ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

Footnote 1:

p. 1—“_The Lake of Tacarigua_.”

On advancing through the interior of South America, from the coast of

Caracas or of Venezuela towards the Brazilian frontier (from the 10th

degree of north latitude to the equator), the traveller first passes a

lofty chain of mountains (the littoral chain of Caracas) inclining

from west to east; next vast treeless Steppes or plains (_Los

Llanos_), which extend from the foot of the littoral chain to the left

bank of the Orinoco; and, lastly, the mountain range which gives rise

to the cataracts of Atures and Maypure. This mountain chain, which I

have named the Sierra Parime, passes in an easterly direction between

the sources of the Rio Branco and Rio Esquibo, in the direction of

Dutch and French Guiana. This region, which is the seat of the

marvellous myths of the Dorado, and is composed of a mountain mass,

divided into numerous gridiron-like ridges, is bounded on the south by

the woody plain through which the Rio Negro and the Amazon have formed

themselves a channel. Those who would seek further instruction

regarding these geographical relations, may compare the large chart of

La Cruz Olmedilla (1775), which has served as the basis of nearly all

the more modern maps of South America, with that of Columbia, which I

drew up in accordance with my own astronomical determinations of

place, and published in the year 1825.

The littoral chain of Venezuela is, geographically considered, a

portion of the Peruvian Andes. These are divided at the great mountain

node of the sources of the Magdalena (lat. 1° 55′ to 2° 20′) into

three chains, running to the south of Popayan, the easternmost of

which extends into the snowy mountains of Merida. These mountains

gradually decline towards the Paramo de las Rosas into the hilly

district of Quibor and Tocuyo, which connects the littoral chain of

Venezuela with the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca.

This littoral chain extends murally and uninterruptedly from

Portocabello to the promontory of Paria. Its mean elevation is

scarcely 750 toises, or 4796 English feet; but some few summits, like

the Silla de Caracas (also called the Cerro de Avila), which is

adorned with the purple-flowering Befaria (the red-blossomed American

Alpine rose), rise 1350 toises, or 8633 English feet above the level

of the sea. The coast of the Terra Firma everywhere bears traces of

devastation, giving evidence of the action of the great current which

runs from east to west, and which, after the disintegration of the

Caribbean Islands, formed the present Sea of the Antilles. The tongues

of land of Araya and Chuparipari, and more especially the coasts of

Cumana and New Barcelona, present to the geologist a remarkable

aspect. The rocky islands of Boracha, Caracas, and Chimanas rise like

beacon-towers from the sea, affording evidence of the fearful

irruption of the waters against the shattered mountain chain. The Sea

of the Antilles may once have been an inland sea, like the

Mediterranean, which has suddenly been connected with the ocean. The

islands of Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica still exhibit the remains of the

mountains of micaceous schist which formed the northern boundary of

this lake. It is a remarkable fact that the highest peaks are situated

at the very point where these islands approach one another the

closest. It may be conjectured that the principal nucleus of the chain

was situated between Cape Tiburon and Morant Point. The height of the

copper mountains (montañas de cobre) near Saint Iago de Cuba has not

yet been measured, but this range is probably higher than the Blue

Mountains of Jamaica (1138 toises, or 7277 English feet), whose

elevation somewhat exceeds that of the Pass of St. Gothard. I have

already expressed my conjectures more fully regarding the valley-like

form of the Atlantic Ocean, and the ancient connection of the

continents, in a treatise written at Cumana, entitled _Fragment d’un

Tableau géologique de l’Amérique méridionale_, which appeared in the

_Journal de Physique, Messidor, an_ IX. It is remarkable that Columbus

himself makes mention, in his official report, of the connection

between the course of the equinoctial current and the form of the

coast-line of the Greater Antilles.[H]

The northern and more cultivated portion of the province of Caracas is

a mountainous region. The marginal chain is divided, like that of the

Swiss Alps, into many ranges, enclosing longitudinal valleys. The most

remarkable among these is the charming valley of Aragua, which

produces an abundance of indigo, sugar, and cotton, and, what is

perhaps the most singular of all, even European wheat. The southern

margin of this valley is bounded by the beautiful Lake of Valencia,

the ancient Indian name of which was Tacarigua. The contrast presented

by its opposite shores gives it a striking resemblance to the Lake of

Geneva. The barren mountains of Guigue and Guiripa have indeed less

grandeur and solemnity of character than the Savoy Alps; but, on the

other hand, the opposite shore, which is covered with bananas, mimosæ,

and triplaris, far surpasses in picturesque beauty the vineyards of

the Pays de Vaud. The lake is 10 leagues, (of which 20 form a degree

of the Equator), _i.e._, about 30 geographical miles, in length, and

is thickly studded with small islands, which continually increase in

size, owing to the evaporation being greater than the influx of fresh

water. Within the last few years several sandbanks have even become

true islands, and have acquired the significant name of _Las

Aparecidas_, or the “_Newly Appeared_.” On the island of Cura the

remarkable species of solanum is cultivated, which has edible fruit,

and has been described by Willdenow (in his _Hortus Berolinensis_,

1816, Tab. xxvii.). The elevation of the Lake of Tacarigua above the

level of the sea is almost 1400 French feet (according to my

measurement, exactly 230 toises, _i.e._, 1471 English feet) less than

the mean height of the valley of Caracas. This lake has several

species of fish peculiar to itself,[I] and ranks among the most

beautiful and attractive natural scenes that I am acquainted with in

any part of the earth. When bathing, Bonpland and myself were often

terrified by the appearance of the _Bava_, a species of

crocodile-lizard (_Dragonne?_), hitherto undescribed, from three to

four feet in length, of repulsive aspect, but harmless to man. We

found in the Lake of Valencia a _Typha_, perfectly identical with the

European bulrush, the _Typha angustifolia_—a singular and highly

important fact in reference to the geography of plants.

In the valleys of Aragua, skirting the lake, both varieties of the

sugar-cane are cultivated, viz., the common _Caña criolla_, and the

species newly introduced from the South Sea, the _Caña de Otaheiti_.

The latter variety is of a far lighter and more beautiful green, and a

field of it may be distinguished from the common sugar-cane at a great

distance. Cook and George Forster were the first to describe it; but

it would appear, from Forster’s treatise on the edible plants of the

South Sea Islands, that they were but little acquainted with the true

value of this important product. Bougainville brought it to the Isle

of France, whence it passed to Cayenne and (subsequently to the year

1792) to Martinique, Saint Domingo or Haiti, and many of the Lesser

Antilles. The enterprising but unfortunate Captain Bligh transported

it, together with the bread-fruit tree, to Jamaica. From Trinidad, an

island contiguous to the continent, the new sugar-cane of the South

Sea passed to the neighbouring coasts of Caracas. Here it has become

of greater importance than the bread-fruit tree, which will probably

never supersede so valuable and nutritious a plant as the banana. The

Tahitian sugar-cane is more succulent than the common species, which

is generally supposed to be a native of Eastern Asia. It likewise

yields one-third more sugar on the same area than the _Caña criolla_,

which is thinner in its stalk, and more crowded with joints. As,

moreover, the West Indian Islands are beginning to suffer great

scarcity of fuel (on the island of Cuba the sugar-pans are heated with

orange-wood), the new plant acquires additional value from the fact of

its yielding a thicker and more ligneous cane (_bagaso_). If the

introduction of this new product had not been nearly simultaneous with

the outbreak of the sanguinary Negro war in St. Domingo, the prices of

sugar in Europe would have risen even higher than they did, owing to

the interruption occasioned to agriculture and trade. The important

question which here arises, whether the sugar-cane of Otaheiti, when

removed from its indigenous soil, will not gradually degenerate and

merge into the common sugar-cane, has been decided in the negative,

from the experience hitherto obtained on this subject. In the island

of Cuba a _caballeria_, that is to say, an area of 34,969 square

toises (nearly 33 English acres), produces 870 cwt. of sugar, if it be

planted with the Tahitian sugar-cane. It is remarkable enough that

this important product of the South Sea Islands should be cultivated

precisely in that portion of the Spanish colonies which is most remote

from the South Sea. The voyage from the Peruvian shore to Otaheiti may

be made in twenty-five days, and yet, at the period of my travels in

Peru and Chili, the Tahitian sugar-cane was not yet known in those

provinces. The natives of Easter Island, who suffer great distress

from want of fresh water, drink the juice of the sugar-cane, and, what

is very remarkable in a physiological point of view, likewise

sea-water. On the Society, Friendly, and Sandwich Islands, the light

green and thick stemmed sugar-cane is everywhere cultivated.

In addition to the _Caña de Otaheiti_ and the _Caña criolla_, a

reddish African sugar-cane is cultivated in the West Indies, which is

known as the _Caña de Guinea_. It is less succulent than the common

Asiatic variety, but its juice is esteemed especially well adapted for

the preparation of rum.

In the province of Caracas the light green of the Tahitian sugar-cane

forms a beautiful contrast with the dark shade of the cacao

plantations. Few tropical trees have so thick a foliage as the

_Theobroma Cacao_. This noble tree thrives best in hot and humid

valleys. Extreme fertility of soil and insalubrity of atmosphere are

as inseparably connected in South America as in Southern Asia. Nay, it

has even been observed that in proportion as the cultivation of the

land increases, and the woods are removed, the soil and the climate

become less humid, and the cacao plantations thrive less luxuriantly.

But while they diminish in numbers in the province of Caracas, they

spread rapidly in the eastern provinces of New Barcelona and Cumana,

more especially in the humid woody region lying between Cariaco and

the Golfo Triste.

Footnote 2:

p. 1—“_The natives term this phenomenon ‘banks.’_”

The Llanos of Caracas are covered with a widely-extended formation of

ancient conglomerate. On passing from the valleys of Aragua over the

most southern range of the coast chain of Guigue and Villa de Cura,

descending towards Parapara, the traveller meets successively with

strata of gneiss and micaceous schist, a probably _Silurian_

transition rock of argillaceous schist and black limestone; serpentine

and greenstone in detached spheroidal masses; and lastly, on the

margin of the great plain, small elevations of augitic amygdaloid and

porphyritic schist. These hills between Parapara and Ortiz appear to

me to be produced by volcanic eruptions on the old sea-shore of the

Llanos. Further to the north, rise the far-famed cavernous and

grotesquely-shaped elevations known as the Morros de San Juan, which

form a species of devil’s dyke, the grain of which is crystalline,

like upheaved dolomite. They are, therefore, to be regarded rather as

portions of the shore than as islands in the ancient gulf. I consider

the Llanos to have been a gulf, for when their inconsiderable

elevation above the present sea level, the adaptation of their form to

the rotation current, running from east to west, and the lowness of

the eastern shore between the mouth of the Orinoco and the Essequibo

are taken into account, it can scarcely be doubted that the sea once

overflowed the whole of this basin between the coast chain and the

Sierra de la Parime, extending westward to the mountains of Merida and

Pamplona (in the same manner as it probably passed through the plains

of Lombardy to the Cottian and Pennine Alps). Moreover, the

inclination or line of strike of these Llanos is directed from west to

east. Their elevation at Calabozo, a distance of 100 geographical (400

English) miles from the sea, scarcely amounts to 30 toises, or 192

English feet; consequently 15 toises (96 English feet) less than the

elevation of Pavia, and 45 toises (288 English feet) less than that of

Milan in the plain of Lombardy between the Swiss Lepontine Alps and

the Ligurian Apennines. This conformation of the land reminds us of

Claudian’s expression, “curvata tumore parvo planities.” The surface

of the Llanos is so perfectly horizontal that in many parts over an

area of some 480 English square miles, not a single point appears

elevated one foot above the surrounding level. When it is further

borne in mind that there is a total absence of all shrubs, and that in

some parts, as in the Mesa de Pavones, there is not even a solitary

palm-tree to be seen, it may easily be supposed that this sea-like and

dreary plain presents a most singular aspect. Far as the eye can

range, it scarcely rests on any object elevated many inches above the

general level. If the boundary of the horizon did not continually

present an undefined flickering and undulating outline, owing to the

condition of the lower strata of air, and the refraction of light,

solar elevations might be determined by the sextant above the margin

of the plain as above the horizon of the sea. This perfect flatness of

the ancient sea-bottom renders the _banks_ even more striking. They

are composed of broken floetz-strata, which rise abruptly about two or

three feet above the surrounding level, and extend uniformly over a

length of from 10 to 12 geographical (_i.e._, 40 to 48 English) miles.

