top simultaneously; that is to say, clustered round it, a yard or two below, for it was much too small to get upon.
According to my custom, I bagged a piece from off the highest rock (chlorite slate), and I found afterwards that it had a striking similarity to the final peak of the Ecrins. I have noticed the same thing on other occasions,[1]
FRAGMENT FROM THE SUMMIT OF THE POINTE DES ECRINS. and it is worthy of remark that not only do fragments of such rock as limestone often present the characteristic forms of the cliffs from which they have been broken, but that morsels of mica slate will represent, in a wonderful manner, the identical shape of the peaks of which they have formed part. Why should it not be so, if the mountain's mass is more or less homogeneous? The same causes which produce the small forms fashion the large ones; the same influences are at work; the same frost and rain give shape to the mass as well as to its parts.
Did space permit me, I could give but a sorry idea of the view, but it will be readily imagined that a panorama extending over as much ground as the whole of England is one worth taking some trouble to see, and one which is not often to be seen even in the Alps. No clouds obscured it, and a list of the summits that we saw would include nearly all the highest peaks of the chain. I saw the Pelvoux now—as I had seen the Ecrins from it three years before—across the basin of the Glacier Noir. It is a splendid mountain, although in height it is equalled, if not surpassed, by its neighbour the Aléfroide.
- ↑ The most striking example which has come under my notice is referred to in Chapter xx.
