about five
hundred feet,[81] the whole looks a mere step on the huge slope of the
Breven; and it only deserves mention among Alpine cliffs as one of
singular beauty and decision, yet perfectly approachable and examinable
even by the worst climbers; which is very rarely the case with cliffs of
the same boldness. I suppose that this is the reason for its having been
often stated in scientific works that no cliff could be found in the
Alps from which a plumb-line would swing two hundred feet. This can
_possibly_ be true (and even with this limitation I doubt it) of cliffs
conveniently approachable by experimental philosophers. For, indeed, one
way or another, it is curious how Nature fences out, as it were, the
brows of her boldest precipices. Wherever a plumb-line will swing, the
precipice is, almost without exception, of the type _c_, in Fig. 73, the
brow of it rounding towards the edge for, perhaps, fifty or a hundred
yards above, rendering it unsafe in the highest degree for any
inexperienced person to attempt approach. But it is often possible to
ascertain from a distance, if the cliff can be got relieved against the
sky, the approximate degree of its precipitousness.

Sec. 6. It may, I think, be assumed, almost with certainty, that whenever a
precipice is very bold and very high, it is formed by beds more or less
approaching horizontally, out of which it has been cut, like the side of
a haystack from which part has been removed. The wonderfulness of this
operation I have before insisted upon; here we have to examine the best
examples of it.

As, in forms of central rock, the Aiguilles of Chamouni, so in
notableness of lateral precipice, the Matterhorn, or Mont Cervin,
stands, on the whole, unrivalled among the Alps, being terminated, on
two of its sides, by precipices which produce on the imagination nearly
the effect of verticality. There is, however, only one point at which
they reach anything approaching such a condition; and that point is
wholly inaccessible either from below or above, but sufficiently
measurable by a series of observations.

[Illustration: Fig. 77.]

Sec. 7. From the slope of the hill above, and to the west of, the village
of Zermatt, the Matterhorn presents itself under the figure shown on the
right hand in the opposite plate (+38+). The whole height of the mass,
from the glacier out of which it rises, is about 4000 feet; and
although, as before noticed, the first slope from the top towards