It is here that the small rivers of the Steppe take their origin.

On our return from the Rio Negro, we frequently met with traces of

landslips in passing over the Llanos of Barcelona. We here found in

the place of elevated banks, isolated strata of gypsum lying from 3 to

4 toises, or 19 to 25 English feet, below the contiguous rock. Further

westward, near the confluence of the River Caura and the Orinoco, a

large tract of thickly grown forest land to the east of the Mission of

San Pedro de Alcantara, fell in after an earthquake in the year 1790.

A lake was immediately formed in the plain, which measured upwards of

300 toises (1919 feet) in diameter. The lofty trees, as the

Desmanthus, Hymenæa, and Malpighia, retained their verdure and foliage

for a long time after their submersion.

Footnote 3:

p. 2—“_A shoreless ocean seems spread before us_.”

The distant aspect of the Steppe is the more striking when the

traveller emerges from dense forests, where his eye has been

familiarised to a limited prospect and luxuriant natural scenery. I

shall ever retain an indelible impression of the effect produced on my

mind by the Llanos, when, on our return from the Upper Orinoco, they

first broke on our view from a distant mountain, opposite the mouth of

the Rio Apure, near the Hato del Capuchino. The last rays of the

setting sun illumined the Steppe, which seemed to swell before us like

some vast hemisphere, while the rising stars were refracted by the

lower stratum of the atmosphere. When the plain has been excessively

heated by the vertical rays of the sun, the evolution of the radiating

heat, the ascent of currents of air, and the contact of atmospheric

strata of unequal density, continue throughout the night.

Footnote 4:

p. 2—“_The naked stony crust_.”

The deserts of Africa and Asia acquire a peculiar character from the

frequent occurrence of immense tracts of land, covered by one flat

uniform surface of naked rock. In the Scha-mo, which separates

Mongolia and the mountain chain of Ulangom and Malakha-Oola from the

north-west part of China, such rocky banks are termed _Tsy_. In the

woody plains of the Orinoco they are found to be surrounded with the

most luxuriant vegetation.[J] In the midst of these flat, tabular

masses of granite and syenite, several thousands of feet in diameter,

presenting merely a few scattered lichens, we find in the forests, or

on their margins, little islands of light soil, covered with low and

ever-flowering plants, having the appearance of small gardens. The

monks settled on the Upper Orinoco, singularly enough regard the whole

of these horizontal naked stony plains, when extending over a

considerable area, as conducive to fevers and other diseases. Many of

the villages belonging to the mission have been transferred to other

spots on account of the general prevalence of this opinion. Do these

stony flats (_laxas_) act chemically on the atmosphere or influence it

only by means of a greater radiation of heat?

Footnote 5:

p. 2—“_Compared with the Llanos and Pampas of South America, or even

with the Prairies on the Missouri_.”

Our physical and geognostic knowledge of the western mountain region

of North America has recently been enriched by the acquisition of many

accurate data yielded by the admirable labours of the enterprising

traveller Major Long, and his companion Edwin James, but more

especially by the comprehensive investigations of Captain Frémont. The

knowledge thus established clearly corroborates the accuracy of the

different facts which in my work on New Spain I could merely advance

as hypothetical conjectures regarding the northern plains and

mountains of America. In natural history, as well as in historical

research, facts remain isolated until by long-continued investigation

they are brought into connection with each other.

The eastern shore of the United States of North America inclines from

south-west to north-east, as does the Brazilian coast south of the

equator from the Rio de la Plata to Olinda. On both these regions

there rise, at a short distance from the coast line, two ranges of

mountains more nearly parallel to each other than to the western

Andes, (the Cordilleras of Chili and Peru), or to the North Mexican

chain of the Rocky Mountains. The South American or Brazilian mountain

system, forms an isolated group, the highest points of which,

Itacolumi and Itambe, do not rise above an elevation of 900 toises, or

5755 English feet. The eastern portion of the ridge most contiguous to

the sea is the only part that follows a regular inclination from

S.S.W. to N.N.E., increasing in breadth and diminishing in general

elevation as it approaches further westward. The chain of the Parecis

hills approximates to the rivers Itenes and Guaporé, in the same

manner as the mountains of Aguapehi and San Fernando (south of

Villabella) approach the lofty Andes of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de

la Sierra.

There is no direct connection between the two mountain systems of the

Atlantic and South-sea coasts (the Brazilian and the Peruvian

Cordilleras); Western Brazil being separated from Eastern or Upper

Peru by the low lands of the province of Chiquitos, which is a

longitudinal valley that inclines from north to south, and

communicates both with the plains of the Amazon and of the Rio de la

Plata. In these regions, as in Poland and Russia, a ridge of land,

sometimes imperceptible (termed in Slavonic _Uwaly_), forms the line

of separation between different rivers; as for instance, between the

Pilcomayo and Madeira, between the Aguapehi and Guaporé, and between

the Paraguay and the Rio Topayos. The ridge (_seuil_) extends from

Chayanta and Pomabamba (19°–20° lat.,) in a south-easterly direction,

and after intersecting the depressed tracts of the province of

Chiquitos, (which has become almost unknown to geographers since the

expulsion of the Jesuits,) forms to the north-east, where some

scattered mountains are again to be met with, the _divortia aquarum_

at the sources of the Baures and near Villabella (15°–17° lat.)

This water-line of separation which is so important to the general

intercourse and growing civilization of different nations corresponds

in the northern hemisphere of South America with a second line of

demarcation (2°–3° lat.) which separates the district of the Orinoco

from that of the Rio Negro and the Amazon. These elevations or risings

in the midst of the plains (_terræ tumores_, according to Frontinus)

may almost be regarded as undeveloped mountain-systems, designed to

connect two apparently isolated groups, the Sierra Parime and the

Brazilian highlands, to the Andes chain of Timana and Cochabamba.

These relations, to which very little attention has hitherto been

directed, form the basis of my division of South America into three

depressions or basins, viz., those of the Orinoco in its lower course,

of the Amazon, and of the Rio de la Plata. Of these three basins, the

exterior ones, as I have already observed, are Steppes or Prairies;

but the central one between the Sierra Parime and the Brazilian chain

of mountains must be regarded as a wooded plain or _Hylæa_.

In endeavouring by a few equally brief touches to give a sketch of the

natural features of North America, we must first glance at the chain

of the Andes, which, narrow at its origin, soon increases in height

and breadth as it follows an inclination from south-east to

north-west, passing through Panama, Veragua, Guatimala, and New Spain.

This range of mountains, formerly the seat of an ancient civilization,

presents a like barrier to the general current of the sea between the

tropics, and to a more rapid intercommunication between Europe,

Western Africa, and Eastern Asia. From the 17th degree of latitude at

the celebrated Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the chain deflects from the

shores of the Pacific, and inclining from south to north becomes an

inland Cordillera. In Northern Mexico, the Crane Mountains (Sierra de

las Grullas) constitute a portion of the Rocky Mountains. On their

western declivity rise the Columbia and the Rio Colorado of

California; on the eastern side the Rio Roxo of Natchitoches, the

Canadian river, the Arkansas, and the shallow river Platte, which

latter has recently been converted by some ignorant geographers, into

a Rio _de la Plata_, or a river yielding silver. Between the sources

of these rivers rise in the parallels of 37° 20′ and 40° 13′ lat.,

three huge peaks composed of granite, containing little mica, but a

large proportion of hornblende. These have been respectively named

Spanish Peak, James or Pike’s Peak, and Big Horn or Long’s Peak.[K]

Their elevation exceeds that of the highest summits of the North

Mexican Andes, which indeed nowhere attain the height of the line of

perpetual snow from the parallels of 18° and 19° lat., or from the

group of Orizaba, (2717 toises, or 17,374 English feet), and of

Popocatepetl (2771 toises, or 17,720 English feet) to Santa Fé and

Taos in New Mexico. James’ Peak (38° 48′ lat.) is said to have an

elevation of 11,497 English feet. Of this only 8537 feet have been

determined by trigonometrical measurement, the remainder being deduced

in the absence of barometrical observations, from uncertain

calculations of the declivity or fall of rivers. As it is scarcely

ever possible, even at the level of the sea, to conduct a purely

trigonometrical measurement, determinations of impracticable heights

are always in part barometrical. Measurements of the fall of rivers,

of their rapidity and of the length of their course, are so deceptive,

that the plain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, more especially

near those summits mentioned in the text, was, before the important

expedition of Captain Frémont, estimated sometimes at 8000 and

sometimes at 3000 feet above the level of the sea.[L] From a similar

deficiency of barometrical measurements, the true height of the

Himalaya remained for a long time uncertain; now, however, science has

made such advances in India, that when Captain Gerard had ascended on

the Tarhigang, near the Sutledge, north of Shipke, to the height of

19,411 feet, he still had, after having broken three barometers, four

equally correct ones remaining.[M]

Frémont, in the expedition which he made between the years 1842 and

1844, at the command of the United States Government, discovered and

measured barometrically the highest peak of the whole chain of the

Rocky Mountains to the north-north-west of Spanish, James’, Long’s,

and Laramie’s Peaks. This snow-covered summit, which belongs to the

group of the Wind River Mountains, bears the name of Frémont’s Peak on

the great chart published under the direction of Colonel Abert, chief

of the topographical department at Washington. This point is situated

in the parallel of 43° 10′ north lat., and 110° 7′ west long., and

therefore nearly 5° 30′ north of Spanish Peak. The elevation of

Frémont’s Peak, which according to direct measurement is 13,568 feet,

must therefore exceed by 2072 feet that given by Long to James’ Peak,

which would appear from its position to be identical with Pike’s Peak,

as given in the map above referred to. The Wind River Mountains

constitute the dividing ridge (_divortia aquarum_) between the two

seas. “From the summit,” says Captain Frémont in his official

report,[N] “we saw on the one side numerous lakes and streams, the

sources of the Rio Colorado, which carries its waters through the

Californian Gulf to the South Sea; on the other, the deep valley of

the Wind River, where lie the sources of the Yellowstone River, one of

the main branches of the Missouri which unites with the Mississippi at

St. Louis. Far to the north-west we could just discover the snowy

heads of the Trois Tetons, which give rise to the true sources of the

Missouri not far from the primitive stream of the Oregon or Columbia

river, which is known under the name of Snake River, or Lewis Fork.”

To the surprise of the adventurous travellers, the summit of Frémont’s

Peak was found to be visited by bees. It is probable that these

insects, like the butterflies which I found at far higher elevations

in the chain of the Andes, and also within the limits of perpetual

snow, had been involuntarily drawn thither by ascending currents of

air. I have even seen large winged lepidoptera, which had been carried

far out to sea by land-winds, drop on the ship deck at a considerable

distance from land in the South Sea.

Frémont’s map and geographical researches embrace the immense tract of

land extending from the confluence of Kanzas River with the Missouri,

to the cataracts of the Columbia and the Missions of Santa Barbara and

Pueblo de los Angeles in New California, presenting a space amounting

to 28 degrees of longitude (about 1360 miles) between the 34th and

45th parallels of north latitude. Four hundred points have been

hypsometrically determined by barometrical measurements, and for the

most part, astronomically: so that it has been rendered possible to

delineate the profile above the sea’s level of a tract of land

measuring 3,600 miles with all its inflections, extending from the

north of Kanzas River to Fort Vancouver and to the coasts of the South

Sea (almost 720 miles more than the distance from Madrid to Tobolsk).

