The surface of the vast snow-plain near at hand is gashed by many gaping fissures, but the distance is so great that these minor details disappear in a general view. Looking down over the snow, one may see the crevasses as in a diagram. They look as if the white surface had been gashed with a sharp knife, and then stretched in such a way as to open the cuts. That the snow of the névés may be stretched, at least to a limited extent, is shown by the character of these fissures. The crevasses are widest in the center and come to a point at their curving extremities. Two crevasses frequently overlap at their ends and leave a sliver of ice stretching across diagonally between them. It is by means of these diagonal bridges that one is enabled to thread his way through the crevasses. On returning to camp in the evening, weary with a hard day's climb, a never-failing source of delight was found in the matchless winter landscape to the eastward. The evenings following days of uninterrupted sunshine were especially delightful. The blue shadows of the western peaks creeping across the shining surface were nearly as sharp in outline as the peaks that cast {145} them. When the chill of evening made itself felt, and the dropping water and the indefinite murmurs from the glacier below were stilled, the silence became oppressive. The stillness was so profound that it seemed as though the footsteps of the advancing shadows should be audible. On warm sunny days, however, there are noises enough amid the mountains. The snow, partially melted and softened by the heat, falls from the cliffs in avalanches that make the mountains tremble and, with a roar like thunder, awaken the echoes far and near. During our stay at Camp 15 the avalanches were sometimes so frequent on the steep mountain faces toward the north that the roar of one falling mass of snow and rocks was scarcely hushed before it was succeeded by another. On the southward-facing cliffs of Mount Augusta, composed of schist which disintegrates rapidly, there are frequent rock avalanches. A rock or a mass of comminuted schist sometimes breaks away even in midday, although these avalanches occur most frequently when the moisture in the rocks freezes. The midday avalanches, I fancy, may be started by the expansion of the rocks owing to the sun's heat. A few stones dislodged high up on the cliffs fall, and, loosening others in their descent, soon set in motion a train of dirt and stones, which flows down the steep ravines with a long rumbling roar, at the same time sending clouds of dust into the air. If the wind is blowing up the cliffs, as frequently happens on warm days, the dust is carried far above the mountains, and hangs in the air like clouds of smoke.