Volcanoes of Central Asia. 231 



develope liow the system of north-western direction, so general 

 in our hemisphere, is traced in the beds of the rocks, in the line 

 of the Alps of Alghin, of the lofty steppe of the Chuya, of the 

 chain of the Jyiktu, which is the culminating point of the Rus- 

 sian Altai, and in the hollows of the narrow valleys, where flow 

 the Chulyshman, the Chuya, the Katunia, and the Upper 

 Charysh ; lastly, in the whole course of the Irtish from Kras- 

 noyarskoi to Tobolsk. 



" Between the meridians of Oust-Kamenogorsk and of Serai- 

 polatinsk, the system of the Altai mountains extends from east 

 to west, beneath the parallels of 59° and 50°, by a chain of hills 

 and low mountains, for 160 geographical leagues, as far as the 

 steppe of the Kirghiz. This range, though of very small im- 

 portance in respect to size and elevation, is highly interesting to 

 geognosy. There does not exist a continuous chain of Kirghiz 

 mountains, which, as the maps represent under the names of 

 Alghidin-tsano or Alghidin-chamo, unites the Ural and the 

 Altai'. Some isolated hills of 500 or 600 feet high, groups of 

 small mountains, which, like the Semi-tau near Semipolatinsk, 

 rise abruptly to the height of 1000 or 1200 feet above the 

 plains, deceive the traveller who is not accustomed to measure 

 the inequality of the soil ; but it is not less remarkable that 

 these clusters of hills and small mountains have been raised 

 across a furrow which forms this line of division of the waters 

 between the affluents of the Saras, oi- to the south in the steppe, 

 and those of the Irtish to the north : a fissure which follows 

 uniformly, as far as the meridian of Sverinagolovskoy, the same 

 direction for sixteen degrees of longitude. 



" In the hne of division of the waters between the Altai' and 

 the Ural, between the 4.9th and 50th parallels, is observable an 

 effort of nature, a kind of attempt of subterranean energy, to 

 force up a chain of mountains ; and this fact recalls powerfully 

 the similar appearances I remarked in the new continent. 



" But the non-continued range of low mountains and hills of 

 crystaUized rocks, by which the system of the Altai is prolonged 

 to the west, does not reach the southern extremity of the Ural,» 

 a chain which, like that of the Andes, presents a long wall run- 

 ning from north to south, with metallic mines on its eastern 

 side : it terminates abruptly under the meridian of Sverinogov- 



