106 YIEWS OF NATURE. 



inconsiderable, moreover, are the phenomena presented by our 

 volcanoes and earthquakes, when compared with the convul- 

 sions of nature w r hich the geognosist must conjecture to have 

 occurred in the chaotic condition of our globe, when mountain, 

 masses were upheaved, solidified, or cleft asunder ? Different 

 causes must also occasion a diversity of effects in the forces of 

 nature in parts of the earth remote from one another. The 

 volcanoes in the new continent," (of which I still count about 

 twenty-eight,) " may probably have continued longer active, 

 because the high mountain ridges on which they are erupted 

 in rows upon long fissures are nearer to the sea, and because 

 this vicinity appears to modify the energy of the subterranean 

 fire, in a manner which, with few exceptions, has not yet been 

 explained. Besides, both earthquakes and fire-erupting moun- 

 tains act periodically. At present" (this I wrote forty-two 

 years ago,) "physical disquietude and political repose prevail in 

 the new continent, whilst in the old continent the calm repose 

 of nature is contrasted with the dissensions of different nations. 

 The time may however come, when this strange contrast 

 between physical and moral forces may change its theatre 

 of action from one quarter of the world to another. Volca- 

 noes enjoy centuries of repose between their manifestations 

 of activity ; and the idea that in the older countries nature 

 must be characterized by a certain repose and quietude, has no 

 other foundation than in the mere caprice of the imagination. 

 There exists no reason for assuming that one side of our 

 planet is older or more recent than the other. Islands, as the 

 Azores and many flat islands of the Pacific, which have 

 been upheaved by volcanoes, or been gradually formed by 

 coral animals, are indeed more recent than many plutonic 

 formations of the European central chain. Small tracts of 

 land, as Bohemia and Kashmeer, and many of the valleys in 

 the moon, inclosed by a ring of mountains, may continue for a 

 long time under the form of a sea, owing to partial inunda- 

 tions, and after the flowing off of these inland waters, the 

 bottom, on which plants would gradually manifest themselves, 

 might indeed be figuratively regarded as of more recent 

 origin. Islands have been connected together into continen- 

 tal masses by upheaval, whilst other parts of the previously 

 existing land have disappeared in consequence of the subsidence 

 of the oscillating ground; but general submersions can, from 

 hydrostatic laws, only be imagined as embracing simultane- 



