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On the Chains of Mountains and Volcanoes of Central Asia. 

 By Baron A. Von Humboldt. (Concluded from preced- 

 ing Volume, p. 240.) 



OUCH are the principal features of a geognostical description of 

 Central Asia, which I have drawn up with the aid of numerous 

 materials accumulated by me during a long series of years. 

 Of these materials, the portion for which we are indebted to 

 modern European travellers is of small importance, in com- 

 parison with the prodigious space which is occupied by the 

 chain of the Altai, the Himalaya mountains, the transverse 

 ridges of the Bolor and the Kingkan. Those who, at the pre- 

 sent day, have published the most important and complete de- 

 tails on these subjects are the learned persons who are conver- 

 sant with Chinese, Manchoo, and Mongol literature. The more 

 general the cultivation of the Asiatic dialects shall become, the 

 better shall we appreciate the utility of these so-long-neglected 

 sources, for the study of the geognostic constitution of Central 

 Asia. Until M. Klaproth diffuses a new light upon this study 

 by a special work of his own, the picture which I have here ex- 

 hibited of the four systems of mountains which run from east to 

 west, the materials for which were, in a great part furnished by 

 the learned person whom I have just named, will not be with- 

 out its use. In order to ascertain the characteristic properties 

 which are to be found in the inequahties of the globe's surface, 

 and to discover the laws which regulate the local disposition of 

 the masses of mountains, and the depressions, we may have 

 recourse to the analogy which other continents may offer. If 

 once the grand forms and predominating courses of the chains 

 are well determined, we shall see connected with this fundamen- 

 tal principle, as with a common type, whatever appeared at first 

 isolated in these phenomena, and at variance with rules, pro- 

 claiming another date of formation. This method, which I fol- 

 lowed in my geognostic description of South America, I have 

 endeavoured to apply here to the limits of the grand masses of 

 £)entral Asia. 



In taking a last view of the four systems of mountains which 

 divide the continent of Asia from east to west, we observe 



OCTOBEE — DECEMBER 1831. K 



