128 



NOTES TO PRECEDING SECTION. 



visible for five wersts." Vide Wrangel, Reise Iftng-a der 

 Nordkuste von Siberien in den Jahren 1220— 1824, Th, i. 

 S. 202. 



298 (p. 84.) — This oorypha is the sopato (zoyatl, Aztekian) 

 or palma dulce of the natives ; vide Humboldt and Bon- 

 plfind, Synopsis Plant, ^quihoct. Orbis N(/vi, torn. i. p. 302. 

 One deeply versed in the American languages, Professor 

 Buschmann, observes that the palma soyate is also named 

 in Vepe's Vocabulario de la Leng-ua Othomi, and that the 

 Aztekian word zoyatl (Molina, Vocabulario) also occurs in 

 the local names zoyatitlan and zoyapanco near Chiapa. 



2'.*J< (p. 85.)— Near Baracoa and" Cayos de Moa ; vide Ta- 

 gcburh des Admirals vom 25 and 27 November, 1492, and 

 Humboldt, Examen critique de I'llist. de la Geogr. du Nou- 

 Teau Continent, torn. ii. p. 252, and torn. iii. p. 23. Colum- 

 *)us was so observant of all natural objects, that he distin- 

 guished — and was, indeed, the first to do so — Podocarpus 

 from Pinus. "I find," he says, "en la tierra aspera del 

 Cibao pinos que no Uevan pinas [fir-tops or cones], pero per 

 tal orden compuestos por naturaleza, que (los frutos) pare- 

 cen azeytunas del Axarafe de Sevilla." The great botanist, 

 Richard, vvhen he produced his excellent work on the Cy- 

 ciideie and Conifers, was not aware that long before L'H6- 

 ritier, at the close of the 15th century, Podocarpus had al- 

 ready been distinguished from the pines — by a seafaring 

 man, too. 



3W (p. 85.) — Charles Darwin, Journal of the Voyages of 

 the Adventure and Beagle, 1839, p. 271. 



3<H (p. 85.) — Goppert describes other three Cycadese 

 Csj^ecics of Cicaditeie and Pterophyllum) from the lignitic 

 clay-shisls of Altsattel and Commotau in Bohemia, perhaps 

 'rom the Eocene period (Goppert, in the work quoted in 

 Note 90). 



302 (p. 85.)— Buckland, Geology, p. 509. 



303 (p. 85.)— Leopold von Buch,'in Abhandl. der Akad. der 

 Wiss. zu Berlin aus den J. 1814—1815, S. 161, and in Pog- 

 ^endorff's Annalen, Bd. ix. S. 575 ; Elie de Beaumont, in 

 Annales des Sciences nat. t. xix. p. 60, 



304 (p. 86.) — Vide Elie de Beaumont, Descr. g^ol. de la 

 France, t. i. p. 65 ; Beudant, G6ologie, 1844, p. 209. 



305 (p. 87.)— Transactions of the Cambridge Philosophi- 

 cal Society, vol. vi. pt. 2, 1837, p. 297. According to others, 

 as 100 : 284. 



30t) (p. 87.) — In the middle ages the prevalent opinion 

 A'as that the sea covered but one seventh of the surface of 

 ,ne globe, an opinion which Cardinal d'Ailly (Imago Mun- 

 di, cap. 8) founded on the Apocryphal 4th Book of Ezra. 

 Columbus, who always derived much of his cosmological 

 Jinowledge from the Cardinal's work, was much interested 

 in upholding this idea of the smallness of the sea, to which 

 the misunderstood expression of " the ocean stream" con- 

 tributed not a little. Vide Humboldt, Examen critique de 

 I'Hist. de la Gtiographie, t. i. p. 186. 



307 (p. 87.) — Agathemeros, in Hudson, Geographi mi- 

 nbres, t. ii. p. 4. Vide Humboldt, Asie centr. t. i. p. 120, 

 125. 



308 (p. 87.)— Strabo, lib. i. p. 65, Casaub, Vide Hum- 

 boldt, Examen crit. t. i. p. 152. 



309 (p. 87.) — On the mean latitude of the Northern Asiatic 

 shores, and the true name of Cape Taimura (Cape Siewero 

 — Wostotschnoi), and Cape North-East (Schalagskoi Mys"), 

 vide Humboldt, Asie centrale, t. iii. p. 35 and 37. 



