The seven or eight thousand feet which compose the actual peak have several well-marked ridges and numerous others. The most continuous is that which leads toward the north-east: the summit is at its higher, and the little peak called the Hörnli is at its lower, end. Another one that is well pronounced descends from the summit to the ridge called the Furgen Grat. The slope of the mountain that is between these two ridges will be referred to as the eastern face. A third, somewhat less continuous than the others, descends in a south-westerly direction, and the portion of the mountain that is seen from Breuil is confined to that which is comprised between this and the second ridge. This section is not composed, like that between the first and second ridge, of one grand face, but it is broken up into a series of huge precipices, spotted with snow-slopes and streaked with snow-gullies. The other half of the mountain, facing the Z’Mutt glacier, is not capable of equally simple definition. There are precipices apparent but not actual; there are precipices absolutely perpendicular; there are precipices overhanging; there are glaciers and there are hanging glaciers; there are glaciers which tumble great _séracs_ over greater cliffs, whose débris, subsequently consolidated, becomes glacier again; there are ridges split by the frost, and washed by the rain and melted snow into towers and spires; while everywhere there are ceaseless sounds of action, telling that the causes are still in operation which have been at work since the world began, reducing the mighty mass to atoms and effecting its degradation. [Illustration: THE MATTERHORN FROM THE NORTH-EAST]