2H PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



accessible, and thus supplied commerce with its sinews ; and comparing the physical 

 history of the globe with the career of its inhabitants, how harmless the Etnas and Cotopaxis 

 of nature appear, in contrast with the Caesars and Napoleons of mankind! A slight survey of 

 the features of the external world is sufficient to show, that the tendency of their general 

 arrangement is to minister to the happiness of man, to give him pleasure in the act of 

 contemplation, as well as to contribute to his convenience. Its surface, so finely diversified, 

 is eminently calculated for the gratification of its occupiers, and expands around them in 

 every clime an array of beauty and grandeur, sometimes apart from each other, but often 

 blended in wild yet tasteful and imposing combinations. "Wherever the traveller pene 

 trates, he finds the terrestrial configuration so arranged in ever-varying outline as to 

 spread before him an inviting picture of natural scenery, which captivates, or soothes, or 

 elevates, or excites the mind, and furnishes such pleasurable emotions as dull uniformity 

 would not have yielded. Especially do the elevations which mark the face of the earth. 

 whether rising to the stately proportion of mountains, or forming only the rounded, green- 

 clad hill, give interest, grace, or sublimity to the landscape. But the mountains perform 

 a more important office than that of giving imposing effect and picturesque beauty to the 

 scenery of the earth. Occupying a portion of its surface nearly equal to that which the 

 sandy desert claims, they stand associated with political and other results of the highest 

 importance to mankind. "Where the ocean does not extend its waters to divide the 

 families, kindreds, and tongues of the human race, the granite snow-crowned rampart is 

 frequently the line of demarcation. Nations have thus been kept apart from each other 

 by natural boundaries; and. the difficulties connected with aggressive wars between 

 communities thus separated, have contributed to promote peace and maintain independence. 

 The mountains also officiate in arresting and condensing the vapours by their cold 

 summits, and storing up their precipitated waters in interior reservoirs, from whence they 

 issue by a thousand springs ; and in the dens and caves that perforate their declivities 

 liberty and religion have often found a secure asylum, when assailed by persecuting 

 power and grasping ambition. " The precious things of the lasting hills " the phrase of 

 the dying Hebrew patriarch is not without its appropriate significancy. Inglis, wan 

 dering in the Tyrol, recognised its truth, when, as he remarks, he emerged from the 

 mountains after a day's ramble, with pleasant recollections of lights and shadows yet 

 lingering on the vision of solitude and stillness, and the small mountain sounds that are 

 more akin to silence than noise and of all the thousand deep-felt but inexpressible 

 emotions, that are born among the eternal hills, when evening fills their valleys, creeps 

 over their declivities, and throws its mantle on their summits. 



While mountains, whether volcanic or otherwise, occasionaDy rise on one side from a 

 low level, and descend abruptly to it again on the other, they are far more generally con 

 nected with extensive tracts of elevated country, which is either intersected or bounded by 

 them. These highly raised regions may undulate with hill and vale, but have compara 

 tively level surfaces, and are known as plateaus or table-lands. The principal example in 

 Europe is in Spain, which consists of a high central nucleus, surrounded by a narrow belt 

 of maritime lowlands. Madrid, the capital, on a plain, is 2170 feet above the sea. But 

 the royal palace of the Escurial has an elevation of 3520 feet, very little lower than the 

 top of Snowdon ; and the site of La Granja, the summer residence of the sovereigns, is 

 elevated 3943 feet. This would appear a castle in the air, if isolated, and viewed from 

 the sea-level, being at a greater altitude than the summit of Vesuvius. The grand examples 

 of plateau formations are Trans- Atlantic and Asiatic. 



A considerable portion of Bolivia and Upper Peru, is a plateau remarkable for its 

 altitude, 13,000 feet. It is formed by the top of the main mass of the Andes, and stretches 

 between the mountain-knots of Cuzco and Potosi, north and south, and the Cordillera 



