Investigations and Writings of Baron Humboldt. 2165 
his return, in order to discover the causes on which it was based. 
But such views became much altered, after he penetrated into 
the interior of the region of the Cordilleras, for he there found 
that a line of strike from N. to S. or N.W. to S.E. presented 
itself, with at least as much distinctness, and on as great a 
seale, as did the direction corresponding with that of the Alps. 
A. von Humboldt’s scientific travels in America continued 
uninterruptedly from the year 1799 to 1804 inclusive. It is 
not our object to indicate at all in detail how much these ex- 
peditions contributed to our particular science, as they did to 
all branches of natural knowledge. The results were not 
only in this respect important, that they made us acquainted 
with a number of mountain rocks occurring in America which 
could be perfectly well compared with the more minutely 
studied ones of Europe, and that it was ascertained that the 
same law obtained there as in Europe as to the order of suc- 
cession of strata; but we have also to thank the exertions of 
this remarkable man for the possession of a very perfect view 
of the structure and arrangement of the mountain chains, as 
well as of the elevations and depressions of America. It re- 
sults, that we cannot doubt of the applicability of the view 
entertained regarding the origin of other mountain chains, inas- 
much as the constitution of the Cordilleras, the vastest display 
of mountains in the world, possesses so completely the struc- 
ture of a variously shattered and protruded wall rising from 
a fissure. 
Another very great service rendered by these investigations, 
consists in the valuable extension of our views regarding the 
phenomena of volcanos, and the intimately connected sub- 
ject of earthquakes. Our indefatigable traveller found him- 
self in a remarkably favourable field for the observation of 
such objects in America, and his rare gift of combination 
allowed him to place in the necessary and useful connection 
with one another, phenomena which previously had only been 
known in an isolated state. Thus we have to thank him for 
the first descriptions of the mightiest voleanic phenomena 
which exist on the earth, and which, in some degree, may be 
placed in comparison with the analogous phenomena which 
must have occurred during the early periods of the formation 
