122 Baron Alexander von Humboldt on the Thysiognomy 



mountain chains, by means of the sudden elevation of a por- 

 tion of the oxidised crust of the earth, have, after the restor- 

 ation of tranquillity, and the resuscitation of slumbering or- 

 ganisms, imparted to the solid land of both hemispheres a rich 

 variety of individual forms, and removed, in a great measure, 

 the barren uniformity Avhicli operates, with an impoverishing 

 effect, on the physical and intellectual powers of the human 

 race. 



To each system* of these mountain chains, a relative age 

 has been assigned by the splendid views of Elie de Beau- 

 mont, who has shewn that the elevation of a mountain chain 

 must necessarily have taken place between the period of de- 

 position of the inclined strata, and that of the deposition of 

 the horizontal strata extending to the foot of the mountains. 

 The foldings of the crust of the eai'th (elevations of the 

 strata), which are of the same geognostical age, appear also 

 to have one and the same direction. The line of strike of 

 the elevated strata is not always parallel to the axis of the 

 chains, but sometimes cuts across it; so that, according to 

 my opinion, t the phenomenon of the inclination of the beds, 

 which is found repeated in the neighbouring plain itself, 

 must be more ancient than the elevation of the chain. The 

 principal direction of the whole solid land of Europe (SW. 

 to NE.) is the opposite of that of the great terrestrial fissures, 

 (NW. to SE.,) which extend from the mouths of the Rhine 

 and the Elbe, through the Adriatic and Red Seas, and also 

 through the system of mountains of the Puschti-Koh in 

 Luristan, to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean. Such 

 a crossing of geodesical lines at nearly right angles, has 

 exercised a vast influence on the commercial relations of 

 Europe with Asia and North- Western Africa ; and also on 



■" Leopold Yon Buch, TJdicr die Geognosiischm Sifsfi'me von Bi'nischland , 

 in his Geognostical Letters to Alexander von Humboldt, 1824, pp. 265- 

 271 ; and Elie de Beaumont, Richerches siir ks Revolutions de la Sur/aia 

 du Globe, 1820, pp. 297-307. 



t Humboldt, Asic Centrale, t. i. p. 277-2S3. See also my Essai siir le 

 GisemaU dcs RocIks, 1822, p. 57; and Rdat. Iliit., t. iii. pp. 244-250. 



