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logical period, since they follow the direction of the mountain system in two parallel lines of rug ged and imposing aspect, never exceeding the height of 3,200 feet. The undulating country on the borders of Scotland becomes higher in the west of England and North Wales, where the hills are wild, but the valleys are cultivated like a garden, and the English lake scenery is of the most gentle beauty.

"Evergreen Ireland is mostly a mountainous country, and opposes to the Atlantic storms an iron-bound coast of the wildest aspect; but it is rich in arable land and pasture, and it possesses the most picturesque lake-scenery; indeed, fresh water lakes in the mountain valleys, so peculiarly characteristic of the European system, are the great ornament of the High Lands in Britain.

"Various parts of the British islands were dry land while most of the continent of Europe was yet below the ancient ocean. The high land of Lammermuir, the Grampian hills in Scotland, and those of Cumberland in England, were raised before the Alps had begun to appear above the In general all the highest parts of the British mountains are of granite and stratified crystalline rocks. The primary fossiliferous strata

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are of immense thickness in Cumberland and in

covered by snow in winter. The group of Sinai is full of springs and verdant. At its northern extremity lies the desert of El Teh, seventy miles long and thirty broad, in which the Israelites wandered forty years. It is covered with long ranges of high rock, of most repulsive aspect, rent into deep clefts only a few feet wide, hemmed in by walls of rock, sometimes 1000 feet high, like the deserted streets of a Cyclopean town. The whole of Arabia Petrea-Edom of the sacred writers-presents a scene of appalling desolation completely fulfilling the denunciation of prophecy."-Pp. 105-106.

The mountains of Lebanon begin at Mount Cavius, which rises in a single peak from the sea, at the mouth of the Orontes, to the height of 7,000 feet. Running south and twenty miles inland, in a chain of peaks which reaches a height of 430 feet, to the sources of the Jordan, it divides into two parallel branches bounding the fertile plains of Colo-Syria, near Beka, which contains the ruins of Balbec, and terminates a few miles north of Ancient Tyre. The Antithe north of Wales, and the old red sandstone, Libanus, beginning at Mount Hermon, many hundred feet thick, stretches from sea to sea 9,000 feet high, runs through Palestine till along the flanks of the Grampians. The coal- it disappears in the rocky ridges of the Sistrata are developed on a great scale in the south nai desert. The following description of a of Scotland and the north of England, and exam-region associated with our highest interests ples of every formation, with one exception are will be gratifying to the Christian reader: to be found in these islands. Volcanic fires had been very active in early times, and nowhere is the columnar structure more beautifully exhibited than in Fingal's Cave and the Storr of Skye in the Hebrides; and in the north of Ireland a base of 800 square miles of mica slate is covered with volcanic rocks, which end on the coast in the magnificent columns of the Giant's Causeway."Pp. 85-87.

"The valleys and plains of Syria are full of rich vegetable mould, particularly the plain of Damascus, which is brilliantly verdant, though surrounded by deserts, the barren uniformity of which is relieved on the east by the broken columns and ruined temples of Palmyra and Tadmor. The Assyrian wilderness, however, is not everywhere absolutely barren. In the spring-time it is covered with a thin but vivid verdure, mixed with fragrant Passing over the Uralian chain and the aromatic herbs, of very short duration. When Great Northern Plain, we come to the sixth these are burnt up, the unbounded plains resume chapter, in which Mrs. Somerville treats of their wonted dreariness. The country, high and the southern Low Lands of the Great Con-low, becomes more barren towards the Holy Land, tinent, with their secondary table-lands and yet even here some of the mountains-as Carmel, Bashan, and Tabor-are luxuriantly wooded, and mountains. She describes the empire of China the Indo-Chinese peninsula-the the Jordan, which has the appearance of pleasuremany valleys are fertile, especially the valley of plains and peninsula of Hindostan-the grounds, with groves of wood and aromatic plants, Island of Ceylon-the great Indian desert, but almost in a state of nature. One side of the about 400 miles broad-the peninsula of Lake of Galilee is savage; on the other there are Arabia, and the plains and valleys of Syria. gentle hills and wild romantic vales, adorned with On the Northern side of the granite ranges solitude and pastoral beauty. Jerusalem stands palm-trees, olives, and sycamores-a scene of calm of Arabia Felix, where the table-land rises on a declivity encompassed by severe stony moun to an altitude of 8,000 feet, Mrs. Somer-tains, wild and desolate. The greater part of ville mentions a track of sand, so extremely Syria is a desert compared with its ancient state. loose and fine in its grain, that a plummet Mussulman rule has blighted this fair region, once was sunk in it by Baron Wrede to the depth flowing with milk and honey-the land of proof 360 feet without reaching the bottom!

