42 Prof. Hoffinan on Fivers which 



having created these beings, wished to preserve their existence, 

 so that they all might live and multiply ? He has not left to 

 chance the care of fashioning the surface of the earth, to the 

 introduction of irregularity and confusion. The same AU- 

 Pov^^erful who has given existence to organized beings, must 

 have directed the causes calculated to give to the surface of 

 the earth a new form, to render it most fit for secm'ing their 

 preservation, and to present them with all the objects tending 

 to accomplish their Avell-being. 



On JRivers which break through Mountain-Chains. By the 

 late Professor Hoffmann of Berlin. 



The late Professor Friedrich Hoffmann, in his " Pht/sikci- 

 lische Geographic''^ (which forms part of his " Hinterlassene 

 Werke'^), gives the following summary of examples of rivers 

 which traverse mountain-chains. 



This occurrence takes place in almost all the larger rivers 

 of the globe, and in some of them repeatedly ; and there is 

 hardly any important chain of mountains which is not, at some 

 point, thus cut through, transversely to its line of bearing. 

 The greatest range of mountains in the Avorld, the Himmalaya. 

 is broken across by the rival of the Ganges, the Brahmapjitra ; 

 and, leaving out of view the narrow rents which occur in the 

 higher parts of the mountains, almost all the streams which 

 quit the Alps issue from transverse fissures, termed in many 

 places gates or passes (P for ten). Thus, the Rhone, where 

 it leaves the Alps, cuts through one of the highest chains be- 

 fore it enters the lake of Geneva; it finds its way, in a narrow 

 gorge, between Martigny and St Maurice, through the Gate 

 of the Canton Valais (die P forte des Wallis), passing between 

 the Dent de Midi and the Dent de Morcles, which rise to a 

 height of at least 8000 feet above its level. The same takes 

 place on the other side of the Alps with the Adige or Etsch, 

 near Chiusa and Roveredo. Thus also does the Inn issue from 

 a narrow ravine between Kufstein and Rosenheim ; and so, 

 in the defiles of Golling and Lofer, the Salza and the Saal 

 burst through the chain of the Salzburg Alps, which rise be- 



