102 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



inhabitants of Eastern Asia. (Humboldt, Essai polit. t. ii. p. 448 ; 

 Relation hist. t. ii. p. 625.) 



( l6 ) p. 30. -"Like the greater part of the Desert of Sahara, the 



Llanos are in the torrid zone" 



Significant denominations particularly such as refer to the form 

 in relief of the earth's surface, and which have arisen at a period 

 when . there was only very uncertain information respecting the 

 countries in question and their hypsometric relations have led to 

 vai ious" aiil t ioiig-contjniied geographical errors. The ancient deno- 

 'inmafion' of the <- Greater 'and Lesser Atlas" (Ptol. Geogr. lib. iii. 

 cap. 1) has exercised the prejudicial influence here alluded to. No 

 doubt the snow-covered western summits of the Atlas in the terri- 

 tory of Morocco may be regarded as the Oreat Atlas of Ptolemy ; 

 but where is the limit of the Little Atlas ? Is the division into two 

 Atlas chains, which the conservative tendencies of geographers have 

 preserved for 1700 years, to be still maintained in the territory of 

 Algiers, and even between Tunis and Tlemse ? Are we to seek 

 between the coast and the interior for parallel chains constituting a 

 greater and a lesser Atlas ? All travellers familiar with geognostical 

 views, who have visited Algeria since it has been taken possession 

 of by the French, contest the meaning conveyed by the generally 

 received nomenclature. Among the parallel chains, that of Jurjura 

 is generally supposed to be the highest of those which have been 

 measured; but the well-informed Fournel (long Ingenieur en chef 

 des Mines de TAlgerie), affirms that the mountains of Aures, near 

 Batnah, which were still found covered with snow at the end of 

 March, are higher. Fournel denies the existence of a Little and a 

 Great Atlas, as I do that of a Little and a Great Altai (Asie Cen- 

 trale, t. i. pp. 247-252). There is only one Atlas, formerly called 

 Dyris by the Mauritanians, and this name is to be applied to the 

 " foldings" (" rides") or succession of crests which form the divi- 

 sion between the waters flowing to the Mediterranean, and those 

 which flow towards the Sahara lowland. The strike or direction of 

 the Eastern Mauritanian portion of the Atlas is from east to west ; 

 that of the elevated Atlas of Morocco from north-east to south-west, 

 The latter rises into summits, which, according to Renou, (Explora- 



