The culminating summits of the ranges generally present the appearance of a flat, rounded swelling, and when they are crowned with glaciers, as many of them are, these shape themselves into what may be described as a mantle, a breastplate, or a flat cap, from which lappets and fringes project at intervals; nowhere do there exist any of the long, narrow, winding glacier tongues which are so characteristic of the Alps of Europe.
On the 1st, they marched in procession through the city, dressed in an embroidered tunic, a brazen breastplate and a peaked cap; each carried a sword by his side and a short staff in his right hand, with which the shield, borne on the left arm, was struck from time to time.
It was a very richly decorated object of coloured threads interwoven with gold, worn outside the luxurious mantle or robe; it was kept in place by a girdle, and by shoulder-pieces (?), to which were attached brooches of onyx (fastened to the robe) and golden rings from which hung the "breastplate" (or rather pouch) containing the sacred lots, Urim and Thummim.
Herr Burkli confines his criticism to the first struggle, in which alone mention is made of the driving back of the Swiss, pointing out also that the chronicle of 1476 and other later accounts attribute to the Austrians the manner of attack and the long spears which were the special characteristics of Swiss warriors, and that if Winkelried were a knight (as is asserted by Tschudi) he would have been clad in a coat of mail, or at least had a breastplate, neither of which could have been pierced by hostile lances.
Here it is stated that they are kept in a square pouch which is worn upon the high priest's breast ("the breastplate of judgment"), and attached to the ephod.