THE LAND. 291 



ent-e on climate, trade, and the progress of civilisation, so also, 

 in the interior, the variations of form in the vertical direction, 

 by mountains, hills, valleys, and elevated plains, have conse- 

 quences no less important. Whatever causes diversity of 

 form or feature on the surface of our planet, mountains, 

 great lakes, grassy steppes, and even deserts surrounded by 

 a coast-like margin of forest, impresses some peculiar mark 

 or character on the social state of its inhabitants. Continuous 

 ridges of lofty mountains covered with snow impede inter- 

 course and traffic ; but where lowlands are interspersed with 

 discontinuous chains, and with groups of more moderate eleva- 

 tion, ( 356 ) such as are happily presented by the south-west of 

 Europe, meteorological processes and vegetable products are 

 multiplied and varied ; and different kinds of cultivation, even 

 under the same latitude, give rise to different wants, which 

 stimulate both the industry and the intercourse of the inhabi- 

 tants. Thus those formidable terrestrial revolutions, in which, 

 by the reaction of subterranean forces, portions of the oxidized 

 crust of the globe were upheaved, and lofty mountain chains 

 were suddenly formed, have served, when repose was re-esta- 

 blished and organic life re-awakened, to furnish a more beau- 

 tiful and richer variety of individual forms, and to rescue the 

 greater part of the dry land in both hemispheres from a 

 dreary uniformity, which tends to impoverish both the phy- 

 sical and the intellectual powers of man. 



The great views of Elie de Beaumont assign a relative age 

 to each system of mountains, on the principle that their eleva- 

 tion must necessarily have intervened between two periods; 

 between the deposition of the strata which have been upheaved 

 and inclined., and of those which extend in undisturbed hori- 



