116. The cleft referred to, with its pillar, may be seen to the right of the preceding engraving of the Mer de Glace. Below the cleft is also seen the little glacier just referred to. 117. We may reach this cleft by a steep gully, visible from our present position, and leading directly up to the cleft. But these gullies, or couloirs, are very dangerous, being the pathways of stones falling from the heights. We will therefore take the rocks to the left of the gully, by close inspection ascertain their assailable points, and there attack them. In the Alps as elsewhere wonderful things may be done by looking steadfastly at difficulties, and testing them wherever they appear assailable. We thus reach our station, where the glory of the prospect, and the insight that we gain as to the formation of the Mer de Glace, far more than repay us for the labour of our ascent. 118. For we see the glacier below us, stretching its frozen tongue downwards past the Montanvert. And we now find this single glacier branching out into three others, some of them wider than itself. Regard the branch to the right, the Glacier du Géant. It stretches smoothly up for a long distance, then becomes disturbed, and then changes to a great frozen cascade, down which the ice appears to tumble in wild confusion. Above the cascade you see an expanse of shining snow, occupying an area of some square miles. § 14. _Ice-cascade and Snows of the Col du Géant._ 119. Instead of climbing to the height where we now stand, we might have continued our walk upon the Mer de Glace, turned round the promontory of Trélaporte, and walked right up the Glacier du Géant. We should have found ice under our feet up to the bottom of the cascade. It is not so compact as the ice lower down, but you would not think of refusing to call it ice. 120. As we approach the fall, the smooth and unbroken character of the glacier changes more and more. We encounter transverse ridges succeeding each other with augmenting steepness. The ice becomes more and more fissured and confused. We wind through tortuous ravines, climb huge ice-mounds, and creep cautiously along crumbling crests, with crevasses right and left. The confusion increases until further advance along the centre of the glacier is impossible.