As I believe I was the first who attempted to represent, in geognostic

profile, the configuration of entire countries, as the Spanish

Peninsula, the highland of Mexico, and the Cordilleras of South

America (for the half-perspective projections of the Siberian

traveller, the Abbé Chappe,[O] were based on mere and for the most

part on very inaccurate estimates of the falls of rivers); it has

afforded me special satisfaction to find the graphical method of

representing the earth’s configuration in a vertical direction, that

is, the elevation of solid over fluid parts, achieved on so vast a

scale. In the mean latitudes of 37° to 43° the Rocky Mountains

present, besides the great snow-crowned summits, whose height may be

compared to that of the Peak of Teneriffe, elevated plateaux of an

extent scarcely to be met with in any other part of the world, and

whose breadth from east to west is almost twice that of the Mexican

highlands. From the range of the mountains, which begin a little

westward of Fort Laramie, to the further side of the Wahsatch

Mountains, the elevation of the soil is uninterruptedly maintained

from five to upwards of seven thousand feet above the sea’s level;

nay, this elevated portion occupies the whole space between the true

Rocky Mountains and the Californian snowy coast range from 34° to 45°

north latitude. This district, which is a kind of broad longitudinal

valley, like that of the lake of Titicaca, has been named _The Great

Basin_ by Joseph Walker and Captain Frémont, travellers well

acquainted with these western regions. It is a _terra incognita_ of at

least 8000 geographical (or 128,000 English) square miles, arid,

almost uninhabited, and full of salt lakes, the largest of which is

3940 Parisian (or 4200 English) feet above the level of the sea, and

is connected with the narrow Lake Utah,[P] into which the “Rock River”

(_Timpan Ogo_ in the Utah language) pours its copious stream. Father

Escalante, in his wanderings from Santa Fé del Nuevo Mexico to

Monterey in New California, discovered Frémont’s “Great Salt Lake” in

1776, and confounding together the river and the lake, called it

Laguna de Timpanogo. Under this name I inserted it in my map of

Mexico, which gave rise to much uncritical discussion regarding the

assumed non-existence of a large inland salt lake,[Q]—a question

previously mooted by the learned American traveller Tanner. Gallatin

expressly says in his memoir on the aboriginal races[R]—“General

Ashley and Mr. J. S. Smith have found the Lake Timpanogo in the same

latitude and longitude nearly as had been assigned to it in Humboldt’s

Atlas of Mexico.”

I have purposely dwelt at length on these considerations regarding the

remarkable elevation of the soil in the region of the Rocky Mountains,

since by its extension and height it undoubtedly exercises a great,

although hitherto unappreciated influence on the climate of the

northern half of the new continent, both in its southern and eastern

portions. On this vast and uniformly elevated plateau Frémont found

the water covered with ice every night in the month of August. Nor is

the configuration of the land less important when considered in

reference to the social condition and progress of the great North

American United States. Although the mountain range which divides the

waters attains a height nearly equal to that of the passes of Mount

Simplon (6170 Parisian or 6576 English feet), Mount Gothard (6440

Parisian or 6863 English feet), and the great St. Bernard (7476

Parisian or 7957 English feet), the ascent is so prolonged and gradual

that no impediments oppose a general intercourse by means of vehicles

and carriages of every kind between the Missouri and Oregon

territories, between the Atlantic States, and the new settlements on

the Oregon (or Columbia) river, or between the coast-lands lying

opposite to Europe on the one side of the continent, and to China on

the other. The distance from Boston to the old settlement of Astoria

on the Pacific at the mouth of the Oregon when measured in a direct

line, and taking into account the difference of longitude, is 550

geographical, _i.e._, 2200 English miles, or one-sixth less than the

distance between Lisbon and Katherinenburg in the Ural district. On

account of this gentle ascent of the elevated plains leading from the

Missouri to California and the Oregon territory (all the

resting-places measured between the Fort and River Lamarie on the

northern branch of the Platte river to Fort Hall on the Lewis Fork of

the Columbia, being situated at an elevation of from five to upwards

of seven thousand feet, and that in Old Park even at the height of

9760 Parisian or 10,402 English feet!), considerable difficulty has

been experienced in determining the culminating point, or that of the

_divortia aquarum_. It is south of the Wind River Mountains, about

midway between the Mississippi and the coast line of the Southern

Ocean, and is situated at an elevation of 7490 feet, or only 480 feet

lower than the pass of the Great Bernard. The emigrants call this

culminating point the South Pass.[S] It is situated in a pleasant

region, embellished by a profusion of artemisiæ, especially A.

tridentata (Nuttall), and varieties of asters and cactuses, which

cover the micaceous slate and gneiss rocks. Astronomical

determinations place its latitude in the parallel of 42° 24′, and its

longitude in that of 109° 24′ W. Adolf Erman has already drawn

attention to the fact, that the line of strike of the great

east-Asiatic Aldanian mountain-chain, which separates the basin of the

Lena from the rivers flowing towards the Great Southern Ocean, if

extended in the form of a great circle on the surface of the globe,

passes through many of the summits of the Rocky Mountains between 40°

and 55° north lat. “An American and an Asiatic mountain-chain,” he

remarks, “appear therefore to be only portions of one and the same

fissure erupted by the shortest channels.”[T]

The western high mountain coast chain of the Californian maritime

Alps, the _Sierra Nevada de California_, is wholly distinct from the

Rocky Mountains, which sink towards the Mackenzie River (that remains

covered with ice for a great portion of the year), and from the high

table land on which rise individual snow-covered peaks. However

injudicious the choice of the appellation of _Rocky Mountains_ may be,

when applied to the most northerly prolongation of the Mexican central

chain, I do not deem it expedient to substitute for it the

denomination of the Oregon Chain, as has frequently been attempted.

These mountains do indeed give rise to the sources of three main

branches constituting the great Oregon or Columbia river (viz.,

Lewis’, Clarke’s, and North Fork); but this mighty stream also

intersects the chain of the ever snow-crowned maritime Alps of

California. The name of Oregon Territory is also employed, politically

and officially, to designate the lesser territory of land west of the

coast chain, where Fort Vancouver and the Walahmutti settlements are

situated; and it would therefore seem better to abstain from applying

the name of Oregon either to the central or to the coast chain. This

denomination, moreover, led the celebrated geographer Malte-Brun into

a misconception of the most remarkable kind. He read in an old Spanish

chart the following passage:—“And it is still unknown (_y aun se

ignora_) where the source of this river” (now called the Columbia) “is

situated,” and he believed that the word _ignora_ signified the name

of the Oregon.[U]

The rocks which give rise to the cataracts of the Columbia at the

point where the river breaks through the chain, mark the prolongation

of the Sierra Nevada of California from the 44th to the 47th degree of

latitude.[V] In this northern prolongation of the chain lie the three

colossal elevations of Mount Jefferson, Mount Hood, and Mount St.

Helen’s, which rise 14,540 Parisian (or 15,500 English) feet above the

sea-level. The height of this coast chain or range far exceeds

therefore that of the Rocky Mountains. “During an eight months’

journey along these maritime Alps,” says Captain Frémont,[W] “we were

constantly within sight of snow-covered summits; and while we were

able to cross the Rocky Mountains through the South Pass at an

elevation of 7027 feet, we found that the passes in the maritime

range, which is divided into several parallel chains, were more than

2000 feet higher”—and therefore only 1170 (English) feet below the

summit of Mount Etna. It is also a very remarkable fact, and one which

reminds us of the relations of the eastern and western Cordilleras of

Chili, that volcanoes still active are only found in the Californian

chain which lies in the closest proximity to the sea. The conical

mountains of Regnier and of St. Helen’s are almost invariably observed

to emit smoke; and on the 23rd of November, 1843, the latter of these

volcanoes erupted a mass of ashes which covered the shores of the

Columbia for a distance of forty miles, like a fall of snow. To the

volcanic Californian chain belong also in the far north of Russian

America, Mount Elias (according to La Pérouse 1980 toises, or 12,660

feet, and according to Malaspina 2792 toises, or 17,850 feet in

height), and Mount Fair Weather (Cerro de Buen Tiempo, 2304 toises, or

14,733 feet high). Both these conical mountains are regarded as still

active volcanoes. Frémont’s expedition, which has proved alike useful

in reference to botany and geognosy, likewise collected volcanic

products in the Rocky Mountains (as scoriaceous basalt, trachyte, and

true obsidian), and discovered an old extinct crater somewhat to the

east of Fort Hall (43° 2′ north lat., and 112° 28′ west long.), but no

traces of any still active volcanoes emitting lava and ashes, were to

be met with. We must not confound with these the hitherto unexplained

phenomenon termed _smoking hills_, _côtes brûlées_, and _terrains

ardens_, in the language of the English settlers and the natives who

speak French. “Rows of low conical hills,” says the accurate observer

M. Nicollet, “are almost periodically, and sometimes for two or three

years continually, covered with dense black smoke, unaccompanied by

any visible flames. This phenomenon is more particularly noticed in

the territory of the Upper Missouri, and still nearer to the eastern

declivity of the Rocky Mountains, where there is a river named by the

natives Mankizitah-watpa, or the river of smoking earth. Scorified

pseudo-volcanic products, a kind of porcelain jasper, are found in the

vicinity of the smoking hills.”

Since the expedition of Lewis and Clarke an opinion has generally

prevailed that the Missouri deposits a true pumice on its banks; but

here white masses of a delicate cellular texture have been mistaken

for that substance. Professor Ducatel was of opinion that the

phenomenon which is chiefly observed in the chalk formation, was owing

to “the decomposition of water by sulphur pyrites and to a reaction on

the brown coal floetzes.”[X]

If before we close these general remarks regarding the configuration

of North America we once more cast a glance at those regions which

separate the two diverging coast chains from the central chain, we

shall find in strong contrast, on the West, between that central chain

and the Californian Alps of the Pacific, an arid and uninhabited

elevated plateau nearly six thousand feet above the sea; and in the

East, between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. (whose highest

points, Mount Washington and Mount Marcy, rise, according to Lyell, to

the respective heights, of 6652 and 5400 feet,) we see the richly

watered, fruitful, and thickly-inhabited basin of the Mississippi, at

an elevation of from four to six hundred feet, or more than twice that

of the plains of Lombardy. The hypsometrical character of this eastern

valley, or in other words, its relation to the sea’s level, has only

very recently been explained by the admirable labours of the talented

French astronomer Nicollet, unhappily lost to science by a premature

death. His great chart of the Upper Mississippi, executed between the

years 1836 and 1840, was based on two hundred and forty astronomical

determinations of latitude, and one hundred and seventy barometrical

determinations of elevation. The plain which encloses the valley of

the Mississippi is identical with that of northern Canada, and forms

part of one and the same depressed basin, extending from the Gulf of

Mexico to the Arctic Sea.[Y] Wherever the low land falls in

undulations, and slight elevations which still retain their un-English

appellation of _côteaux des prairies_, _côteaux des bois_, occur in

connected rows between the parallels of 47° and 48° north lat., these

rows and gentle undulations of the ground separate the waters between

Hudson’s Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Such a line of separation between

the waters is formed, north of Lake Superior or Kichi Gummi, by the

Missabay Heights, and further west by the elevations known as

_Hauteurs des Terres_, in which are situated the true sources of the

Mississippi, one of the largest rivers in the world, and which were

not discovered till the year 1832. The highest of these chains of

hills hardly attains an elevation of from 1500 to 1600 feet. From its

mouth (the old French Balize) to St. Louis, somewhat to the south of

its confluence with the Missouri, the Mississippi has a fall of only

380 feet, notwithstanding that the itinerary distance between these

two points exceeds 1280 miles. The surface of Lake Superior lies at an

elevation of 618 feet, and as its depth in the neighbourhood of the

island of Magdalena is fully 790 feet, its bottom must be 172 feet

below the surface of the ocean.[Z]

Beltrami, who in 1825 separated himself from Major Long’s expedition,

boasted that he had found the sources of the Mississippi in Lake Cass.

The river passes, in its upper course, through four lakes, the second

of which is the one referred to, while the outermost one, Lake Istaca

(47° 13′ north lat., and 95° west long.), was first recognised as the

true source of the Mississippi, in 1832, in the expedition of

Schoolcraft and Lieutenant Allen. This stream, which subsequently

becomes so mighty, is only 17 feet in width, and 15 inches deep, when

it issues from the singular horse-shoe-shaped Lake Istaca. The local

relations of this river were first fully established on a basis of

astronomical observations of position by the scientific expedition of

Nicollet, in the year 1836. The height of the sources, that is to say,

of the last access of water received by Lake Istaca from the ridge of

separation, called _Hauteur de Terre_, is 1680 feet above the level of

the sea. Near this point, and at the southern declivity of the same

separating ridge, lies Elbow Lake, the source of the small Red River

of the north, which empties itself, after many windings, into Hudson’s

Bay. The Carpathian Mountains exhibit similar relations in reference

to the origin of the rivers which empty themselves into the Baltic and

the Black Sea. M. Nicollet gave the names of celebrated astronomers,

opponents as well as friends, with whom he had become acquainted in

Europe, to the twenty small lakes which combine together to form

narrow groups in the southern and western regions of Lake Istaca. His

atlas is thus converted into a geographical album, reminding one of

the botanical album of the _Flora Peruviana_ of Ruiz and Pavon, in

which the names of new families of plants were made to accord with the

Court Calendar, and the various alterations made in the _Oficiales de

la Secretaria_.

