116 The Akdes and the Ai^iazon. 



And now the Andes^ stand complete in their present 

 gigantic proportions, one of the grandest and most sym- 

 metrical mountain chains in the world. Starting from the 

 Land of Fire, it stretches northward and mounts upward 

 until it enters the Isthmus of Panama, where it bows grace- 

 fully to either ocean, but soon resumes, under another name, 

 its former majesty, and loses its magnificence only w^here 

 the trappers chase the fur-bearing animals over the Arctic 

 plains. Nowhere else does Nature j)resent such a continu- 

 ous and lofty chain of mountains, unbroken for eight 

 thousand miles, save w^here it is rent asunder by the Ma- 

 gellanic Straits, and proudly tossing up a thousand pinna- 

 cles into the region of eternal snow. Nowhere in the Old 

 World do we see a single well-defined mountain chain, 

 only a broad belt of mountainous country traversing the 

 heart of the continent. 



The moment the Andes arose, the great continental val- 



beach three hundred feet high. The basal slate and sandstone rocks, dip- 

 ping S. of E., are covered by conglomerate, sand, and a gypseous formation, 

 containing shells of living species. Additional to those described by D'Or- 

 bigny we found here Cerithiuvi Icvviusctda, Ostrea gallus, and AmpuUina Or- 

 toni, as determined by W. M. Gabb, Esq. , of Philadelphia. Darwin found 

 shells in Chile 1 300 feet above the sea, covered with marine mud. President 

 Loomis, of Lewisburg University, Pa., informs the writer that in 1853, after 

 nearly a day's ride from Iquique, h^ came to a former sea-beach. " It fur- 

 nished abundant specimens of Patellce and other shells, still perfect, and 

 identical with others that I had that morning obtained at Iquique with the 

 living animal inhabiting them.' This beach is elevated 2500 feet above the 

 Pacific. The same observer says that near Potosi there is one uninterrupted 

 mass of lava, having a columnar structure, not less than one hundred miles 

 in length, fifty miles wide, and eight hundred feet thick. It overlies a bed 

 of saliferous sandstone Avhich has been worked for salt. Eifty feet within a 

 mine, and in the undisturbed rock which forms its roof, the doctor found 

 fragments of dicotyledonous trees with the bark on, undecomposed, uncharred, 

 and fibrous. 



* The name Andes is often derived from ajita, an old Peruvian word sig- 

 nifying metal. But Humboldt says : "There are no means of interpreting it 

 by connecting it with any signification or idea ; if such connection exist, it is 

 buried in the obscurity of the past." According to Col. Tod, the northern 

 Hindoos apply the name Andes to the Himalayan Mountains. 