"Jebel Housa, Mount Sinai, on which Moses received the Ten Commandments, is 9,000 feet high, surrounded by higher mountains, which are

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Farther south desolation increases; the valleys become narrower, the hills more denuded and rugged, till south of the Dead Sea their dreary aspect announces the approach to the desert.

"The valley of the Jordan affords the most re- waste, prolonged eastward into the Atlantic markable instance known of the depression of the for miles in the form of sand-banks, and inland below the general surface of the globe. This terrupted to the west only by a few oases hollow, which extends from the Gulf of Accabah and the valley of the Nile.

on the Red Sea to the bifurcation of Lebanon, is 625 feet below the level of the Mediterranean at the Sea of Galilee, and the acrid waters of the Dead Sea have a depression of 1230 feet. The lowness of the valley had been observed by the Romans, who gave it the descriptive name of Colo-Syria, Hollow Syria.' It is absolutely walled in by mountains between the Dead Sea and Lebanon, where it is from ten to fifteen miles wide.

"A shrinking of the strata must have taken place along this coast of the Mediterranean from a sudden change of temperature, or perhaps in consequence of some of the internal props giving way, for the valley of the Jordan is not the only instance of a dip of the soil below the sea-level; the small bitter lakes on the Isthmus of Suez are cavities of the same kind, as well as the Natron lakes on the Libyan desert west from the delta of the Nile."-Pp. 107-109:

"This desert," says Mrs. Somerville, "is alternately scorched by heat and pinched by cold. The wind blows from the east nine months in the year, and at the equinoxes it rushes in a hurricane, driving the sand in clouds before it, producing the darkness of night at midday, and overwhelming caravans of men and animals in common destruction. Then the sand is heaped up in waves ever varying with the blast, even the atmosphere is of sand. The desolation of this dreary waste, boundless to the eye as the ocean, is terrific and sublime

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the dry heated air is like a red vapor, the setting sun seems to be a volcanic fire, and at times the burning wind of the desert is the blast of death. There are many salt lakes to the north, and even the springs are of brine; thick incrustations of dazzling salt cover the ground, and the particles carried aloft by whirlwinds, flash in the sun like diamonds. Sand is not the only character of the desert, tracks of gravel and low bare rocks occur these interminable sands and rocks, no animal, no at times not less barren and dreary. insect, breaks the dread silence, not a tree nor a shrub is to be seen in this land without a shadow. In the glare of noon the air quivers with the heat reflected from the red sand, and in the night it is chilled in a clear sky sparkling under a host of stars. Strangely but beautifully contrasted with these scorched solitudes is the narrow valley of the Nile, threading the desert for 1000 miles in emerald green, with its blue waters foaming in rapids among wild rocks, or quietly spreading in a calm stream amidst fields of corn, and the august monuments of past ages."-Pp. 118-120.