The east of the Mississippi is still occupied by dense forests; the

west by prairies only, on which the buffalo (_Bos Americanus_) and the

musk ox (_Bos moschatus_) pasture. These two species of animals, the

largest of the new world, furnish the nomadic tribes of the

Apaches-Llaneros and Apaches-Lipanos with the means of nourishment.

The Assiniboins occasionally slay from seven to eight hundred bisons

in the course of a few days in the artificial enclosures constructed

for the purpose of driving together the wild herds, and known as

_bison parks_.[AA] The American bison, called by the Mexicans

_Cibolo_, is killed chiefly on account of the tongue, which is

regarded as a special delicacy. This animal is not a mere variety of

the aurochs of the old world; although, like other species of animals,

as for instance the elk (_Cervus alces_) and the reindeer (_Cervus

tarandus_), no less than the stunted inhabitants of the polar regions,

it may be regarded as common to the northern portions of _all_

continents, and as affording a proof of their former long existing

connection. The Mexicans apply to the European ox the Aztec term

_quaquahue_, or horned animal, from _quaquahuitl_, a horn. The huge

ox-horns which have been found in ancient Mexican buildings near

Cuernavaca, south-west of the capital of Mexico, appear to me to

belong to the bison. The Canadian bison can be used for agricultural

labour, and will breed with the European cattle, although it is

uncertain whether the hybrid thus engendered is capable of propagating

its species. Albert Gallatin, who, before his appearance in Europe as

a distinguished diplomatist, had acquired by personal observation a

considerable amount of information regarding the uncultivated parts of

the United States, assures us that the fruitfulness of the mixed breed

of the American buffalo and European cattle is an undoubted fact: “the

mixed breed,” he writes, “was quite common fifty years ago in some of

the north-western counties of Virginia, and the cows, the issue of

that mixture, propagated like all others.” “I do not remember,” he

further adds, “that full-grown buffaloes were tamed; but dogs would at

that time occasionally bring in the young bison-calves, which were

reared and bred with European cows. At Monongahela all the cattle for

a long time were of this mixed breed. It was said, however, that the

cows yielded but little milk.” The favourite food of the buffalo is

the _Tripsacum dactyloides_ (known as buffalo-grass in North Carolina)

and a hitherto undescribed species of clover allied to the _Trifolium

repens_, and designated by Barton as _Trifolium bisonicum_.

I have elsewhere[AB] drawn attention to the fact, that according to a

passage of the trustworthy Gomara[AC], there lived, as late as the

sixteenth century, an Indian tribe in the north-west of Mexico, in 40°

north lat., whose greatest wealth consisted in hordes of tamed

buffaloes (_bueyes con una giba_). Yet, notwithstanding the

possibility of taming the buffalo, and the abundance of milk it

yields, and notwithstanding the herds of Lamas in the Peruvian

Cordilleras, no pastoral tribes were met with on the discovery of

America. Nor does history afford any evidence of the existence, at any

period, of this intermediate stage of national development. It is also

a remarkable fact that the North American bison or buffalo has exerted

an influence on geographical discoveries in pathless mountain

districts. These animals advance in herds of many thousands in search

of a milder climate, during winter, in the countries south of the

Arkansas river. Their size and cumbrous forms render it difficult for

them to cross high mountains on these migratory courses, and a

well-trodden buffalo-path is therefore followed wherever it is met

with, as it invariably indicates the most convenient passage across

the mountains. Thus buffalo-paths have indicated the best tracks for

passing over the Cumberland Mountains in the south-western parts of

Virginia and Kentucky, and over the Rocky Mountains, between the

sources of the Yellowstone and Plate rivers, and between the southern

branch of the Columbia and the Californian Rio Colorado. European

settlements have gradually driven the buffalo from the eastern

portions of the United States. Formerly these migratory animals passed

the banks of the Mississippi and the Ohio, advancing far beyond

Pittsburgh.[AD]

From the granitic rocks of Diego Ramirez and the deeply-intersected

district of Terra del Fuego (which in the east contains silurian

schist, and in the west, the same schist metamorphosed into granite by

the action of subterranean fire,)[AE] to the North Polar Sea, the

Cordilleras extend over a distance of more than 8000 miles. Although

not the loftiest, they are the longest mountain chain in the world,

being upheaved from one fissure, which runs in the direction of a

meridian from pole to pole, and exceeding in linear extent the

distance which, in the old continent, separates the Pillars of

Hercules from the Icy Cape of the Tschuktches, in the north-east of

Asia. Where the Andes are divided into several parallel chains, those

lying nearest the sea are found to be the seat of the most active

volcanoes; and it has moreover been repeatedly observed that when the

phenomenon of an eruption of subterranean fire ceases in one mountain

chain, it breaks forth in some other parallel range. The cones of

eruption usually follow the direction of the axis of the chain; but in

the Mexican table-land, the active volcanoes are situated on a

transverse fissure, running from sea to sea, in a direction from east

and west.[AF] Wherever the upheaval of mountain masses in the folding

of the ancient crust of the earth has opened a communication with the

fused interior, volcanic activity continued to be exhibited on the

murally upheaved mass by means of the ramification of fissures. That

which we call a mountain chain has not been raised to its present

elevation, or manifested as it now appears, at one definite period;

for we find that rocks, varying considerably in age, have been

superimposed on one another, and have penetrated towards the surface

through early formed channels. The diversity observable in rocks is

owing to the outpouring and upheaval of rocks of eruption, as well as

to the complicated and slow process of metamorphism going on in

fissures filled with vapour, and conducive to the conduction of heat.

The following have for a long time, viz., from 1830 to 1848, been

regarded as the highest or culminating points of the Cordilleras of

the new continent:—

The _Nevado de Sorata_, also called Ancohuma or Tusubaya (15° 52′

south lat.), somewhat to the south of the village of Sorata or

Esquibel, in the eastern chain of Bolivia: elevation, 25,222 feet.

The _Nevado de Illimani_, west of the mission of Yrupana (16° 38′

south lat.), also in the eastern chain of Bolivia: elevation, 24,000

feet.

The _Chimborazo_ (1° 27′ south lat.), in the province of Quito:

elevation, 21,422 feet.

The Sorata and Illimani were first measured by the distinguished

geologist, Pentland, in the years 1827 and 1838; and since the

publication of his large map of the basin of the Laguna de Titicaca,

in June, 1848, we learn that the above elevations given for the Sorata

and Illimani are 3960 feet and 2851 feet too high. His map gives only

21,286 feet for the Sorata, and 21,149 feet for the Illimani. A more

exact calculation of the trigonometrical operations of 1838 led Mr.

Pentland to these new results. He ascribes an elevation of from 21,700

to 22,350 feet to four summits of the western Cordilleras; and,

according to his data, the Peak of Sahama would thus be 926 feet

higher than the Chimborazo, but 850 feet lower than the Peak of

Aconcagua.

Footnote 6:

p. 2—“_The desert near the basaltic mountains of Harudsch_.”

Near the Egyptian Natron Lakes, which in Strabo’s time had not yet

been divided into the six reservoirs by which they are now

characterized, there rises abruptly to the north a chain of hills,

running from east to west past Fezzan, where it at length appears to

form one connected range with the Atlas chain. It divides in

north-eastern, as Mount Atlas does in north-western Africa the Lybia,

described by Herodotus as inhabited and situated near the sea, from

the land of the Berbirs, or Biledulgerid, famed for the abundance of

its wild animals. On the borders of Middle Egypt the whole region,

south of the 30th degree of latitude, is an ocean of sand, studded

here and there with islands or oases abounding in springs and rich in

vegetation. Owing to the discoveries of recent travellers, a vast

addition has been made to the number of the Oases formerly known, and

which the ancients limited to three, compared by Strabo to spots upon

a panther’s skin. The third Oasis of the ancients, now called Siwah,

was the _nomos_ of Ammon, a hierarchical seat and a resting-place for

the caravans, which inclosed within its precincts the temple of the

horned Ammon and the spring of the Sun, whose waters were supposed to

become cool at certain periods. The ruins of Ummibida (_Omm-Beydah_)

incontestably belong to the fortified caravanserai at the Temple of

Ammon, and therefore constitute one of the most ancient monuments

which have come down to us from the dawn of human civilization.[AG]

The word Oasis is Egyptian, and is synonymous with Auasis and

Hyasis.[AH] Abulfeda calls the Oases _el-Wah_. In the latter time of

the Cæsars, malefactors were sent to the Oases, being banished to

these islands in the sandy ocean, as the Spaniards and English

transported their malefactors to the Falkland islands and New Holland.

The ocean affords almost a better chance of escape than the desert

surrounding the Oases; which, moreover, diminish in fruitfulness in

proportion to the greater quantity of sand incorporated in the soil.

The small mountain range of Harudsch (_Harudje_[AI]) consists of

grotesquely-shaped basaltic hills. It is the _Mons Ater_ of Pliny, and

its western extremity, known as the Soudah mountain, has been recently

explored by my unfortunate friend, the enterprising traveller Ritchie.

These basaltic eruptions in the tertiary limestone, and rows of hills

rising abruptly from fissures, appear to be analogous to the basaltic

eruptions in the Vicentine territory.

Nature repeats the same phenomena in the most distant regions of the

earth. Hornemann found an immense quantity of petrified fishes’ heads

in the limestone formations of the White Harudsch (_Harudje

el-Abiad_), belonging probably to the old chalk. Ritchie and Lyon

remarked that the basalt of the Soudah mountain was in many places

intimately mingled with carbonate of lime, as is the case in Monte

Berico; a phenomenon that is probably connected with eruptions through

limestone strata. Lyon’s chart even indicates dolomite in the

neighbourhood. Modern mineralogists have found syenite and greenstone,

but not basalt, in Egypt. Is it possible that the true basalt, from

which many of the ancient vases found in various parts of the country

were made, can have been derived from a mountain lying so far to the

west? Can the _obsidius lapis_ have come from there, or are we to seek

basalt and obsidian on the coast of the Red Sea? The strip of the

volcanic eruptions of Harudsch, on the borders of the African desert,

moreover reminds the geologist of augitic vesicular amygdaloid,

phonolite, and greenstone porphyry, which are only found on the

northern and western limits of the steppes of Venezuela and of the

plains of the Arkansas, and therefore, as it were, on the ancient

coast chains.[AJ]

Footnote 7:

p. 3—“_When suddenly deserted by the tropical east wind, and the sea

is covered with weeds_.”

It is a remarkable phenomenon, although one generally known to

mariners, that in the neighbourhood of the African coast, (between the

Canaries and the Cape de Verde islands, and more especially between

Cape Bojador and the mouth of the Senegal,) a westerly wind often

prevails instead of the usual east or trade wind of the tropics. The

cause of this phenomenon is to be ascribed to the far-extending desert

of Zahara, and arises from the rarefaction, and consequent vertical

ascent of the air over the heated sandy surface. To fill up the vacuum

thus occasioned, the cool sea-air rushes in, producing a westerly

breeze, adverse to vessels sailing to America; and the mariner, long

before he perceives any continent, is made sensible of the effects of

its heat-radiating sands. As is well known, a similar cause produces

that alternation of sea and land breezes, which prevails at certain

hours of the day and night on all sea-coasts.

