-like summit,1 fearing that I might not be able ultimately to reach the top, I made the drawing of the Cervin, on the left hand in Plate 38, from the edge of the moat; and found afterwards the difference in aspect, as it was seen from the true summit, so slight as not to necessitate the trouble of making another drawing.* * Professor Forbes gives the bearing of the Cervin2 from the top of the Riffelhorn as 351º, or N. 9º w., supposing local attraction to have caused an error of 65º to the northward, which would make the true bearing N. 74º w. From the point just under the Riffelhorn summit, e, in Fig. 78, at which my drawing was made, I found the Cervin bear N. 79º w. without any allowance for attraction; the disturbing influence would seem therefore confined, or nearly so, to the summit a. I did not know at the time that there was any such influence traceable, and took no bearing from the summit. For the rest, I cannot vouch for bearings as I can for angles, as their accuracy was of no importance to my work, and I merely noted them 1 [The allusion to the Malakoff tower at Sebastopol, ultimately taken by the French, will remind the reader that this volume was written during the Crimean War.] 2 [See Travels through the Alps of Savoy, ch. xvii., p. 315 of the reprint of 1900.] CH. XVI PRECIPICES 285 § 9. It may be noted in passing, that this wall which with its regular fosse defends the Riffelhorn on its western side, and a similar one on its eastern side, though neither of them of any considerable height, are curious instances of trenchant precipice, formed, I suppose, by slight slips or faults of the serpentine rock. The summit of the horn, a, Fig. 78, seems to have been pushed up in a mass beyond the rest of the ridge, or else the rest of the ridge to have dropped from it on each side, at b c, leaving the two troublesome faces of cliff right across the craig; hard, green as a sea wave, and polished like the inside of a sea shell, where the weather has not effaced the surface produced by the slip. It is only by getting past the eastern cliff that the summit can be reached at all, for on its two lateral escarpments the mountain seems quite inaccessible, being in its whole mass nothing else than the top of a narrow wall with a raised battlement, as rudely shown in perspective at e d; the flanks of the wall falling towards the glacier on one side, and to the lower Riffel on the other, four or five hundred feet, not, indeed, in unbroken precipice, but in a form quite incapable of being scaled.* with a common pocket compass and in the sailor’s way (S. by W. and ½ W., etc.), which involves the probability of error of from two to three degrees on either side of the true bearing. The other drawing in Plate 38 was made from a point only a degree or two to the westward of the village of Zermatt. I have no note of the bearing; but it must be about S. 60º or 55º W. * Independent travellers may perhaps be glad to know the way to the top of the Riffelhorn. I believe there is only one path; which ascends (from the ridge of the Riffel) on its eastern slope, until, near the summit, the low, but perfectly smooth cliff, extending from side to side of 286 MODERN PAINTERS PT. V § 10. To return to the Cervin. The view of it given on the left hand in Plate 38 shows the ridge in about its narrowest profile; and shows also that this ridge is composed of beds of rock shelving across it, apparently horizontal, or nearly so, at the top, and sloping considerably southwards (to the spectator’s left), at the bottom. How far this slope is a consequence of the advance of the nearest angle, giving a steep perspective to the beds, I cannot say; my own belief would have been that a great deal of it is thus deceptive, the beds lying as the tiles do in the somewhat anomalous, but perfectly conceivable house roof, Fig. 79. Saussure, however, attributes to the beds themselves a very considerable slope. But be this as it may, the main facts of the thinness of the beds, their comparative horizontality, and the daring sword-sweep by which the whole mountain has been hewn out of them, are from this spot comprehensible at a glance. Visible, I should have said; but eternally, and to the uttermost, incomprehensible. Every geologist who speaks of this mountain seems to be struck by the wonderfulness of its calm sculpture—the absence of all aspect of convulsion, and yet the stern chiselling of so vast a mass into its precipitous isolation, leaving no ruin nor débris near it. “Quelle force n’a-t-il pas fallu,” exclaims M. Saussure, “pour rompre, et pour balayer tout ce qui manque à cette pyramide!”1 “What an overturn of all the ridge, seems, as on the western slope, to bar all farther advance. This cliff may, however, by a good climber, be mastered even at the southern extremity; but it is dangerous there: at the opposite, or northern, side of it, just at its base, is a little cornice, about a foot broad, which does not look promising at first, but widens presently; and when once it is past, there is no more difficulty in reaching the summit. 1 [Voyages dans les Alpes, § 2244.] CH. XVI PRECIPICES 287 ancient ideas in Geology,” says Professor Forbes, “to find a pinnacle of 15,000 feet high [above the sea] sharp as a pyramid, and with perpendicular precipices of thousands of feet on every hand, to be a representative of the older chalk formation; and what a difficulty to conceive the nature of a convulsion (even with unlimited power), which could produce a configuration like the Mont Cervin rising from the glacier of Zmutt!”1 § 11. The term “perpendicular” is of course applied by the Professor in the “poetical” temper of Reynolds,—that is to say, in one “inattentive to minute exactness in details”;2 but the effect of this strange Matterhorn upon the imagination is indeed so great, that even the gravest philosophers cannot resist it; and Professor Forbes’s drawing of the peak, outlined at page 225,3 has evidently been made under the influence of considerable excitement. For fear of being deceived by enthusiasm also, I daguerreotyped the Cervin from the edge of the little lake under the crag of the Riffelhorn, with the somewhat amazing result shown in Fig. 80. So cautious is Nature, even in her boldest work, so broadly does she extend the foundations, and strengthen the buttresses, of masses which produce so striking an impression as to be described, even by the most careful writers, as perpendicular. § 12. The only portion of the Matterhorn which approaches such a condition is the shoulder, before alluded to, forming a step of about one-twelfth the height of the 1 [Travels through the Alps of Savoy, p. 307 of the reprint of 1900.] 2 [See Vol. V. pp. 21, 24.] 3 [See above, p. 224 n. In a later paper on Pedestrianism in Switzerland, Forbes referred to § 12 here, and made some criticisms on Ruskin’s objections to the terms “perpendicular” and “precipice” as applied to the Matterhorn. Mr. Coolidge in a note on Forbes’ objections (p. 494 of the reprint of 1900) says: “Those who have been on the north-east face of the Matterhorn, over which the route from Zermatt more or less passes, will agree with Mr. Ruskin rather than with Forbes.”] 288 MODERN PAINTERS PT. V whole peak, shown by light on its snowy side, or upper surface, in the right-hand figure of Plate 38. Allowing 4,000 feet for the height of the peak, this step or shoulder will be between 300 and 400 feet in absolute height; and as it is not only perpendicular, but assuredly overhangs, both at this snow-lighted angle and at the other corner of the mountain (seen against the sky in the same figure), I have not the slightest doubt that a plumb-line would swing from the brow of either of these bastions, between 600 and 800 feet, without touching rock. The intermediate portion of the cliff which joins them is, however, not more than vertical. I was therefore anxious chiefly to observe the structure of the two angles, and, to that end, to see the mountain close on that side, from the Zmutt glacier.

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