The Continent of Africa, 5,000 miles long, forms the subject of Mrs. Somerville's seventh chapter, and completes her description of the Great Continent. With the exception of the elevated region of the Atlas Mountains, Africa is divided by the Mountains of the Moon into two parts only, a high country and a low. A table-land, extensive though not elevated, occupies all Southern Africa, reaching to the sixth or seventh degree of north latitude. To the north of the Cape the land rises 6,000 feet above the sea. The Komri, or Mountains of the Moon, which form the northern boundary of the great plateau, have never yet been seen by any European. The American Continent, next in extent It is probable that they are very high, as to that of the Old World, forms the subject they supply the perennial sources of the of the next five chapters of Mrs. Somerville's Nile, the Senegambia, and the Niger. They work. It is 9,000 miles in length, and conextend south of Abyssinia at one end, and sists of two great peninsulas, united by a at the other they join the High Land of narrow isthmus, and has been divided into Senegambia, and pass into the Kong range, South, Central, and North America, all conwhich, running for 1200 miles behind Da- nected by the lofty chain of the Andes, rihomey, terminates in the promontory of valling almost the Himalayas in altitude, Sierra Leone. The Mountains of Abyssi- and stretching along the coast of the Pacific, nia, and those at the Cape of Good Hope, from within the arctic to nearly the antarctic have granite for their base, which is gene- circle. South America is about 4,550 miles rally surmounted by vast horizontal beds of long, and 2,446 miles wide in its maximum sandstone, with limestone, schist, and con- breadth, between Cape Roque on the At-. glomerate. In Abyssinia the enormous flat lantic, and Cape Blanco on the Pacific masses of sandstone on the mountain tops Ocean. "It consists of three mountain sysare accessible only by ladders, or by steps tems, separated by the basin of three of the cut in the rock, and are used as state pri- greatest rivers in the world." The Andes, sons. North of the Mountains of the Moon commencing with the "majestic dark mass of lies the great desert of Sahara, stretching Cape Horn, runs northward along the west800 miles in width from its southern margin, ern coast to the Isthmus of Panama as a and 1000 miles long between the Atlantic single narrow chain, descending on the east and the Red Sea. It is a hideous barren to the vast plains extending for hundreds

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The following account of the table lands of the Andes is extremely interesting:

