Sec. 15. And since if these sharp flakes broke _straight_ across the masses of mountain, when once the fissure took place, all hold would be lost between flake and flake, it is ordered (and herein is the most notable thing in the whole matter) that they shall not break straight, but _in curves, round the body_ of the aiguilles, somewhat in the manner of the coats of an onion; so that, even after fissure has taken place, the detached film or flake clings to and leans upon the central mass, and will not fall from it till centuries of piercing frost have wedged it utterly from its hold; and, even then, will not fall all at once, but drop to pieces slowly, and flake by flake. Consider a little the beneficence of this ordinance;[62] supposing the cliffs had been built like the castle wall, the mouldering away of a few bricks, more or less, at the bottom would have brought down huge masses above, as it constantly does in ruins, and in the mouldering cliffs of the slaty coherents; while yet the top of the mountain would have been always blunt and rounded, as at _a_, Fig. 36, when seen against the sky. But the aiguille being built in these nearly vertical curved flakes, the worst that the frost can do to it is to push its undermost rocks asunder into forms such as at _b_, of which, when many of the edges have fallen, the lower ones are more or less supported by the very debris accumulated at their feet; and yet all the while the tops sustain themselves in the most fantastic and incredible fineness of peak against the sky. [Illustration: J. Ruskin. J. C. Armytage. 31. The Aiguille Blaitiere.] [Illustration: FIG. 36.]