TRAP nOCKS. 165 



Quito, as each having no cone at all ; but as being in one 

 direction a lengthened ridge, sometimes smooth and some- 

 times rough, with pointed rocks. In Europe and Asia, no 

 active volcano is situated in a chain of mountains ; but in 

 America, in a rangcof from four to live thousand miles north 

 and south, the most stupendous volcanoes form a part of the 

 Cordilleras ; and tliis range of subterraneous fire is crossed 

 l)et\veen the eighteentii and nineteenth degrees of nortli la- 

 titude, by another extending from the Gulf of Mexico to the 

 Pacific Ocean. HumI)oldt considers the wliole province of 

 Quito as a volcanic abvss covered with a crust whose craters 

 are ditlerent vents to one continuous mass of lire. When 

 we consider tlic influence which distant volcanoes are known 

 to have on each other, we cannot doul)t the existence of a range 

 of subteri'aneous fire serving to connect them ; and when we 

 see a line of volcanoes coinciding with the course of the long- 

 est chain of mountains in the world, we are forced to believe 

 that, as the mountains could not have produced the volca- 

 noes, the volcanoes must iiave had some concern in produ- 

 cing the mountains. It is not an extravagant tlieory. then, 

 that all chains of mountains have been produced by volcanic 

 fire, acting either generally and raising above the surface of 

 the sea the immense edges of the earth's crust as the ori- 

 ginal framework of a continent, or in veins at an immense 

 depth below tiie surface of land already elevated, with- 

 out, except in a few instances, breaking througii the crust 

 acted on ; and that masses of overlying trap may be volcanic 

 products, emitted, in either case, through accidental open- 

 ings, where no remains of a crater ai)pear. I know not whe- 

 ther this idea is in any respect new; but I acknowledge tliat 

 many of the arguments I have employed are not new ; but 

 as they were those which naturally and |)owcrfuIly resulted 

 from established facts, I thought myself justified in appro- 

 priating them to the support of my hypotlu-sis. 



It may lie objected, that from the vicinity of the Conne- 

 wago Hills to the Stony Hidgc, it ought to be jiresumcd that 

 the trap of both places had a common origin. But to those 