The accumulation of sea-weed in the neighbourhood of the western

coasts of Africa has been often referred to by ancient writers. The

local position of this accumulation is a problem which is intimately

connected with the conjectures regarding the extent of Phœnician

navigation. The Periplus, which has been ascribed to Scylax of

Caryanda, and which, according to the investigations of Niebuhr and

Letronne, was very probably compiled in the time of Philip of Macedon,

contains a description of a kind of fucus sea, _Mar de Sargasso_,

beyond Cerne; but the locality indicated appears to me very different

from that assigned to it in the work “_De Mirabilibus

Auscultationibus_,” which for a long time, but incorrectly, bore the

great name of Aristotle.[AK] “Driven by the east wind,” says the

pseudo-Aristotle, “Phœnician mariners came in a four days’ voyage from

Gades to a place where the sea was found covered with rushes and

sea-weed (θρύον καὶ φῦκος). The sea-weed is uncovered at ebb, and

overflowed at flood tide.” Does he not here refer to a shoal lying

between the 34th and 36th degrees of latitude? Has a shoal disappeared

there in consequence of volcanic revolution? Vobonne refers to rocks

north of Madeira.[AL] In Scylax it is stated that “the sea beyond

Cerne ceases to be navigable in consequence of its great shallowness,

its muddiness, and its sea-grass. The sea-grass lies a span thick, and

it is pointed at its upper extremity, so that it pricks.” The sea-weed

which is found between Cerne (the Phœnician station for merchant

vessels, Gaulea; or, according to Gosselin, the small estuary of

Fedallah, on the north-west coast of Mauritania,) and Cape Verde, at

the present time by no means forms a great meadow or connected group,

“_mare herbidum_,” such as exists on the other side of the Azores.

Moreover, in the poetic description of the coast given by Festus

Avienus,[AM] in which, as Avienus himself very distinctly

acknowledges, he availed himself of the journals of Phœnician ships,

the impediments presented by the sea-weed are described with great

minuteness; but Avienus places the site of this obstacle much further

north, towards Ierne, the Holy Isle.

Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem,

Sic segnis humor æquoris pigri stupet.

Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites

Exstare fucum, et sæpe virgulti vice

Retinere puppim ...

Hæc inter undas multa cæspitem jacet,

Eamque late gens Hibemorum colit.

When we consider that the sea-weed (_fucus_), the mud or slime

(πηλὸς), the shallowness of the sea, and the perpetual calms, are

always regarded by the ancients as characteristic of the Western Ocean

beyond the Pillars of Hercules, we feel inclined, especially on

account of the reference to the _calms_, to ascribe this to Punic

cunning, to the tendency of a great trading people to hinder others,

by terrific descriptions, from competing with them in maritime trading

westwards. But even in the genuine writings of the Stagyrite,[AN] the

same opinion is retained regarding the absence of wind, and Aristotle

attempts to explain a false notion, or, as it seems to me, more

correctly speaking, a fabulous mariner’s story, by an hypothesis

regarding the depth of the sea. The stormy sea between Gades and the

Islands of the Blest (Cadiz and the Canaries) can in truth in no way

be compared with the sea, which lies between the tropics, ruffled only

by the gentle trade-winds (_vents alisés_), and which has been very

characteristically named by the Spaniards[AO] _El Golfo de las Damas_.

From very careful personal researches and from comparison of the logs

of many English and French vessels, I am led to believe that the old

and very indefinite expression _Mar de Sargasso_, refers to two fucus

banks, the larger of which is of an elongated form, and is the

easternmost one, lying between the parallels of 19° and 34°, in a

meridian 7° westward of the Island of Corvo, one of the Azores; while

the smaller and westernmost bank is of a roundish form, and is found

between Bermuda and the Bahama Islands (lat. 25°–31°, long. 66°–74°).

The principal diameter of the small bank, which is traversed by ships

sailing from Baxo de Plata (Caye d’Argent,) northward of St. Domingo

to the Bermudas, appears to me to have a N. 60° E. direction. A

transverse band of _fucus natans_, extending in an east-westerly

direction between the latitudes of 25° and 30°, connects the greater

with the smaller bank. I have had the pleasure of seeing these views

adopted by my lamented friend Major Rennell, and confirmed, in his

great work on Currents, by many new observations.[AP] The two groups

of sea-weed, together with the transverse band uniting them,

constitute the Sargasso Sea of the older writers, and collectively

occupy an area equal to six or seven times that of Germany.

The vegetation of the ocean thus offers the most remarkable example of

_social plants_ of a single species. On the main land the Savannahs or

grass plains of America, the heaths (_ericeta_), and the forests of

Northern Europe and Asia, in which are associated coniferous trees,

birches, and willows, produce a less striking uniformity than do these

thalassophytes. Our heaths present in the north not only the

predominating Calluna vulgaris, but also Erica tetralix, E. ciliaris,

and E. cinerea; and in the south, Erica arborea, E. scoparia, and E.

Mediterranea. The uniformity of the view presented by the Fucus natans

is incomparably greater than that of any other assemblage of social

plants. Oviedo calls the fucus banks “meadows,” _praderias de yerva_.

If we consider that Pedro Velasco, a native of the Spanish harbour of

Palos, by following the flight of certain birds from Fayal, discovered

the Island of Flores as early as 1452, it seems almost impossible,

considering the proximity of the great fucus bank of Corvo and Flores,

that no part of these oceanic meadows should have been seen before the

time of Columbus by Portuguese ships driven westward by storms.

We learn, however, from the astonishment of the companions of the

admiral, when they were continuously surrounded by sea-grass from the

16th of September to the 8th of October, 1492, that the magnitude of

the phenomenon was at that period unknown to mariners. In the extracts

from the ship’s journal given by Las Casas, Columbus certainly does

not mention the apprehensions which the accumulation of sea-weed

excited, or the grumbling of his companions. He merely speaks of the

complaints and murmurs regarding the danger of the very weak but

constant east winds. It was only his son, Fernando Colon, who in the

history of his father’s life, endeavoured to give a somewhat dramatic

delineation of the anxieties of the sailors.

According to my researches, Columbus made his way through the great

fucus bank in the year 1492, in latitude 28½°, and in 1493, in

latitude 37°, and both times in the longitude of 38°–41°. This can be

established with tolerable certainty from the estimation of the

velocity recorded by Columbus, and “the distance daily sailed over;”

not indeed by dropping the log, but by the information afforded by the

running out of half-hour sand-glasses (_ampolletas_). The first

certain and distinct account of the log, (_catena della poppa_,) which

I have found, is in the year 1521, in Pigafetta’s Journal of

Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the World.[AQ] The determination of the

ship’s place during the days in which Columbus was crossing the great

bank is the more important, because it shews us that for three

centuries and a half the total accumulation of these socially-living

thalassophytes, (whether consequent on the local character of the

sea’s bottom or on the direction of the recurrent Gulf stream,) has

remained at the same point. Such evidences of the persistence of great

natural phenomena doubly arrest the attention of the natural

philosopher, when they occur in the ever-moving oceanic element.

Although the limits of the fucus banks oscillate considerably, in

accordance with the strength and direction of long predominating

winds, yet we may still, in the middle of the nineteenth century, take

the meridian of 41° west of Paris (or 8° 38′ west of Greenwich) as the

principal axis of the _great bank_. Columbus, with his vivid

imaginative force, associated the idea of the position of this bank

with the great physical line of demarcation, which according to him,

“separated the globe into two parts, and was intimately connected with

the changes of magnetic deviation and of climatic relations.” Columbus

when he was uncertain regarding the longitude, attempted to determine

his place (February, 1493,) by the appearance of the first floating

masses of tangled weed (_de la primera yerva_) on the eastern border

of the great Corvo bank. The physical line of demarcation was, by the

powerful influence of the Admiral, converted on the 4th of May, 1493,

into a political one, in the celebrated _line of demarcation_ between

the Spanish and Portuguese rights of possession[AR].

Footnote 8:

p. 3—“_The Nomadic Tribes of Tibbos and Tuaryks_.”

These two nations, which inhabit the desert between Bornou, Fezzan,

and Lower Egypt, were first made more accurately known to us by the

travels of Hornemann and Lyon. The Tibbos or Tibbous occupy the

eastern, and the Tuaryks (Tueregs) the western portion of the great

sandy ocean. The former, from their habits of constant moving, were

named by the other tribes “birds.” The Tuaryks are subdivided into two

tribes—the Aghadez and the Tagazi. These are often caravan leaders and

merchants. They speak the same language as the Berbers, and

undoubtedly belong to the primitive Lybian races. They present the

remarkable physiological phenomenon that, according to the character

of the climate, the different tribes vary in complexion from a white

to a yellow, or even almost black hue; but they never have woolly hair

or negro features.[AS]

Footnote 9:

p. 3—“_The ship of the desert_.”

In the poetry of the East, the camel is designated as _the land-ship_,

or _the ship of the desert_ (_Sefynet-el-badyet_[AT]).

The camel is, however, not only the carrier in the desert, and the

medium for maintaining communication between different countries, but

is also, as Carl Bitter has shown in his admirable treatise on the

sphere of distribution of this animal, “the main requirement of a

nomadic mode of life in the patriarchal stage of national development,

in the torrid regions of our planet, where rain is either wholly or in

a great degree absent. No animal’s life is so closely associated by

natural bonds with a certain primitive stage of the development of the

life of man, as that of the camel among the Bedouin tribes, nor has

any other been established in like manner by a continuous historical

evidence of several thousand years.”[AU] “The camel was entirely

unknown to the cultivated people of Carthage through all the centuries

of their flourishing existence, until the destruction of the city. It

was first brought into use for armies by the Marusians, in Western

Lybia, in the times of the Cæsars; perhaps in consequence of its

employment in commercial undertakings by the Ptolemies, in the valley

of the Nile. The Guanches, inhabiting the Canary Islands, who were

probably related to the Berber race, were not acquainted with the

camel before the fifteenth century, when it was introduced by Norman

conquerors and settlers. In the probably very limited communication of

the Guanches with the coast of Africa, the smallness of their boats

must necessarily have impeded the transport of large animals. The true

Berber race, which was diffused throughout the interior of Northern

Africa, and to which the Tibbos and Tuaryks, as already observed,

belong, is probably indebted to the use of the camel throughout the

Lybian desert and its oases, not only for the advantages of internal

communication, but also for its escape from complete annihilation and

for the maintenance of its national existence to the present day. The

use of the camel continued, on the other hand, to be unknown to the

negro races, and it was only in company with the conquering

expeditions and proselyting missions of the Bedouins through the whole

of Northern Africa, that the useful animal of the Nedschd, of the

Nabatheans, and of all the districts occupied by Aramean races, spread

here, as elsewhere, to the westward. The Goths brought camels as early

as the fourth century to the Lower Istros (the Danube), and the

Ghaznevides transported them in much larger numbers to India as far as

the banks of the Ganges.” We must distinguish two epochs in the

distribution of the camel throughout the northern part of the African

continent; the first under the Ptolemies, which operated through

Cyrene on the whole of the north-west of Africa, and the second under

the Mahommedan epoch of the conquering Arabs.

It has long been a matter of discussion, whether those domestic

animals which were the earliest companions of mankind, as oxen, sheep,

dogs, and camels, are still to be met with in a state of original

wildness. The Hiongnu, in Eastern Asia, are among the nations who

earliest trained wild camels as domestic animals. The compiler of the

great Chinese work, _Si-yu-wen-kien-lo_[AV], states that in the middle

of the eighteenth century, wild camels, as well as wild horses and

wild asses, still roamed over Eastern Turkestan. Hadji Chalfa, in his

Turkish Geography, written in the seventeenth century, speaks of the

very frequent hunting of the wild camel in the high plains of Kashgar,

Turfan, and Khotan. Schott finds in the writings of a Chinese author,

Ma-dschi, that wild camels exist in the countries north of China and

west of the basin of the Hoang-ho, in Ho-si or Tangut. Cuvier[AW]

alone doubts the present existence of wild camels in the interior of

Asia. He believes that they have merely “become wild;” since Calmucks,

and others professing kindred Buddhist doctrines, set camels and other

animals at liberty, in order “to acquire to themselves merit for the

other world.” The Ailanitic Gulf of the Nabatheans was the home of the

wild Arabian camel, according to Greek witnesses of the times of

Artemidorus and Agatharchides of Cnidus.[AX] The discovery of fossil

camel-bones of the ancient world in the Sewalik hills (which are

projecting spurs of the Himalaya range), by Captain Cautley and Dr.

