232 SEE— FURTHER RESEARCHES ON |Aprii24. 



In an earlier passage, after comparing some of the smaller 

 Himalayan ranges to the Swiss Alps, General Strachey adds : 



" To obliterate these two ranges from the Himalaya would make no 

 very sensible inroad on it, though they surpass in bulk the whole of the 

 Swiss Alps; and it is no exaggeration to say that, along the entire range 

 of the Himalaya, valleys are to be found among the higher mountains into 

 which the whole Alps might be cast without producing any result that would 

 be discernible at a distance of ten or fifteen miles. And it is important to 

 bear in mind these relations of magnitude, for the terms at our disposal in 

 the description of the mountains are so limited that it is necessary to employ 

 the words chain, range, ridge, spur, etc., rather with reference to relative 

 than to absolute importance, so that the scale of our nomenclature changes 

 with the extent and altitude of the mountains of which we speak." (Ency. 

 Brit., p. 827.) 



§ 36. The Alps. — In the Enclycopedia Britannica, article " Alps," 



by John Ball, we find the following brief outline of the salient 



features : 



" Accurate knowledge of the Alps is so recent that few attempts have 

 been made to establish a general division of the entire region, and it can- 

 not be said that any one arrangement has obtained such general recognition 

 as not to be open to future modification ; but there is a pretty general 

 agreement as to the main features of that here proposed, to which a few 

 general remarks must be premised. 



" Whatever may have been the original cause of tlie disturbances of the 

 earth's crust to which great mountain chains owe their existence, it is gen- 

 erally, though not universally, true that the higher masses (formed of crys- 

 talline rock and geologically more ancient) are found towards the central 

 part, and that these are flanked by lower ranges, composed of more recent 

 rocks, which surround the central groups very much as an outer line of 

 entrenchment may be seen to surround a fort. In most cases it is not 

 possible to descend continuously in a nearly direct line from the crest of a 

 great mountain chain to the plains on either side, for there are usually 

 intermediate valleys, running more or less parallel to the central range, which 

 separate this from outer secondary ranges. These in turn, are often ac- 

 companied by external ranges, intermediate between them and the plains, 

 and related to them as they are to the central ranges. The type of arrange- 

 ment here described is more or less traceable throughout the greater part 

 of the Alps, but is most distinctly exhibited in the eastern portion lying 

 between the Adige and the frontier of Hungary. We have a central range, 

 composed mainly of crystaline rock ; a northern range, formed of secondary 

 rocks, separated from the first by the great valleys of the Inn, the Salza, 

 and the Enns; a southern range, somewhat similar to the last in geological 

 structure, divided from the central one by the Rienx, or east branch of the 

 Adige, and the Drave. Flanking the whole, as an external entrenchment on 

 the north side, are the outer ranges of the Bavarian Alps, of the Salzkam- 



