•344 APPENDIX. 



merate, jasper) rise on both sides of the basin. 

 Their stratification seems to be regular ; for if you 

 draw a line between the conglomerate rocks and 

 the serpentine near Saint John, to the north side 

 of the Bay of San Francisco, where Dr. Eschscholtz 

 saw rocks of a red-brown colour, and which were con- 

 sidered to be conglomerate ; and extend the line to 

 the S. W., it meets the volcanic Sandwich islands^ 

 and has exactly a similar direction with the Aleu- 

 tian islands, from Alashka to Atha. 



It is remarkable, that as in many other places 

 where masses of land are separated, here too, vol- 

 canic islands lie before the entrance of Beering*s 

 Strait. Has the whole chain of the Aleutians 

 risen from the sea like the island that rose 

 in the year 1795 or 1797, near Umnack ? Or 

 are here only summits of a chain of mountains, the 

 bases of which are at the bottom of the ocean ? Or 

 are they remains of a rocky dam that has been 

 rent asunder ? The answer to these questions might 

 perhaps be obtained, if the nature of the rocks of 

 the two coasts of Asia and America, from Beer- 

 ing*s Straits to the chain of the Aleutians, and 

 this chain itself were examined j but of this we can 

 have little hopes, so long as, in voyages of discovery, 

 even on accessible coasts, attention shall be paid 

 to the collection of plants and animals, but no re- 

 gard had to the formation of the earth, though a 

 firm basis of physical geography is to be sought in 

 this alone. Till the importance of geognosis is more 