Falconer, in 1834, is especially worthy of notice. These remains were

found with antediluvian bones of mastodons, true elephants, giraffes,

and a gigantic land tortoise (_Colossochelys_), twelve feet in length

and six feet in height.[AY] This camel of the ancient world has been

named _Camelus sivalensis_, although it does not show any great

difference from the still living Egyptian and Bactrian camels with one

and two humps. Forty camels have very recently been introduced into

Java, from Teneriffe[AZ]. The first experiment has been made in

Samarang. In like manner, reindeer were only introduced into Iceland

from Norway in the course of the last century. They were not found

there when the island was first colonised, notwithstanding its

proximity to East Greenland, and the existence of floating masses of

ice.[BA]

Footnote 10:

p. 3—“_Between the Altai and the Kuen-lün_.”

The great highland, or, as it is commonly called, the mountain plateau

of Asia, which comprises the lesser Bucharia, Songaria, Thibet,

Tangut, and the Mogul country of the Chalcas and Olotes, is situated

between the 36th and 48th degrees of north latitude and the meridians

of 81° and 118° E. long. It is an erroneous idea to represent this

part of the interior of Asia as a single, undivided mountainous

swelling, continuous like the plateaux of Quito and Mexico, and

situated from seven to upwards of nine thousand feet above the level

of the sea. I have already shown in my “_Researches respecting the

Mountains of Northern India_,[BB]” that there is not in this sense any

continuous mountain plateau in the interior of Asia.

My views concerning the geographical distribution of plants, and the

mean degree of temperature requisite for certain kinds of cultivation,

had early led me to entertain considerable doubts regarding the

continuity of a great Tartarian plateau between the Himalaya and the

chain of the Altai. This plateau continued to be characterized, as it

had been described by Hippocrates, as “the high and naked plains of

Scythia, which, without being crowned with mountains, rise and extend

to beneath the constellation of the Bear.”[BC] Klaproth has the

undeniable merit of having been the first to make us acquainted with

the true position and prolongation of two great and entirely distinct

chains of mountains,—the Kuen-lün and the Thian-schan, in a part of

Asia which better deserves to be termed “central,” than Kashmeer,

Baltistan, and the Sacred Lakes of Thibet (the Manasa and the

Ravanahrada). The importance of the Celestial Mountains (the

Thian-schan) had indeed been already surmised by Pallas, without his

being conscious of their volcanic character; but this highly-gifted

investigator of nature, led astray by the hypotheses of the dogmatic

and fantastic geology prevalent in his time, and firmly believing in

“chains of mountains radiating from a centre,” saw in the Bogdo Oola

(the _Mons Augustus_, or culminating point of the Thian-schan,) such

“a central node, whence all the other Asiatic mountain chains diverge

in rays, and which dominates over all the rest of the continent!”

The erroneous idea of a single boundless and elevated plain, occupying

the whole of Central Asia, the “_Plateau de la Tartarie_,” originated

in France, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It was the

result of historical combinations, and of a not sufficiently attentive

study of the writings of the celebrated Venetian traveller, as well as

of the naïve relations of those diplomatic monks who, in the

thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (thanks to the unity and extent of

the Mogul empire at that time), were able to traverse almost the whole

of the interior of the continent, from the ports of Syria and of the

Caspian Sea to the east coast of China, washed by the great ocean. If

a more exact acquaintance with the language and ancient literature of

India were of an older date among us than half a century, the

hypothesis of this central plateau, occupying the wide space between

the Himalaya and the south of Siberia, would no doubt have sought

support from some ancient and venerable authority. The poem of the

Mahabharata appears, in the geographical fragment Bhischmakanda, to

describe “Meru” not so much as a mountain as an enormous swelling of

the land, which supplies with water the sources of the Ganges, those

of the Bhadrasoma (Irtysch), and those of the forked Oxus. These

physico-geographical views were intermingled in Europe with ideas of

other kinds, and with mythical reveries on the origin of mankind. The

lofty regions from which the waters were supposed to have first

retreated (for geologists in general were long averse to the theories

of elevation) must also have received the first germs of civilization.

Hebraic systems of geology, based on ideas of a deluge, and supported

by local traditions, favoured these assumptions. The intimate

connexion between time and space, between the beginning of social

order and the plastic condition of the surface of the earth, lent a

peculiar importance and an almost moral interest to the Plateau of

Tartary, which was supposed to be characterized by uninterrupted

continuity. Acquisitions of positive knowledge,—the late matured fruit

of scientific travels and direct measurements,—with a fundamental

study of the languages and literature of Asia, and more especially of

China, have gradually demonstrated the inaccuracy and exaggeration of

those wild hypotheses. The mountain plains (ὀροπέδια) of Central Asia

are no longer regarded as the cradle of human civilization, and the

primitive seat of all arts and sciences. The ancient nation of

Bailly’s Atlantis, which d’Alembert has happily described as “having

taught us everything but its own name and existence,” has vanished.

The inhabitants of the Oceanic Atlantis were already treated, in the

time of Posidonius, as having a merely apocryphal existence.[BD]

A plateau of considerable but very unequal elevation runs with little

interruption, in a S.S.W.-N.N.E. direction, from Eastern Thibet

towards the mountain node of Kentei, south of Lake Baikal, and is

known by the names of Gobi, Scha-mo, (sand desert,) Scha-ho. (sand

river,) and Han-hai. This swelling of the ground, which is probably

more ancient than the elevation of the mountain-chains by which it is

intersected, is situated, as we have already remarked, between 81° and

118° east longitude from Greenwich. Measured at right angles to its

longitudinal axis, its breadth in the south, between Ladak, Gertop,

and H’lassa (the seat of the great Lama), is 720 miles; between Hami

in the Celestial Mountains, and the great curve of the Hoang-ho, near

the In-schan chain, it is scarcely 480; but in the north, between the

Khanggai, where the great city of Karakhorum once stood, and the chain

of Khin-gan-Petscha, which runs in a meridian line (in the part of

Gobi traversed in going from Kiachta to Pekin by way of Urga), it is

760 miles. The whole extent of this elevated ground, which must be

carefully distinguished from the more eastern and higher

mountain-range, may be approximately estimated, including its

deflections, at about three times the area of France. The map of the

mountain-ranges and volcanoes of Central Asia, which I constructed in

1839, but did not publish until 1843, shows in the clearest manner the

hypsometric relations between the mountain-ranges and the Gobi

plateau. It was founded on the critical employment of all the

astronomical determinations accessible to me, and on many of the very

rich and copious orographic descriptions in which Chinese literature

abounds, and which were examined at my request by Klaproth and

Stanislaus Julien. My map marks in prominent characters the mean

direction and the height of the mountain-chains, together with the

chief features of the interior of the continent of Asia from 30 to 60

degrees of latitude, between the meridians of Pekin and Cherson. It

differs essentially from any map hitherto published.

The Chinese enjoyed a triple advantage, by means of which they were

enabled to enrich their earliest literature with so considerable an

amount of orographic knowledge regarding Upper Asia, and more

especially those regions situated between the In-schan, the alpine

lake of Khuku-noor, and the shores of the Ili and Tarim, lying north

and south of the Celestial Mountains, and which were so little known

to Western Europe. These three advantages were, besides the peaceful

conquests of the Buddhist pilgrims, the warlike expeditions towards

the west (as early as the dynasties of Han and Thang, one hundred and

twenty-two years before our era, and again in the ninth century, when

conquerors advanced as far as Ferghana and the shores of the Caspian

Sea); the religious interest attached to certain high mountain

summits, on account of the periodical performance of sacrifices, in

accordance with pre-existing enactments; and lastly, the early and

generally known use of the compass for determining the direction of

mountains and rivers. This use, and the knowledge of the

south-pointing of the magnetic needle, twelve centuries before the

Christian era, gave a great superiority to the orographic and

hydrographic descriptions of the Chinese over those of Greek and Roman

authors, who treated less frequently of subjects of this nature. The

acute observer Strabo was alike ignorant of the direction of the

Pyrenees and of that of the Alps and Apennines.[BE]

To the lowlands belong almost the whole of Northern Asia to the

north-west of the volcanic Celestial Mountains (Thian-schan); the

steppes to the north of the Altai and the Sayanic chain; and the

countries which extend from the mountains of Bolor, or Bulyt-tagh

(Cloud Mountains in the Uigurian dialect), which run in a north and

south direction, and from the upper Oxus, whose sources were

discovered in the Pamershian Lake, Sir-i-kol (Lake Victoria), by the

Buddhist pilgrims Hiuen-thsang and Song-yun in 518 and 629, by Marco

Polo in 1277, and by Lieutenant Wood in 1838, towards the Caspian Sea;

and from Lake Tenghiz or Balkasch, through the Kirghis Steppe, towards

the Aral and the southern extremity of the Ural Mountains. In the

vicinity of mountainous plains, whose elevation varies from 6000 to

more than 10,000 feet above the sea’s level, we may assuredly be

allowed to apply the term lowlands to districts which are only

elevated from 200 to 1200 feet. The first of these heights correspond

with that of the city of Mannheim, and the second with that of Geneva

and Tübingen. If we extend the application of the word _plateau_,

which has so frequently been misused by modern geographers, to

elevations of the soil which scarcely present any sensible difference

in the character of the vegetation and climate, physical geography,

owing to the indefiniteness of the merely relatively important terms

of _high_ and _low_ land, will be unable to distinguish the connexion

between elevation above the sea’s level and climate, between the

decrease of the temperature and the increase in elevation. When I was

in Chinese Dzungarei, between the boundaries of Siberia and Lake

Saysan (Dsaisang), at an equal distance from the Icy Sea and the mouth

of the Ganges, I might assuredly consider myself to be in _Central

Asia_. The barometer, however, soon showed me that the elevation of

the plains watered by the Upper Irtysch between Ustkamenogorsk and the

Chinese Dzungarian post of Chonimailachu (the sheep-bleating) was

scarcely as much as from 850 to 1170 feet. Pansner’s earlier

barometric determinations of height, which were first made known after

my expedition, have been confirmed by my own observations. Both afford

a refutation of the hypotheses of Chappe D’Auteroche (based on

calculations of the fall of rivers) regarding the elevated position of

the shores of the Irtysch, in Southern Siberia. Even further eastward,

the Lake of Baikal is only 1420 feet above the level of the sea.

In order to associate the idea of the _relation_ between _lowlands_

and _highlands_, and of the successive gradations in the elevation of

the soil, with actual data based on accurate measurements, I subjoin a

table, in which the heights of the elevated plains of Europe, Africa,

and America are given in an ascending scale. With these numbers we may

then further compare all that has as yet been made known regarding the

mean height of the Asiatic plains, or true _lowlands_.

Toises. Feet.

Plateau of Auvergne 170 1,087

„ of Bavaria 260 1,663

„ of Castille 350 2,238

„ of Mysore 460 2,942

„ of Caracas 480 3,070

„ of Popayan 900 5,755

„ of the vicinity of the Lake of Tzana, in

Abyssinia 950 6,075

„ of the Orange River (in South Africa) 1000 6,395

„ of Axum (in Abyssinia) 1100 7,034

„ of Mexico 1170 7,482

„ of Quito 1490 9,528

„ of the Province de los Pastos 1600 10,231

„ of the vicinity of the Lake of Titicaca 2010 12,853

No portion of the so-called Desert of Gobi, which consists in part of

fine pasture lands, has been so thoroughly investigated in relation to

its differences of elevations as the zone which extends over an area

of nearly 600 miles, between the sources of the Selenga and the

Chinese wall. A very accurate barometrical levelling was executed,

under the auspices of the Academy of St. Petersburgh, by two

distinguished savans—the astronomer George Fuss, and the botanist

Bunge. They accompanied a mission of Greek monks to Pekin, in the year

1832, in order to establish there one of those magnetic stations whose

construction I had recommended. The mean height of this portion of the

Desert of Gobi amounts hardly to 4263 feet, and not to 8000 or 8500

feet, as had been too hastily concluded from the measurements of

contiguous mountain summits by the Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest. The

surface of the Desert of Gobi is not more than 2558 feet above the

level of the sea between Erghi, Durma, and Scharaburguna; and scarcely

more than 320 feet higher than the plateau of Madrid. Erghi is

situated midway, in 45° 31′ north lat., and 111° 26′ east long., in a

depression of the land extending in a direction from south-west to

north-east over a breadth of more than 240 miles. An ancient Mongolian

saga designates this spot as the former site of a large inland sea.

