As the sun poured his light upon the Plateau the little snow-facets
sparkled brilliantly, sometimes with a pure white light, and at others
with prismatic colors. Contrasted with the white spaces above and
around us were the dark mountains on the opposite side of the valley of
Chamouni, around which fantastic masses of cloud were beginning to build
themselves. Mont Buet, with its cone of snow, looked small, and the
Brevent altogether mean; the limestone bastions of the Fys, however,
still presented a front of gloom and grandeur. We traversed the Grand
Plateau, and at length reached the base of an extremely steep incline
which stretched upward toward the Corridor. Here, as if produced by a
fault, consequent upon the sinking of the ice in front, rose a vertical
precipice, from the coping of which vast stalactites of ice depended.