310 (p. 88.)— lb. t. i. p. 198—200. The southern point of 

 America and the Archipelago, which we call Terra del Fu- 

 ego, lies in the meridian of the north-western part of Baf- 

 fin's Bay, and of the great uncircumscribed polar land, 

 which perhaps belongs to West Greenland. 



311 (p. 88.)— Strabo, lib. ii. p. 92 and 108, Casaub. 



312 (p. 88.)— Humboldt, Asie centrale, t. iii. p. 25. I had 

 already, at an early period of my work, De distributione 

 geographica plantarum secundum coeli temperiem et altitu- 

 dinera montium, directed attention to the important influ- 

 ence of compact or divided continents on climate and hu- 

 man civilization : " Regiones vel per sinus lunatos in longa 

 cornua porrectae, angulosis littorum recessibus quasi mem- 

 bratim disccrptae, vel spatia patentia in immensum, quo- 

 rum littora nuUis incisa angulis ambit sine anfractu Ocea- 

 nus" (p. 81 and 182). Oa the relations of the extent of 

 coast to the area of a continent (at the same time as a 

 measure of the accessibility of the interior), vide the Inqui- 

 ries iu Berghaus, Annalen der Erdkunde, Bd. xii. 1835, S. 

 490, and Physikal. Atlas, 1839, No. iii, S. 69. 



313 (p. 88.)— Strabo, lib. ii. p. 92 and 198, Casaub. 



314 (p. 88.)— Of Africa, Pliny says (v. 1.)—" Nee alia pars 

 terrarum pauciores recipit sinus." The small Indian pe- 

 ninsula this side the Ganges, in its triangular outline, pre- 

 sents another analogous form. In Ancient Greece there 

 prevailed an opinion of the regular configuration of the dry 

 land. There were four gulphs or bays, among which the 

 Persian was placed in opposition to the Hyrcanian (i. e. the 

 Caspian Sea) (AiTian,vii. 16 ; Plut. in vita Alexandri, cap. 

 44 ; Dionys. Perieg. v. 48 und 630, pag. 11 und 38, Bernh.) 

 These four bays and the isthmuses of the land, according 

 to the optical fancies of Agesianax, were reflected in the 



moon (Plut. de Facie in Orjse Lunae, p. 921, 19). On th» 

 terra quadrifida, or four divisions of the dry land, cf which 

 two lay north, two south of the equator, vide Macrobius, 

 Comm. in Somnium Scipionis, ii. 9. 1 have submitted this 

 portion of the geography of the ancients, on which great 

 confusion prevails, to a new and careful examinatiim, in 

 my Examen crit. de I'Hist. de la G6ogr. t. i. p. 119, 145^ 

 180—185, as also in Asie centr. t. ii. p. 172—178. 



315 (p. 88.) — Fleurieu, in Voyage de Merchand aatour 

 du Monde, t. iv. p. 38—42. 



310 (p. 88.)— Humboldt, in the Journal de Physique, t. 

 liii. 1799, p. 33, and Rel. hist. t. ii. p. 19, t. iii. p. 189 ami 

 198. 



317 (p. 88.) — Humboldt, in PoggendortTs Annalen der 

 Physik, Bd. xl. S. 171. On the remarkable Fiord forma- 

 tion of the south-east end of America, vide Darwin's Jour- 

 nal (Narrative of the Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, 

 vol. iii.) 1839, p. 266. The parallelism of the two mount- 

 ain chains is maintained from 5° North to 5° South latitude. 

 The change in the direction of the coast at Arica appears 

 to be a consequence of the altered course of the chasm upon 

 or through which the Andes have arisen. 



318 (p. 89.)— De la Beche, Sections and Views illustrative 

 of Geological Phenomena, 1830, Tab. 40 ; Charles Babbage, 

 Observations on the Temple of Serapis at Pozzuoli, near 

 Naples, and on certain causes which may produce Geologi- 

 cal Cycles of great extent, 1834. A bed of sandstone, five 

 English miles thick, heated to 100° Fahr., would rise on 

 its surface about 25 feet. Clay strata heated, on the con- 

 trary, would occasion a contraction or sinking of the ground. 

