^23 Baroli Humboldt on the Mountain-chains and 



Canary Isles*, explained, with much talent, luminous ideas 

 upon the distribution of volcanoes, which are sometimes in isola- 

 ted groups around a central volcano, at other times arranged 

 longitudinally in a series. The memoir which I now present 

 on these volcanic phenomena, situated at a great distance from 

 the sea, is certainly much less important ; it treats of the local 

 phenomena of Central Asia, and of the interior of South Ame- 

 rica, concerning which I have had opportunities of collecting 

 information little known hitherto. We know still so little of 

 the kind of mysterious connexion of volcanoes in activity with 

 the vicinity of the sea, that every thing which relates to a vol- 

 cano of which we learn the existence very unexpectedly in the 

 interior of a continent, gives a very high interest even to a local 

 phenomenon. 



The central and interior portion of Asia, which forms 

 neither an immense cluster of mountains nor a continued table- 

 land, is crossed from east to west by four grand systems of 

 mountains, which have manifestly influenced the movements of 

 the population ; these are, the Altai, which is terminated to the 

 west by the mountains of the Kirghiz ; the Teen-shan, the 

 Kwan-lun, and the Himalaya chain. Between the Altai and 

 the Teen-shan, are placed Zungaria and the basin of the Ele ; 

 between the Teen-shan and the Kwan-lun, Little or rather 

 Upper Bucharia, or Cashgar, Yarkand, Khoten, the great 

 desert of Gobi (or Cha-mo), Toorfan, Khamil (Hami), and 

 Tangout, that is, the northern Tangout of the Chinese, which 

 must not be confounded with Tibet or Se-fan ; lastly, between 

 the Kwan-lun and the Himalaya, Eastern and Western Tibet, 

 where H'lassa and Ladak are situated. 



1. The system of the Altai encompasses the sources of the 

 Irtish, and of the Yenissei or Kem ; to the east, it takes the 

 name of Tangnu ; that of the Sayanian mountains between 

 lakes Kossogol and Baikal ; farther on, that of the lofty Kentai 

 and the mountains of Dauria ; lastly, to the north-east, it joins 

 the Yablonnoy-khrebet, the Khingkhan and the Aldan moun- 

 tains, which stretch along the sea of Okhotsk. The mean lati- 



* This splendid and very '/aluable work we trust to see translated into Eng- 

 lish. If published in octavo, it would be accessible to every geological reader, 

 and find a place in every library of Natural History in Britain.— Edit. 