Reeds and saline plants, generally of the same species as those found

on the low shores of the Caspian Sea, are here met with; while there

are in this central part of the desert several small saline lakes, the

salt of which is carried to China. According to a singular opinion

prevalent among the Mongols, the ocean will at some period return, and

again establish its dominion in Gobi. Such geological reveries remind

us of the Chinese traditions of the _bitter lake_, in the interior of

Siberia, of which I have elsewhere spoken.[BF]

The basin of Kashmir, which has been so enthusiastically praised by

Bernier, and too moderately estimated by Victor Jacquemont, has also

given occasion to great hypsometric exaggerations. Jacquemont found by

an accurate barometric measurement that the height of the Wulur Lake,

in the valley of Kashmir, near the capital Sirinagur, was 5346 feet.

Uncertain determinations by the boiling point of water gave Baron Carl

von Hügel 5819 feet, and Lieutenant Cunningham only 5052 feet.[BG] The

mountainous districts of Kashmir, which has excited so great an

interest in Germany, and whose climatic advantages have lost somewhat

of their reputation since Carl von Hügel’s account of the four months

of winter snow in the streets of Sirinagur,[BH] does not lie on the

high crests of the Himalaya, as has commonly been supposed, but

constitutes a true cauldron-like valley on their southern declivity.

On the south-west, where the rampart-like Pir Panjal separates it from

the Indian Punjaub, the snow-crowned summits are covered, according to

Vigne, by basaltic and amygdaloid formations. The latter are very

characteristically termed by the natives _schischak deyu_, or devil’s

pock-marks.[BI] The charms of the vegetation have also been very

differently described, according as travellers passed into Kashmir

from the south, and left behind them the luxuriant and varied

vegetation of India; or from the northern regions of Turkestan,

Samarkand, and Ferghana.

Moreover, it is only very recently that we have obtained a clearer

view regarding the elevation of Thibet, the level of the plateau

having long been uncritically confounded with the mountain tops rising

from it. Thibet occupies the space between the two great chains of the

Himalaya and the Kuen-lün, and forms the elevated ground of the valley

between them. The land is divided from east to west, both by the

inhabitants and by Chinese geographers, into three parts. We

distinguish Upper Thibet, with its capital, H’lassa (probably 9592

feet high); Middle Thibet, with the town of Leh or Ladak (9995 feet);

and Little Thibet, or Baltistan, called the Thibet of Apricots

(Sari-Butan), in which lie Iskardo (6300 feet), Gilgit, and south of

Iskardo, but on the left bank of the Indus, the plateau Deotsuh, whose

elevation was determined by Vigne (11,977 feet). On carefully

examining all the notices we have hitherto possessed regarding the

three Thibets, and which will have been abundantly augmented during

the present year by the brilliant boundary surveying expedition under

the auspices of the Governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, we soon become

convinced that the region between the Himalaya and the Kuen-lün is no

unbroken table-land, but that it is intersected by mountain groups,

which undoubtedly belong to perfectly distinct systems of elevation.

Actual plains are very few in number: the most considerable are those

between Gertop, Daba, Schang-thung (the Shepherd’s Plain), the native

country of the shawl-goat, and Schipke (10,449 feet); those round

Ladak, which attain an elevation of 13,429 feet, and must not be

confounded with the depressed land in which the town lies; and

finally, the plateau of the Sacred Lakes, Manasa and Ravanahrada

(probably 14,965 feet), which was visited by Father Antonio de Andrada

as early as the year 1625. Other parts are entirely filled with

compressed mountain masses, “rising,” as a recent traveller observes,

“like the waves of a vast ocean.” Along the rivers, the Indus, the

Sutledge, and the Yaru-dzangbotschu, which was formerly regarded as

identical with the Buramputer (or correctly the Brahmaputra), points

have been measured which are only between 6714 and 8952 feet above the

sea; and the same is the case with the Thibetian villages Pangi,

Kunawur, Kelu, and Murung.[BJ] From many carefully collected

determinations of heights, I think that we are justified in assuming

that the plateau of Thibet between 73° and 85° east long, does not

attain a mean elevation of 11,510 feet: this is hardly the elevation

of the fruitful plain of Caxamarca in Peru, and is 1349 and 2155 feet

less than the plateau of Titicaca, and of the street pavement of the

Upper Town of Potosi (13,665 feet).

That beyond the Thibetian highlands and the Gobi, whose outline has

been already defined, Asia presents considerable depressions, and

indeed true lowlands, between the parallels of 37° and 48°, where once

an immeasurable continuous plateau was fabulously supposed to exist,

is proved by the cultivation of plants which cannot flourish without a

certain degree of temperature. An attentive study of the travels of

Marco Polo, in which mention is made of the cultivation of the vine,

and of the production of cotton in northern latitudes, had long ago

directed the attention of the acute Klaproth to this point. In a

Chinese work, bearing the title _Information respecting the recently

conquered Barbarians_ (Sinkiang-wai-tan-ki-lio), it is stated that

“the country of Aksu, somewhat to the south of the Celestial

Mountains, near the rivers which form the great Tarim-gol, produces

grapes, pomegranates, and numberless other fruits of singular

excellence; also cotton (Gossypium religiosum), which, covers the

fields like yellow clouds. In summer the heat is extremely great, and

in winter there is here, as at Turfan, neither intense cold nor heavy

snow.” The neighbourhood of Khotan, Kaschgar, and Yarkand still, as in

the time of Marco Polo,[BK] pays its tribute in home-grown cotton. In

the oasis of Hami (Khamil), above 200 miles east of Aksu, orange

trees, pomegranates, and the finer vines are found to flourish.

The products of cultivation which are here noticed lead to the belief

that over extensive districts the elevation of the soil is very

slight. At so great a distance from the sea side, and in the easterly

situation which so much increases the degree of winter cold, a

plateau, as high as Madrid or Munich, might indeed have a very hot

summer, but would hardly have, in 43° and 44° latitude, an extremely

mild and almost snowless winter. I have seen a high summer heat favour

the cultivation of the vine, as at the Caspian Sea, 83 feet below the

level of the Black Sea (at Astrakhan, latitude 46° 21′); but the

winter cold is there from –4° to –13°. Moreover, the vine is sunk to a

greater depth in the ground after the month of November. We can

understand that cultivated plants, which, as it were, live only in the

summer, as the vine, the cotton plant, rice, and melons, may be

cultivated with success between the latitudes of 40° and 44°, on

plateaux at an elevation of more than 3000[BL] feet, and may be

favoured by the action of radiant heat; but how could the pomegranate

trees of Aksu, and the orange trees of Hami, whose fruit Father

Grosier extolled as excellent, endure a long and severe winter (the

necessary consequence of a great elevation[BM])? Carl Zimmerman[BN]

has shown it to be extremely probable that the Tarim depression, or

the desert between the mountain chain of Thian-schan and Kuen-lün,

where the steppe river Tarim-gol discharges itself into the Lake of

Lop, formerly described as an alpine lake, is hardly 1280 feet above

the level of the sea, or only twice the elevation of Prague. Sir

Alexander Burnes also ascribes to Bokhara only an elevation of 1188

feet. It is most earnestly to be desired that all doubt regarding the

elevation of the plateaux of Central Asia, south of 45° north

latitude, should finally be removed by direct barometrical

measurements, or by determinations of the boiling point of water,

conducted with greater care than is usual in these cases. All our

calculations of the difference between the limits of perpetual snow

and the maximum elevation of vine cultivation in different climates,

rest at present on too complex and uncertain elements.

In order as briefly as possible to rectify that which has been

advanced in the former edition of the present work, regarding the

great mountain systems which intersect the interior of Asia, I subjoin

the following general review:—We begin with the four _parallel

chains_, which run, with tolerable regularity, from east to west, and

are connected together by means of a few detached transverse lines.

Differences of direction indicate, as in the Alps of Western Europe, a

difference in the epoch of elevation. After the four parallel chains

(the _Altai_, the _Thian-schan_, the _Kuen-lün_, and the _Himalaya_)

we must consider as following the direction of meridian, the Ural, the

Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese chains, which, with the great

inflection of the Thibetian and Assam-Birmese Dzangbo-tschu incline

from north to south. The Ural divides a depressed portion of Europe

from a similarly low portion of Asia. The latter was called by

Herodotus,[BO] and even earlier by Pherecydes of Syros, Scythian or

Siberian Europe, and comprised all the countries to the north of the

Caspian and of the Iaxartes, which flows from east to west, and may

therefore be regarded as a continuation of our Europe, “as it now

exists, extending lengthwise across the continent of Asia.”

1. The great mountain system of the Altai (the “gold mountains” of

Menander of Byzantium, an historical writer of the seventh century;

the Altaï-alin of the Moguls, and the Kin-schan of the Chinese) forms

the southern boundary of the great Siberian lowlands, and running

between 50° and 52½° north latitude, extends from the rich silver

mines of the Snake Mountains, and the confluence of the Uba and the

Irtysch, to the meridian of Lake Baikal. The divisions and names of

the “Great” and the “Little Altai,” taken from an obscure passage of

Abulghasi, should be wholly avoided.[BP] The mountain system of the

Altai comprehends—(_a_) the Altai proper, or Kolywanski Altai, which

is entirely under the Russian sceptre: it lies to the west of the

intersecting fissures of the Telezki Lake, which follow the direction

of the meridian; and in ante-historic times probably constituted the

eastern shore of the great arm of the sea, by which, in the direction

of the still existing lakes, Aksakal-Barbi and Sary-Kupa,[BQ] the

Aralo-Caspian basin was connected with the Icy sea;—(_b_) East of the

Telezki chains, which follow the direction of the meridian, the

Sayani, Tangnu, and Ulangom, or Malakha ranges, all tolerably parallel

with each other, and following an east and west direction. The Tangnu,

which merges in the basin of the Selenga, has, from very remote times,

constituted the national boundary between the Turkish race, to the

south, and the Kirghis (Hakas, identical with Σάκαι), to the

north.[BR] It is the original seat of the Samoieds or Soyotes. who

wandered as far as the Icy Sea, and were long regarded in Europe as a

race inhabiting exclusively the coasts of the Polar Sea. The highest

snow-covered summits of the Kolywan Altai are the Bielucha and the

Katunia Pillars. The latter attain only a height of about 11,000 feet,

or about the height of Etna. The Daurian highland, to which the

mountain node of Kentei belongs, and on whose eastern margin lies the

Jablonoi Chrebet, divides the depressions of the Baikal and the Amur.

2. The mountain system of the Thian-schan, or the chain of the

Celestial Mountains, the Tengri-tagh of the Turks (Tukiu), and of the

kindred race of the Hiongnu, is eight times as long, in an east and

west direction, as the Pyrenees. Beyond, that is to say, to the west

of its intersection with the meridian chain of the Bolor and Kosuyrt,

the Thian-schan bears the names of Asferah and Aktagh, is rich in

metals, and is intersected with open fissures, which emit hot vapours

luminous at night, and which are used for obtaining sal-ammoniac.[BS]

East of the transverse Bolor and Kosyurt chain, there follow

successively in the Thian-schan, the Kashgar Pass (Kaschgar-dawan),

the Glacier Pass of Djeparle, which leads to Kutch and Aksu in the

Tarim basin; the volcano of Pe-schan, which erupted fire and streams

of lava at least as late as the middle of the seventh century; the

great snow-covered massive elevation of Bogdo-Oola; the Solfatara of

Urumtsi, which furnishes sulphur and sal-ammoniac (nao-scha), and lies

in a coal district; the volcano of Turfan (or volcano of Ho-tscheu or

Bischbalik), almost midway between the meridians of Turfan (Kune

Turpan), and of Pidjan, and which is still in a state of activity. The

volcanic eruptions of the Thian-schan chain reach, according to

Chinese historians, as far back as the year 89, A.D., when the Hiongnu

were pursued by the Chinese from the sources of the Irtysch as far as

Kutch and Kharaschar[BT]. The Chinese General, Teu-hian, crossed the

Thian-schan, and saw “the Fire Mountains, which sent out masses of

molten rock that flow to the distance of many _Li_.”