*

Andes: that on the west is the Cordillera of the

of miles in a level as dead and as uninter- the remainder of their course to the Isthrupted as that of the ocean. A detached mus of Panama. mountain system rises in Brazil between the Rio de la Plata and the Amazons; and between the latter river and the Orinoco, lies "Unlike the table-lands of Asia," says Mrs. the mountain system of Parima and GuiSomerville, "of the same elevation, these lofty The mighty chain of the Andes com- regions of the Andes yield exuberant crops of mences in Terra del Fuego, a snow-clad every European grain, and have many populous mountain 6,000 feet high, descending in cities enjoying the luxuries of life, with universiglaciers to the narrow bays and iniets of the ties, libraries, civil and religious establishments, sea. For 1000 miles northward to the for- at altitudes equal to that of the Peak of Teneriffe, tieth parallel of south latitude, the Pacific which is 12,358 feet above the sea level. Villages washes the very base of the Patagonian An-are placed and mines are wrought at heights little less than the top of Mount Blanc. des." "The coast itself for sixty miles is "The table-lands of Desaguadero, one of the begirt by walls of rock, which sink into an most remarkable of these, has an absolute altiunfathomable depth, torn by long crevices tude of 13,000 feet, and a breadth varying from 30 or fiords similar to those in the Norwegian to 60 miles: it stretches 500 miles along the top shore, ending in tremendous glaciers, whose of the Andes, between the transverse mountainmasses falling with a crash like thunder, group of Las Lipez, in 20° S. lat., and the enor drive the sea in sweeping breakers through which, extending from east to west, shuts in the mous mountain-knot of Vilcañiata and Cusco, these chasms." Opposite the Chiloe Archi-valley on the north, occupying an area three times pelago four magnificent volcanoes blaze on as large as Switzerland, and rising 8,300 feet above the Andes, which, on entering Southern the surface of the table-land, from which some Chili, retire from the coast, leaving plains idea may be formed of the gigantic scale of the crossed by parallel mountain ranges 2000 Andes. This table-land or valley is bounded on or 3000 feet high. The Great Cordillera each side by the two grand chains of the Bolivian itself runs in a chain twenty miles broad, coast; the range on the east side is the Cordillera with a mean altitude of 12,000 feet. The Reale. These two rows of mountains lie so near mountain tops lie nearly horizontally, sur- the edge that the whole breadth of the table-land, mounted at distant intervals by groups of including both, is only 300 miles. All the snowy points, or a solitary volcanic cone finely re- peaks of the Cordilleras of the coast, varying from lieved by the clear blue sky. One of these, 18,000 to 22,000 feet in absolute height, are either Descabezado, or "the Beheaded," is 12,102 active volcanoes or of volcanic origin, and with feet high; and behind Valparaiso, in the the exception or the volcano of Uvinas, they are all situate upon the maritime declivity of the tablecentre of a knot of mountains, the magnifi- land, and not more than 60 miles from the Pacific; cent volcano of Aconcagua attains an eleva- consequently the descent is very abrupt. The tion of 23,000 feet! In central Chili, no eastern Cordillera, which begins at the metalliferrain falls for nine months in the year. In ous mountains of Pasco and Potosi, is not more Southern Chili, rain falls only once in two than 17,000 feet high to the south, and below the or three years. The Peruvian Andes level of perpetual snow, but its northern portion mence about 24° of south latitude. They 25,000 feet above the sea, and is one of the most contains the three peaked mountains of Sorata, are separated for 1250 miles from the Pa-magnificent chains in the Andes. The snowy cific by a sandy desert about sixty miles part begins with the gigantic mass of Illimani, broad, on which a drop of rain never falls. whose serrated ridges, elongated in the direction of At the Nevada of Chorolque, in 214° of the axis of the Andes, rise 24,000 feet above the south latitude, the Andes "become a very ocean. The lowest glacier on its southern slope elevated narrow table-land, or longitudinal does not come below 16,500 feet, and the valley of Alpine valley, in the direction of the coast, Vesuvius might stand, comes between Illimani Totoral a mere gulf 18,000 feet deep, in which bounded on each side by a parallel row of and the Nevada of Tres Cruces, from whence the high mountains rising much above the ta- Cordillera Reale runs northward in a continuous ble-land. These parallel Cordilleras are line of snow-clad peaks to the group of Vilcañiata united at various points by enormous trans-and Cusco, which unites it with the Cordilleras of verse groups or mountain knots, or by the the coast. single ranges crossing between them like dykes, a structure that prevails to Pasto, in 1° 13' north latitude." There are no trans verse valleys in the Andes, excepting a few opposite Patagonia and Chili, "there is not an opening through these mountains in

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The valley or table-land of Desaguadero, occupying 150,000 square miles, has a considerable variety of surface; in the south, throughout the mining district, it is poor and cold. There Potosi, the highest city in the world, stands at an absolute elevation of 13,350 feet, on the declivity of a mountain celebrated for its silver mines, at the

and awful, without warning. Notwithstanding the thinness of the air, the crash of the peals is quite appalling, while the lightning runs along the scorched grass, and sometimes, issuing from the ground, destroys a team of mules or a flock of sheep at one flash.

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height of 16,000 feet. Chiquisaca, the capital of Bolivia, containing 13,000 inhabitants, lies to the south-east of Potosi, in the midst of cultivated fields. The northern part of the valley is populous, and productive in wheat, maise, and other grain ; and there is the lake of Titicaca, twenty times as large as the Lake of Geneva. The islands and shores of this lake still exhibit ruins of gigantic magnitude, monuments of a people more ancient than the Incas. The modern city of La Paz d'Ayachuco, with 40,000 inhabitants, on its southern border, stands in the most sublime situation that can be imagined, having the vast Nevada of Illimani to the north, and the no less magnifi-instance, probably of earth light, occurs in crosscent Sorata to the south. The two ranges of the Bolivian Andes in such close approximation, with their smoking cones and serrated ridges, form one of the most august scenes in nature." Pp. 128-131.

