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204 THE EXPLORATION OE THE CAUCASUS
Latpari Pass that of the Little St. Bernard. The Dongiisorun,
the easiest pass over the main chain, will correspond to the St.
Thoodule. But the Caucasian valley is in every respect more
difficult of access than its Alpine rival. The unbroken wall
of rock and ice which forms its northern boundary is a far
more formidable barrier than the Pennine Alps. It encloses
between its complicated spurs and bastions six great snow-basins,
those of the Adish, Zanner, Tuiber, Leksur, Chalaat, and
Ushba Glaciers. Other great glaciers
fall more steeply and
directly from under the peaks of Shkara, Janga, Tetnuld, and
Dongusorun. Two ridges several miles in length run out from
the watershed towards the Ingur, enclosing between them the
glen of the Nakra. By a prodigious blunder the five-verst
map took the Caucasian watershed along the more eastern of
these spurs and entirely ignored the upper Betsho Valley. All
these ridges are composed of crystalline rocks, for the most
part granite, which show the tendency observable in the Alps,
in the Mont Blanc and Pelvoux groups, to arrange themselves
in double parallel ridges. Unfortunately this structvire was not
recognised by the authors of the old survey, and in consequence
the small map based on it both in the French and English
editions of that standard work, Reclus's Geograpliie Universelh,
is entirely misleading.
On the south Suanetia is fenced in by the lofty slate range
of the Laila, attaining an altitude of 13,400 feet and supporting
glaciers which may compare with those of the Grand Paradis
group in the Graian Alps. Near the Latpari Pass its rocks
display very markedly the fan structure. Foreign geologists
have described them as '
paleozoic schists,' but the fossils discovered
by Signor Sella on the top of the Laila, which have
been examined and reported on by Dr. Gregory at the British
Museum, do not bear out this designation as far as those peaks
are concerned. The formation, whatever its age, plays a very
great part in the Caucasian chain, forming its watershed from
the Mamison eastwards.'
' See Geological Note, Appendix A.