These precipices, and the razor edge, are fortified and buttressed by arms which reach out westward and form rude crescents, called by the French geologists _cirques_, for here the snow lodges, and is packed to great density and solidity with all the force, fervor and fury of the mountain winds.
But the snow does not fall alone on the western _cirques_.

It discharges with such prodigality, and the wind demands its release with such precipitancy, that it lodges in equally vast masses on the eastern slopes of the Crystal Range.

For, while the eastern side of this range is steep enough to be termed in general parlance "precipitous," it has a decided slope when compared with the sheer drop of the western side.

Here the configuration and arrangement of the rock-masses also have created a number of _cirques_, where remnants of the winter's snow masses are yet to be seen.

These snow masses are baby glaciers, or snow being slowly manufactured into glaciers, or, as some authorities think, _the remnants of the vast glaciers that once covered this whole region_ with their heavy and slowly-moving icy cap.
On the Tallac Range the snow fell heavily toward Desolation Valley, but also on the steep and precipitous slopes that faced the north.
So also with the Angora Range.