One of the largest and most interesting table-lands in the Andes is that of Quito, 200 miles long, and 30 wide, 10,000 feet above the sea, and flanked by the most magnificent volcanoes and mountains in America. The snow-clad cone of Cayambe is traversed by the equator; and on the summit of Pinchincha, 15,924 feet high, stands the signal cross erected by Bouguer and Condamine, when they were measuring a degree of the meridian, nearly a hundred years ago. The city of Quito, with a population of 70,000, stands on the side of Pinchincha, at the height of 9,000 feet above the sea. Among the numerous passes over the Chilian Andes, that of Portilla, 14,365 feet high, is the most elevated. The pass from Sorata to the auriferous valley of Tipuani in Bolivia, is reckoned the highest, and about 16,000 feet. The most difficult, though only 11,500 feet high, is that of Quincha in Columbia.

Nothing," says Mrs. Somerville, "can surpass the desolation of these elevated regions, where nature has been shaken by terrific convulsions. The dazzling snow fatigues the eye; the huge masses of bald rock, the mural precipices, and the chasms yawning into dark unknown depths, strike the imagination; while the crash of the avalanche, or the rolling thunder of the volcano, startles the ear. In the dead of night, when the sky is clear and the wind hushed, the hollow moaning of the volcanic fire fills the Indian with superstitious dread in the deathlike stillness of these solitudes.

"In the very elevated plains in the transverse groups, such as that of Bombon, however pure the sky, the landscape is lurid and colorless; the dark blue shadows are sharply defined, and from the thinness of the air it is hardly possible to make a just estimate of distance. Changes of weather are sudden and violent; clouds of black vapor arise, and are carried by fierce winds over the barren plains; snow and hail are driven with irresistible impetuosity; and thunder-storms come on, loud

Currents of warm air are occasionally met with on the crest of the Andes-an extraordinary phenomenon in such gelid heights, which is not yet accounted for: they generally occur two hours after sunset, are local and narrow, not exceeding a few fathoms in width; similar to the equally partial blasts of hot air in the Alps. A singular

ing the Andes from Chili to Mendoza: on this rocky scene a peculiar brightness occasionally rests, a kind of indescribable reddish light, which vanishes during the winter rains, and is not perceptible on sunny days. Dr. Peppig ascribes the phenomenon to the dryness of the air; he was confirmed in his opinion from afterwards observ in a similar brightness on the coast of Peru, and it has also been seen in Egypt."-Pp. 137, 138.

their azure summits. Nor can we descend

We regret that the numerous subjects yet before us will not permit us to follow our authoress any further through these lofty regions of fire and of snow, stumbling hideous gorges, blinded by the smoke of over their peaks of granite, threading their their still smouldering fires, suffocated by the sulphurous vapors from their still burning lungs, or panting under the thin air of under her intelligent guidance to the no less visit the vast Patagonian desert of shingle, sublime scenery of its lower regions-to extending over 800 miles-to examine the the sea, and the insalubrious swamps of Pampas of Buenos Ayres, 1000 feet above 1000 square miles at their base, where two

millions of cattle were starved between 1830 and 1831, and where millions of animals are destroyed by the conflagration of the dry grass which covers them to gaze upon the grassy Llanos of Orinoco and Venezuela, covering 153,000 square miles, and so perfectly smooth and level, "that there is not an eminence a foot high in 270 square miles or to wander among the silvas or forests which cover the basin of the Amazons, extending 1500 miles along the river, with a breadth of from 350 to 800 miles, limiting even its mountain chains, and covering an area six times the size of France. Mrs. Somerville, in this interesting chapWe cannot, however, part with ter, till we admire her poetical description of this woodland desert :

