AVALANCHE AND SLIDE-ROCK 



291 



But it seems that the centre of this great cliff was 

 softer, or at least more friable, than either end; and at 

 that point there began a great slide-rock factory. Gradu- 

 ally the face of the cliff cracked off and fell in ragged 

 fragments; and the annual snow-slides that went thunder- 

 ing down into the basin, carried with them great quanti- 

 ties of talus from the foot of the cliff. As the face of the 

 cliff fell away, and its summit receded farther and farther, 

 the slide-rock built a new slope upon the mountain, rising 



An Object Lesson in False Notch. 

 The making of slide-rock, and the destruction of peaks. 



higher and higher toward the summit. At last the per- 

 pendicular cliff wall entirely disappeared, and in its place 

 we have to-day that frightful slope, paved with naked 

 slide-rock which is merely so much wreckage from the 

 cliff and peak. To-day, instead of a precipice to crown 

 the summit, the slide-rock slope extends on up to what 

 once was the other side of the peak. There it cuts the 

 western precipice, and ends in a knife-edge summit, 

 " three feet wide in some places, and in some it's twenty." 



