292 COSMOS. 



the varied form of our small continent as a special advantage. 

 Africa* and South America, which manifest so great a resem- 

 blance in their configuration, are also the two continents that 

 exhibit the simplest littoral outlines. It is only the eastern 

 shores of Asia, w^hich, broken as it were by the force of the 

 currents of the oceanf [fractas ex cequore terras), exhibit a 

 richly-variegated configuration, peninsulas and contiguous isl- 

 ands alternating from the equator to 60° north latitude. 



Our Atlantic Ocean presents all the indications of a valley. 

 It is as if a flow of eddying waters had been directed first to- 

 ward the northeast, then toward the northwest, and back 

 again to the northeast. The parallelism of the coasts north 

 of 10° south latitude, the projecting and receding angles, the 

 convexity of Brazil opposite to the Gulf of Guinea, that of 

 Africa under the same parallel, with the Gulf of the Antilles, 

 all favor this apparently speculative view.| In this Atlantic 

 valley, as is almost every where the case in the configuration 

 of large continental masses, coasts deeply indented, and rich 

 in islands, are situated opposite to those possessing a different 

 character. I long since drew attention to the geognostic im- 

 portance of entering into a comparison of the western coast of 

 Africa and of South America within the tropics. The deeply- 

 curved indentation of the African continent at Fernando Po, 

 4° 30' north latitude, is repeated on the coast of the Pacific 

 at 18° 15' south latitude, between the Valley of Arica and 

 the Morro de Juan Diaz, w^here the Peruvian coast suddenly 

 changes the direction from south to north which it had previ- 

 ously followed, and inclines to the northwest. This change 



* Of Africa, Pliny says (v. 1), "Nee alia pars terrarum pauciores re- 

 cipit sinus." The small Indian peninsula on this side the Ganges pre- 

 sents, in its triangular outline, a third analogous form. In ancient 

 Greece there prevailed an opinion of the regular configuration of the 

 dry land. There were four gulfs or bays, among which the Persian 

 Gulf was placed in opposition to the Hyrcanian or Caspian Sea (Arrian, 

 vii., 16; Plut., in vita Alexandri, cap. 44; Dionys. Perieg., v. 48 and 

 630, p. 11, 38, Bernh.). These four bays and the isthmuses were, ac- 

 cording to the optical fancies of Agesianax, supposed to be reflected in 

 the moon (Plut., de Facie in Orbem Lunce, p. 921, 19). Respecting the 

 terra quadrijida, or four divisions of the dry land, of which two lay 

 north and two south of the equator, see Macrobius, Comm. in Somnium 

 Scipionis, ii., 9. I have submitted this portion of the geography of the 

 ancients, regarding which great confusion prevails, to a new and care- 

 ful examination, in my Examen Crit. de V Hist, de la G^ogr., t. i., p. 

 119, 145, 180-185, as also in Asie Centr., t. ii., p. 172-178. 



+ Fleurieu, in Voyage de Marchand autour du Monde, t. iv., p. 38-42. 



t Humboldt, in the Journal de Physiqve, liii., 1799, p. 33; and Rel. 

 Hist., t. ii., p. 19; t. iii., p. 189, 198. 



