THE LAKE OF GENEVA. 
89 
east the Bernese Oberland, further west the Dent du 
Midi and the extreme summit of Mont Blanc, to the 
north the great plain of Switzerland, around us the 
Pleiades, etc., the Tours d’Ai and de Mayen, a wilder- 
ness of ridges and valleys, grey precipices, steep bright 
green grass slopes, mottled with dark masses, patches, 
lines, and groups of pines, below which are paler- 
green deciduous trees, and at our feet the blue water 
of the Lake of Geneva. 
Conformation of the Lake. 
Though the foi-m of the lake is in itself so simple, 
the lake is in reality formed of two converging basins; 
that of the east which is a cross valley, while the 
western half, like the Lakes of Neuchatel, of Bienne, 
and of Morat, follows the direction of the Jurassic 
chains and the anticlinal axis of the Mollasse. The 
Petit Lac, the Lake of Neuchatel, and that of Bienne 
may almost be said to fonn one lake basin. It 
probably originated at the same tii-ne as the moun- 
tains, which have the same general curve as that part 
of the lake.* 
The eastern end, on the contrary, as far as a line 
crossing from Vevey to Meillerie is a transverse valley 
or cluse, cut through the Secondary and Eocene 
* Favre, Rech. Geol.^ vol. i. 
