98 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL chap. 



survey of other mountain regions where indications of ice- 

 action are comparatively slight or altogether wanting, and 

 see whether similar lakes occur there also. The comparison 

 will, I think, prove very instructive. 



Spain and Portugal are pre-eminently mountainous 

 countries, there being a succession of distinct ranges and 

 isolated mountain groups from east to west and from north 

 to south ; yet there is not a single valley-lake in the whole 

 peninsula, but very few mountain tarns. Sardinia and 

 Corsica are wholly mountainous, but they do not appear to 

 possess a single valley-lake. Nor does the whole range of 

 the Apennines, though there are many large plateau lakes 

 in Southern Italy. Farther south we have the lofty Atlas 

 Mountains, but giving rise to no subalpine valley-lakes. 

 The innumerable mountains and valleys of Asia Minor 

 have no lakes but those of the plateaux ; neither has the 

 grand range of the Lebanon, a hundred miles long, and 

 giving rise to an abundance of rivers. Turning to the 

 peninsula of India we have the ranges of the Ghauts, eight 

 hundred miles long, the mountain mass of the Neilgherries 

 and that of Ceylon, all without such lakes as we are seeking, 

 though Cejdon has a few plateau lakes in the north. 

 The same phenomenon meets us in South Africa and 

 Madagascar — abundance of mountains and rivers, but no 

 valley-lakes. In Australia, again, the whole great range 

 of mountains from the uplands of Victoria, through New 

 South Wales and Queensland to the peninsula of Cape 

 York, has not a single true valley-lake. Turning now 

 to the New World, we find no valley-lakes in the southern 

 Alleghanies, while the grand mountains of Mexico and 

 Central America have a few plateau lakes, but none of the 

 class we are seeking. The extremely mountainous islands 

 of the West Indies — Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica — are 

 equally deficient, although there is evidence of both 

 upheaval and depression, in times which are geologically 

 recent. In South America we have on the east the two great 

 mountain systems of Guiana and Brazil, furrowed with 

 valleys and rich in mountain streams, but none of these are 

 adorned with lakes. And, lastly, the grand ranges of the 

 equatorial Andes, for ten degrees on each side of the 



