260 Elie de Beaumont's Researc/tes on some of 



these vast systems, of which the European systems are re- 

 spectively portions, originates in a single epoch of dislocation. 

 From this view I am led to suppose, for example, that the 

 principal chain of the Alps is contemporaneous with a vast 

 assemblage of mountain-chains which spread round the Medi- 

 terranean, and being prolonged across the continent of Asia, 

 run parallel to a great circle which should pass through the 

 middle of Morocco and the north of the Birman empire, and 

 appear at the same time connected with each other by paral- 

 lelism and by the similarity of their relations to the great de- 

 pressions of surface filled by the sea, or but slighty raised 

 above its level. Besides the principal chain of the Alps, 

 and the small chains of Provence, this system comprises, in 

 Europe, the Sierra Morena, and a large portion of the Spa- 

 nish chains, on the one hand, and the Balkan on the other : in 

 Africa, it includes the Atlas : in Asia, the central trachytic 

 chain of the Caucasus, crowned by the peak of Elbrouz, more 

 elevated than the Mont Blanc, as also the long series of moun- 

 tains which under the names of Paropamissus, Indou-Kosh, 

 and Himalaya, bound the plains of Persia and Bengal, and 

 contain the most elevated mountains on the surface of the 

 earth. 



I am also led to suppose that the system of the Western Alps 

 constitutes a portion of a vast system, comprising the chain of 

 Kiol in Scandinavia, the chains which in Morocco run from 

 Cape Tres Furcas to Cape Blanc, and the Littoral Cordilera 

 of Brazil. 



Finally, I am led to suppose that the chains of the Pyreneo- 

 Apennine system observed in Europe, form a portion of a vast 

 system comprising certain chains in the north of Africa, of 

 Egypt, of Syria, of the Caucasus, the chains which bound 

 Mesopotamia on the north-east, and even the Ghauts of Mala- 

 bar, and which appears in another direction, across the Atlan- 

 tic, in the Alleghanies. 



The appearance of a new system of mountains which, 

 judging from the result of our observations, has produced 

 such violent effects on countries near them, could only have 

 exercised an influence in distant countries by the agitation 

 caused in the waters of the sea, and by a greater or less change 

 produced in their level, — events which may be compared to the 

 sudden and passing deluge noticed among the traditions of all 

 nations as having occurred at nearly the same epoch. If this 

 historical event was the last which has taken place on the sur- 

 face of the globe, we are naturally led to inquire which is the 

 mountain-chain referrible to the same date : and perhaps we 

 may be justified in observing that the chain of the Andes, whose 



volcanic 