The great distance of the volcanoes of the interior of Asia from the

sea coast is a remarkable and isolated phenomenon. Abel Rémusat, in a

letter to Cordier[BU], first directed the attention of geologists to

this fact. This distance, for instance, in the case of the volcano of

Pe-schan, from the north or the Icy Sea at the mouth of the Obi, is

1528 miles; and from the south or the mouths of the Indus and the

Ganges, 1512 miles; so central is the position of fire-emitting

volcanoes in the Asiatic continent. To the west its distance from the

Caspian at the Gulf of Karuboghaz, is 1360 miles, and from the east

shores of the Lake of Aral, 1020 miles. The active volcanoes of the

New World had hitherto offered the most remarkable examples of great

distance from the sea coast, but in the case of the volcano of

Popocatepetl, in Mexico, this distance is only one hundred and

thirty-two miles, and only ninety-two, one hundred and four, and one

hundred and fifty-six, respectively in the South American volcanoes

Sangai, Tolima, and de la Fragua. All extinct volcanoes, and all

trachytic mountains, which have no permanent connexion with the

interior of the earth, have been excluded from these statements[BV].

East of the volcano of Turfat, and of the fruitful Oasis of Hami, the

chain of the Thian-schan merges into the great elevated tract of Gobi,

which runs in a S.W. and N.E. direction. This interruption of the

mountain chain continues for more than 9½ degrees of longitude; it is

caused by the transversal intersection of the Gobi, but beyond the

latter, the more southern chain of In-schan (Silver Mountains),

proceeding from west to east, to the shores of the Pacific near Pekin

(north of the Pe-tscheli), forms a continuation of the Thian-schan. As

we may regard the In-schan as an eastern prolongation of the fissure

from which the Thian-schan is upheaved, so we may also be inclined to

consider the Caucasus as a western prolongation of the same range,

beyond the Great Aralo-Caspian basin or of the lowlands of Turan. The

mean parallel or axis of elevation of the Thian-schan oscillates

between 40° 40′ and 43° north latitude; that of the Caucasus

(inclining, according to the map of the Russian Staff, from E.S.E. to

W.N.W.) between 41° and 44°.[BW] Of the four parallel chains that

traverse Asia, the Thian-schan is the only one of which no summit has

as yet been measured.

3. The mountain system of the Kuen-lün (Kurkun or Kulkun), including

the Hindoo-Coosh, with its western prolongation in the Persian Elburz

and Demavend, and the American chain of the Andes, constitute the

longest lines of elevation on our planet. At the point where the

meridian chain of the Bolor intersects the Kuen-lün at right angles,

the latter receives the name of Onion Mountains (Tchsung-ling), a term

also applied to a portion of the Bolor at the inner eastern angle of

intersection. Bounding Thibet in the north, the Kuen-lün runs in a

regular direction from east to west, in the parallel of 36° north

latitude; until the chain is broken in the meridian of H’lassa, by the

vast mountain node which surrounds the _Sea of Stars_, _Sing so-hai_

(so celebrated in the mythical geography of the Chinese), and the

Alpine lake of Khuku-noor. The chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan,

lying somewhat further north, and extending to the Chinese wall near

Liang-tsheu, may almost be regarded as the eastern prolongation of the

Kuen-lün. To the west of the intersection of the Bolor and the

Kuen-lün (Tchsung-ling), the regular direction of the axes of

elevation (inclining from east to west in the Kuen-lün and

Hindoo-Coosh, and from south-east to north-west in the Himalaya)

proves, as I have elsewhere attempted to show, that the Hindoo-Coosh

is a prolongation of the Kuen-lün and not of the Himalaya.[BX] From

the Taurus in Lycia to the Kafiristan, the chain follows the parallel

of Rhodes (the diaphragm of Dicæarchus) over a distance of 45 degrees

of longitude. The grand geological views of Eratosthenes,[BY] which

were further developed by Marinus of Tyre, and by Ptolemy, and

according to which “the prolongation of the Taurus in Lycia was

continued, in the same direction, through all Asia as far as India,”

appear in part to be based on representations derived by the Persians

and Indians from the Punjaub.

“The Brahmins maintain,” says Cosmas Indicopleustes, in his Christian

Topography[BZ], “that a line drawn from Tzinitza (Thinæ) across Persia

and Romania, would exactly pass over the centre of the inhabited

earth.” It is remarkable, as Eratosthenes observes, that this greatest

axis of elevation in the old world passes directly through the basin

(the depression) of the Mediterranean, in the parallels of 35½° and

36° north latitude, to the Pillars of Hercules.[CA] The most eastern

portion of Hindoo-Coosh is the Paropanisus of the ancients, the Indian

Caucasus of the companions of the great Macedonian. The name of

_Hindoo-Coosh_, which is so frequently used by geographers, does not

in reality apply to more than one single mountain pass, where the

climate is so severe, as we learn from the travels of the Arabian

writer, Ibn Batuta, that many Indian slaves frequently perish from the

cold.[CB] The Kuen-lün still exhibits active fire-emitting eruptions

at the distance of several hundred miles from the sea-coast. Flames,

visible at a great distance, burst from the cavern of the mountain of

Schinkhieu, as I learn from a translation of the Yuen-thong-ki, made

by my friend Stanislaus Julien.[CC] The loftiest summit in the

Hindoo-Coosh, north-west of Jellalabad, is 20,232 feet above the level

of the sea; to the west, towards Herat, the chain sinks to 2558 feet,

rising again north of Teheran, in the volcano of Demavend, to the

height of 14,675 feet.

4. The mountain system of the Himalaya has a normal direction from

east to west, running more than 15 degrees of longitude (from 81° to

97°), or from the colossal mountain Dhawalagiri (28,072 feet) to the

intersection of the Dzangbo-tscheu (the Irawaddy of Dalrymple and

Klaproth), whose existence was long regarded as problematical, and to

the meridian chains, which cover the whole of Western China, and form

the great mountain group, from which spring the sources of the Kiang,

in the provinces of Sse-tschuan, Hu-kuang, and Kuang-si. Next to the

Dhawalagiri, the Kinchinjinga, and not the more eastern peak of

Schamalari, as has hitherto been supposed, is the highest point of

this portion of the Himalaya, which inclines from east to west. The

Kinchinjinga, in the meridian of Sikhim, between Butan and Nepal,

between the Schamalari (23,980 feet) and the Dhawalagiri, is 28,174

feet in height.

It is only within the present year that it has been trigonometrically

measured with exactness, and as I learn from India through the same

channel, “that a new measurement of the Dhawalagiri still leaves it

the first place among all the snow-crowned summits of the Himalaya,”

this mountain must necessarily have a greater elevation than the

28,072 feet hitherto ascribed to it.[CD] The point of deflection in

the direction of the chain is, near the Dhawalagiri, in 81° 22′, east

longitude. From thence the Himalaya no longer follows a due west

direction, but runs from S.E. to N.W., as a vast connecting system of

veins between Mozufer-abad and Gilgit, merging into a part of the

Hindoo-Coosh chain in the south of Kafiristan. Such a turn and

alteration in the line of the axis of elevation of the Himalaya (from

E.-W. to S.E.-N.W.) certainly indicates, as in the western region of

our European Alpine mountains, a different age or period of elevation.

The course of the Upper Indus, from the sacred lakes of Manasa and

Itavana-hrada, (at an elevation of 14,965 feet,) in the vicinity of

which this great river takes its origin, to Iskardo, and to the

plateau of Deotsuh (at an elevation of 12,994 feet), measured by

Vigne, follows in the Thibetian highlands the same north-westerly

direction as the Himalaya.

Here are situated the Djawahir, whose height was long since accurately

determined at 26,902 feet, and the Alpine valley of Caschmere (never

visited by winds or storms), where, at an elevation of only 5346 feet,

lies the lake of Wulur, which freezes every winter, and whose surface

is never broken by a single ripple.

After considering the four great mountain systems of Asia, which, in

their normal geognostic character, are true parallel chains, we must

turn to the long series of _alternating_ elevations following a

direction from north to south, and which extend from Cape Comorin,

opposite to the island of Ceylon, to the Icy Sea, alternating between

the parallels of 66° and 77° east longitude, from S.S.E. to N.N.W. To

this system of meridian chains, whose alternations remind us of faults

in veins, belong the Ghauts, the Soliman chain, the Paralasa, the

Bolor, and the Ural range. This interruption of the profile of the

elevation is so constituted, that each new chain begins in a degree of

latitude beyond that to which the preceding one had attained, all

alternating successively in an opposite direction. The importance

which the Greeks (probably not earlier than the second century of our

era) attached to these chains running from north to south, induced

Agathodæmon and Ptolemy (_Tab._ vii. et viii.) to regard the Bolor

under the name of Imaus as an axis of elevation, which extended as far

as 62° north latitude into the basin of the lower Irtysch and Obi.[CE]

As the vertical height of mountain summits above the sea’s level

(however unimportant the phenomenon of the more or less extensive

folding of the crust of a planetary sphere may be in the eyes of

geognosists) will always continue, like all that is difficult of

attainment, to be an object of general curiosity, the present would

appear to furnish a fitting place for the introduction of an

historical notice relative to the gradual advance of hypsometric

knowledge. When I returned to Europe in 1804, after an absence of four

years, not one of the high snow-crowned summits of Asia (in the

Himalaya, the Hindoo-Coosh, or the Caucasus) had been yet measured

with any degree of accuracy. I was unable, therefore, to compare my

determinations of the heights of perpetual snow in the Cordilleras of

Quito or the mountains of Mexico, with any results obtained in India.

The important travels of Turner, Davis, and Saunders to the highlands

of Thibet, were indeed accomplished in the year 1783; but the

intelligent Colebrooke justly observed that the height of the

Schamalari (28° 5′ north latitude, 89° 30′ east longitude, somewhat

north of Tassisudan), as given by Turner, rested on a foundation quite

as slight as the assumed measurements of the heights seen from Patna

and Kafiristan by Colonel Crawford and Lieutenant Macartney.[CF] The

admirable labours of Webb, Hodgson, Herbert, and the brothers Gerard,

have indeed thrown considerable light on the question concerning the

heights of the colossal summits of the Himalaya; but yet, in 1808, the

hypsometric knowledge of the East Indian mountain chains was still so

uncertain, that Webb wrote to Colebrooke, “The height of the Himalaya

still remains undetermined. It is true that I have ascertained that

the summits visible from the elevated plains of Rohilkand are 21,000

feet higher than that plateau, but we are ignorant of their absolute

height above the sea.”

In the year 1820 it first began to be currently reported in Europe

that there were not only much higher summits in the Himalaya than in

the Cordilleras, but that Webb had seen in the pass of Niti, and

Moorcroft in the Thibetian plateau of Daba, and the sacred lakes, fine

corn-fields and fertile pasturelands at elevations far exceeding the

height of Mont Blanc. This announcement was received in England with

great incredulity, and opposed by doubts regarding the influence of

the refraction of light. I have shown the unsoundness of such doubts

in two printed treatises on the mountains of India, in the _Annales de

Chimie et de Physique_. The Tyrolese Jesuit, Father Tiefenthaler, who

in 1766 penetrated as far as the provinces of Kemaun and Nepal, had

already divined the importance of the Dhawalagiri. We read on his map:

“_Montes Albi, qui Indis Dolaghir, nive obsiti_.” Captain Webb always

employs the same name. Until the measurements of the Djawahir (30° 22′

north latitude, and 79° 58′ east longitude, 26,902 feet in elevation),

and of the Dhawalagiri (28° 40′ north latitude, and 83° 21′ east

longitude, 28,072 feet in elevation), were made known in Europe, the

Chimborazo, which, according to my trigonometrical measurement, was

21,422 feet in height,[CG] was still everywhere regarded as the

loftiest summit on the earth. The Himalaya appeared, therefore, at

that time, to be 4323 feet or 6620 feet higher than the Cordilleras,

according as the comparison was made with the Djawahir or the

Dhawalagiri. Pentland’s South American travels, in the years 1827 and

1838, directed attention to two snow-crowned summits of Upper Peru,

east of the lake of Titicaca, which were conjectured to be

respectively 3824 and 2578 feet higher than the Chimborazo.[CH] It has

been already observed,[CI] that the most recent computations in the

measurements of the Sorata and Illimani have shown the error of this

hypsometric assertion. The Dhawalagiri, therefore, on whose declivity

in the river-valley of Ghandaki, the Salagrana Ammonites, so

celebrated in the Brahminical ritual as symbols of the testaceous

incarnation of Vishnu, are collected, still indicates a difference of

elevation between both continents of more than 6600 feet.