222 
SCENERY OF SWITZERLAND. 
Gneiss, but at the third turning is a deposit of black, 
graphitic slate 65 metres in thickness. 
Near Hospenthal are several quarries in greyish 
black Lias containing Belemnites. The Furka Hotel 
stands on Jurassic strata, which can be traced, with 
one or two breaks, to Ulrichen in the Rhone Valley. 
The fold must descend to a great depth, for it 
was met with and traversed by the tunnel, (Fig. 93 
p. 73) which here is 300 metres below the surface.* 
From the Urnerloch to Hospenthal the two val- 
leys cross one another diagonally, and at Hospenthal 
the cross valley leaves the Urserenthal and ascends 
the St. Gotthard. 
We leave also the band of sedimentary strata 
and find ourselves again on crystalline rock. The 
broad saddle of the pass is seldom entirely free from 
snow; it is a wilderness of ice, and snow and rock, a 
sort of granite marsh. 
St. GoriHARD. 
The central mass of the St. Gotthard is a more 
or less elliptic mountain chain, whose ridge and 
highest summits lie much nearer the south than the 
north boundary. It is crossed by two long depres- 
sions. One begins in the Upper Glienthal, passes 
* Itritsch, Beitr . z. Geol, K, d. Schw., L. xv. 
