THE OEGAX MOUNTAINS. 587 



pellation, Los Organos ; one is that of Mamanchota, situated to the 

 north of the Indian village of Actapan. The portion soaring out of 

 the rock, says Humboldt, is three hundred feet in height ; but the ab- 

 solute elevation of the summit of the mountain, at the point where the 

 Organos begin to shoot aloft, is 1385 toises (about 5310 feet). The 

 other is the Jacal, which is nearly 9600 feet above the sea-level, 

 and crowned with forests of pine and cedar. 



But the most celebrated Organ Mountains are those which rear 

 their glittering shafts at the extremity of the bay of Rio Janiero. 

 "It is not only the aspect of these pointed summits," says Dr. Yvan, 

 " that reminds the spectator of the sublime instrument of our 

 churches ; the strange sounds which escape from between these 

 cylinders of rock render the analogy still more striking, and complete 

 the illusion. The voice of the tempest, the lamentations of the 

 forests bowed by the passing winds, the doleful wails of the jaguars, 

 the cries of the howling monkeys passing between these sonorous peaks, 

 produce a harmony before which all human instrumentation loses its 

 grandeur. We feel that it is the universal soul which inspires the 

 chords of the majestic keys. The Serra dos Organos is clothed in 

 virgin forest over three-fourths of its extent ; it is only at long inter- 

 vals, and in obscure valleys, that we encounter any traces of human 

 industry, or that we traverse some circular treeless hollows, in which 

 an abundant herbage flourishes, and feeds the troops of horses and 

 oxen enclosed in these natural parks." 



The Organ Mountains of Epailly (in the department of the Haute 

 Loire, in France) and of Bart (in the Correze), and the Colonnades 

 of Chenavari (in the Ardeche), belong to the basaltic formation, ren- 

 dered so remarkable by its frequent arrangement in prismatic 

 columns of extreme regularity. Basalt also gives birth to chains 

 which resemble vast walls, and sometimes appears in the form of 

 pyramids, plateaux, or simple mamelons. 



Of the columnar arrangement the Palisades, on the banks of the 

 river Hudson, may be particularized as a noble example ; but a still 

 grander spectacle is presented on the river Columbia, west of the 