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all burst forth in choral minstrelsy, As if some sudden gale had swept at once A hundred airy harps.'*

be periodically and unanimously roused, by some of Central America (including the West unknown impulse, till the forest rings in universal India Islands), a "tortuous strip of land" uproar. Profound silence prevails at midnight, between 70 and 20° of N. Lat., stretching which is broken at the dawn of morning by an about 1000 miles from S. E. to S. W., and other general roar of the wild chorus. Nightingales, too, have their fits of silence and song: with a variable breadth of from 30 to 300 after a pause, they or 400 miles. The plains of Panama, a little above the sea level, follow the direction of the Isthmus for 280 miles; and from the Bay of Parita, where they terminate, tableThe whole forest often resounds, when the ani- lands 3000 feet high, and covered with formals, startled from their sleep, scream in terror at ests and complicated mountains, extend to at the noise made by bands of its inhabitants fly- the lake of Nicaragua. The plain of Niing from some night-prowling foe. Their anxiety caragua, which, with its lake, only 128 and terror before a thunder-storm is excessive, and feet above the Pacific, and separated from all nature seems to partake in the dread. The the sea by a line of active volcanoes, occutops of the lofty trees rustle ominously, though not a breath of air agitates them; a hollow whistling in the high regions of the atmosphere comes as a warning from the black floating vapor; midnight darkness envelops the ancient forests, which soon after groan and creak with the blast of the hurricane. The gloom is rendered still more hideous by the vivid lightning and the stunning crash of thunder. Even fishes are affected with the general consternation; for in a few minutes the

Amazons rages in waves like a stormy sea."-
P. 148.

pies 30,000 square miles. The table-land of Guatemala, 5000 feet high, consists of verdant plains of great extent, fragrant with flowers. The city of New Guatemala stands beside the three volcanoes of Pacayo, Del Fuego, and D'Agua, from 7,000 to 10,000 feet high, which exhibit" scenes of wonderful boldness and beauty." The volcano of D'Agua, with old Guatemala at its feet, which it has twice destroyed, is a perfect cone, verdant to its summit, and occasionally The geology of South America possesses ejecting torrents of boiling water and stones. a peculiar interest. There are no fewer" In a line along the western side of the than three groups of active volcanoes in table-land and the mountains, there is a this region; the most southern forming a continued succession of volcanoes, at variline of volcanic action 800 miles in length, ous distances from the shore, and at various from Patagonia to Central Chili; the se- heights, on the declivity of the table-land. cond occupying 600 miles of latitude, be- It seems as if a great crack or fissure had tween Araquipo and Patas; and the third been produced in the earth's surface along stretching 300 miles between Riobamba the junction of the mountains and the shore, and Popayan--the whole line of volcanic through which the internal fire had found a action being 1700 miles long. The chain vent. Between 10 and 200 degrees of of the Andes has experienced many upheav- N. Lat., there are upwards of twenty active ings and subsidences, especially at its south volcanoes, some of them higher than the extremity. "Stems of large trees, which central ridge, and subject to violent erupMr. Darwin found in a fossil state in the tions. Upsallata range-a collateral branch of the The West India Íslands, which have been Chilian Andes, near 700 miles distant from called the Columbian Archipelago, are the the Atlantic-exhibit a remarkable example wreck of a great convulsion, in which a part of such vicissitudes. These trees, with the of South and Central America, now the Cavolcanic soil on which they had grown, had ribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, subsidsunk from the beach to the bottom of a deep ed; while the table-land of Mexico was at ocean, from which, after five alternations of the same time upheaved. The period of sedimentary deposits and deluges of sub- this subsistence must have been after the marine lava of prodigious thickness, the destruction of the great quadrupeds, and whole mass was raised up, and now forms the Upsallata chain. Subsequently, by the wearing of streams, the imbedded trunks have been brought into view in a silicified state, projecting from the soil on which they grew-now solid rock."

In the tenth chapter our authoress treats

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therefore geologically recent. The line of volcanic islands, beginning with St. Vincent and ending with Guadaloupe, have conical mountains bristled with rugged rocks.

Mrs. Somerville concludes the Physical Geography of America in her eleventh and twelfth chapters, treating in succession of the table-lands and mountains of Mexico, the Rocky Mountains, the maritime chains

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