218 VIEWS OF NATURE. 



all combine to produce the elements on which depends the 

 impression of any one region. It must be admitted, however, 

 that in all latitudes the same kind of rocks, as trachyte, basalt, 

 porphyritic schist, and dolomite, form mountain groups of 

 exactly similar physiognomy. Thus the greenstone cliffs of 

 South America and Mexico resemble those of the Fichtel 

 mountains of Germany, in like manner as among animals, the 

 form of the Allco, or the original canine race of the New 

 Continent, is analogous to that of the Euroj>ean race. The 

 inorganic crust of the earth is as it were independent of cli- 

 matic influences ; perhaps, because diversity of climate aris- 

 ing from difference of latitude is of more recent date than the 

 formations of the earth, or that the hardening crust, in solid- 

 ifying and discharging its caloric, acquired its temperature 

 from internal and not from external causes (10). All forma- 

 tions are, therefore, common to every quarter of the globe 

 and assume the like forms. Everywhere basalt rises in twin 



m 



mountains and truncated cones ; everywhere trap-porphyry 

 presents itself to the eye under the form of grotesquely- 

 shaped masses of rock, while granite terminates in gently 

 rounded summits. Thus, too, similar vegetable forms, as pines 

 and oaks, alike crown the mountain declivities of Sweden and 

 those of the most southern portion of Mexico (11). But 

 notwithstanding all this coincidence of form, and resemblance 

 of the outlines of individual portions, the grouping of the 

 mass, as a whole, presents the greatest diversity of character. 

 As the oryctognostic knowledge of minerals differs from 

 geology, so also does the general study of the physiognomy of 

 nature differ from the individual branches of the natural 

 sciences. The character of certain portions of the earth's 

 surface has been described with inimitable truthfulness by 

 George Forster in his travels and smaller works, by Goethe 

 in the descriptive passages which so frequently occur in his 

 immortal writings, by Buffon, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and 

 Chateaubriand. Such descriptions are not only calculated to 