 See the calculation for the secular rise of Sweden, on the 

 presumption of a rise by so small a quantity as 3° Reaum., 

 in a stratum 140,000 feet thick, heated to the melting point, 

 in Bischoff", Wftrmelehre des Innern unseres Erdkorpers, 

 S. 303. 



319 (p. 89.) — The presumption of the stability — which has 

 hitherto been so implicit — of the point of gravity, has at all 

 events been shaken to a certain extent by the gradual rise 

 of large portions of the earth's surface. Vide Bessel iiber 

 Maass und Gewicht, in Schumacher's Jahrbuch fiir 1840, 

 S. 134. 



320 (p. 89.) — Th. ii. (1810), S. 389. Vide Hallstrom, in 

 Kongl. Vetenskaps-Academiens Handlingar (Stockh.), 1823, 

 p. 39 ; Lyell, in the Philos. Trans, for 1835, p. 1 ; Blom 

 (Amtmann in Budskerud), Stat. Beschr. von Norwegcn. 

 1843, S. 89— 1 16. If not before Von Buch's travels through 

 Scandinavia, still before the publication of the account of 

 them, Playfair, in his Illustrations of the Huttonian Theo- 

 ry, () 393, as well as Keilhau (Om Landjordens Stigning iu 

 Norge in dem Nyt Magazin for Naturvidenskaberene), nnd 

 even before Playfair, the Dane Jessen, had expressed an 

 opinion that it was not the sea which fell in level, but the 

 firm land of Sweden whi.ch rose : these ideas remained 

 wholly unknown to our great geologist, and exerted no in- 

 fluence on the progress of physical geography. Jessen, lu 

 hjs work, Kongeriget Norge fremstillet efter nets naturlige 

 og borgerlige Tilstand, Kjobenh. 1763, sought to explain 

 the changes in the relative levels of the land and soa, upoi» 

 the old notions of Celsius, Kalm, and Dalin. He broache.i 

 some confused notions about the possibility of an internal 

 growth of rocks, but finally declares himself in favour of an 

 upliftment of the land by earthquakes. "All along," he 

 observes, "no such rising was apparent immediately .after 

 the earthquake of Egersund ; still, other causes producing 

 such an effect may have been brought into operation by it." 



321 (p. 89.) — Berzelius, Jahresbericht iiber die Fortschritie 

 der physischen Wiss. No. 18, S. 686. The island Saltholm, 

 over against Copenhagen, and Bornholm, however, rise but 

 very little — Bornholm scarcely 1 foot in a century; viiJn 

 Forchhammer, in Philos. Magazine. 3d Series, vol. ii. p. 3(.'.'. 



333 (p. 89.)— Keilhau, in Nyt Mag. for Naturvid. 1^.3-J, 

 Bd. i. p. 105—254, Bd. ii. p. 57 ; Bravais, sur les liirncs 

 d'ancien niveau de la Mer, 1843, p. 15—40. See also Dar- 

 win on the Parallel Roads of Glen-Roy and Lochaber, in 

 the Philos. Transactions for 1839, p. 60. 



333 (p. 89.)— Humboldt, Asie centrale, t. ii. p. 310-324, 

 t. iii. p. 549 — 554. The depression of the Dead Sea has 

 been again and again determined by the barometrical meas- 

 urements of Count Bertou, the more careful ones of Rus- 

 segger, and the trigonometrical survey of Lieut. Symond, 

 of the Royal Navy, who .specifies 1506 feet as the difference 

 of level between the surface of the Dead Sea and the high- 

 est houses in Jaffa. Mr. Alderson, who communicated this 

 result to the Geographical Society »f London, in a letter, 

 of the contents of which I was informed by my friend Cap- 

 tain Washington, Mr. Alderson then imagined (Nov. 28. 

 1841) that the Dead Sea layabout 1314 feet under the level 

 of the Mediterranean. In another and later communica- 

 tion from Lieut. Symond (Jameson's Edinburgh New Phil- 

 osophical Journal, vol. xxxiv. 1843, p. 178), as a final r». 

 suit, two trigonometrical operations are detailed, which 

 agree remarkably with each other, and assign 1231 feet 

 (Paris measure) as the depression of the level of the Dead 

 Sea belovv that of the Mediterranean. 



