Old and New Continents. 131 



diterranean fills the larger and deeper sinuosities caused by 

 the crossing of the system of the Pyrenees, the Alpine systems, 

 and some other modern systems. 



The two Continents present each a great exception to the 

 rule indicated relatively to the direction in which the souleve- 

 ments have succeeded one another. The one is in the modem 

 dislocations which, according to the observations of M. Pissis, 

 have given rise to the external form of the eastern coast of 

 Brazil ; the other is in the presumed modern soulevement of 

 the great line of the Scandinavian Alps : but the existence of 

 corresponding exceptions both in the one and the other, forms 

 an additional analogy, and this analogy is so much the more 

 curious, because the two chains which constitute the excep- 

 tion, belong to one and the same system of mountains, the 

 system of the Western Alps. 



Comparisons analogous to those which we have just been 

 making between Europe and South America, had already been 

 established between Italy and India, and between Europe and 

 North America ; the investigations of M. D'Orbigny will con- 

 tribute to render these comparisons less rare and more easy. 

 They will even present a point of departure more elementary 

 than those upon which science has hitherto been able to rest. 

 We believe that there is much justice in the following remark 

 made by M, D'Orbigny, towards the conclusion of his Memoir, 

 on the small degree of complexity of South America. He 

 says, " Owing to the extreme simplicity of its geological com- 

 position, and owing to the large proportions of each epoch, 

 South America is perhaps, of all parts of the globe, the most 

 easy to understand geologically, and that where study is des- 

 tined to throw the greatest light on the great revolutions to 

 which our planet has been subjected. Far from being, like 

 Europe, subdivided into a great number of patches of forma- 

 tions, or traversed by innumerable transverse chains, whose 

 epoch it is difl&cult to determine with precision. South Ame- 

 rica presents reliefs extending over hundreds of leagues, and 

 deposits stretching over several degrees of surface. There, 

 every thing is exhibited on a great scale, the mountains as 

 well as the basins, and on that great Continent every thing is 

 visible — the powerful causes and their vast effects.*' 



