1871.] BOXNET FORMATION OF " CIEQXTES." 313 



rather than forming the head of a valley ; it is really a semicircular 

 recess in one of its walls, between the towers of the Pointe de Tenne- 

 verges and the lower summit of the Tete Noire. 



The base of the former mountain consists of a vast mass of com- 

 pact limestone, which also (as in the former case) sweeps round the 

 cirque in a waU of precipices full 1000 feet, and often more, in 

 height. This, in the Pointe de Tenneverges, is surmounted by slopes, 

 marking doubtless the presence of more shaly strata ; and these are 

 capped by another vast mass of limestone with more frequent 

 partings, which is crowned by the actual peak. Above the wall of 

 the cirque, and excavated in the lower part of this limestone and in 

 the subjacent shale, is an upland glen which leads up to the Col de 

 Tenneverges (8154 feet). 



In the neighbourhood of the Fer-a-Cheval, as in the Creux de 

 Champs, the strata, though occasionally locally contorted, are on the 

 whole tolerably horizontal ; and it too is remarkable for the number 

 and beauty of its waterfalls. In the spring and early summer, 

 " every notch along the serrated line of crag becomes the birth- 

 place of a waterfall, from the tiny thread of spray which quivers in 

 every breeze and dances irresolutely down the sombre crag, to the 

 furious torrent plunging in one bold leap from top to bottom of the 

 deepest precipice, and announcing its presence with a voice that 

 emulates the thunders of the sky " (Wills, The Eaglets Nest, 

 p. 34)*. 



The Groda Mdlcora. — The cirque of the Croda Malcora, high up 

 among the crags of the dolomitic mass that culminates in the 

 Sorapis, has been termed " another Gavarnie " by Messrs. Gilbert 

 and Churchill t, though to myself it appeared to present the di- 

 stinctive features of a cirque less conspicuously than the two de- 

 scribed above. -Its rocky floor is broken into a series of irregular 

 steps, supporting some patches of snow and glacier ; it is, however, 

 enclosed by a magnificent wall of dolomitic crags, probably not less 

 than 1000 feet in height. The cascades here, so far as I remember, 

 can only be conspicuous after heavy rain or in the spring time ; for 

 in summer the upper crags are almost bare of snow, and dry. Time 

 did not allow me to enter it ; but I obtained an excellent view into 

 it from a short distance away. The same district of the Ampezzo 

 offers several instances of glens with a cirque-like formation ; among 

 these are one of no great size but with steep sides, nestling beneath 

 the great peaks of Monte Tofana, and a most singular one, well seen 

 from the summit of that mountain, termed the Croda di Lagazoi, 

 which I can only compare to a rude amphitheatre with walls of rock 

 instead of masonry, through which a complete breach has been made 

 at one of the vertices of the ellipse. 



The Creux du Vent (Jura). — The Creux du Vent, near Noiraigue 

 station on the Val Travers railway, is reported to be the finest exam- 

 ple of a cirque in the Jura. It is thus described by Mr. Ball : — " a 



* The neighbourhood, in which are several luaguilicent ranges of precipices, 

 is well described by the same author. Alpine Journal, vol. ii. p. 49. 

 t The Dolomite Mountains, p. 407. 



