Lofty Regions of the Globe 17 



two ends and particularly towards the south, in the region corre- 

 sponding to Bolivia, would be prolonged towards the south and the 

 north by strings of lofty islands, crowded against each other; that 

 is all that would be left of the Andes. 



The plateau of Armenia, separated from the emerging crests 

 of the Caucasus, would form the last bit of land, much smaller than 

 the other two, which would be flanked by a few summits of the 

 Taurus and the Elburs mountains. 



Then the region of the Alps would have become a compli- 

 cated archipelago, with innumerable isles and islets, Oberland, 

 Grisons, the main range of Monte Rosa and that of Mont Blanc. 

 Of the Pyrenees there would remain only a few peaks near the 

 Maladetta. Mulahacen and Etna alone would be the only others 

 still emerging in Europe. 



In Africa, there would be only the Abyssinian crescent and 

 isolated points: a few islands in the Moroccan Atlas, the Peak of 

 Teneriffe, that of Fernando-Po, the Kamerun Mountains, Kilimand- 

 jaro and Kenia, some peaks of the Drakenberg, and Ankaratra in 

 Madagascar. 



North America would still have left above the waters a certain 

 number of summits belonging to the volcanoes of Guatemala and 

 Mexico, to the Rocky Mountains, to the Cascades, and the Sierra 

 Nevada; further to the north, Mount Saint Elias and the volcanoes 

 of Alaska, facing those of Kamchatka. Finally, of Oceania which 

 would have disappeared there would remain only the volcanoes of 

 the southern lands, New Zealand, Haiti, New Guinea, the islands 

 of the East Indies, Formosa and Japan. 



These are the regions, thus reduced in surface, the study of 

 which .concerns us here. The survey we have made of them shows 

 that these mountains differ from each other greatly, not only in 

 their height, but also in their general character. Some rise rapidly, 

 with a single rush, so to speak, to their full height; this is the type, 

 for example, of the mountains of the islands and those of the west- 

 ern slope of the Cordillera of the Andes. In others, the strata are 

 heaped progressively upon each other, and summits of prodigious 

 height do not seem, because of their high bases, to equal isolated 

 peaks which they really surpass. In the third part of this book, 

 we shall show that these different orographic characteristics are 

 very important in our study. 



Eternal Snows. The latitude of these mountains has an equal 

 importance. In fact, it is closely connected with the question of 



