Notes on the Pyrenees. 505 
the sea, and in front to the Pyrenees. Then opens to our eyes 
a prospect of an oceanic vastness, in which the eye loses 
itself; an almost boundless scene of cultivation, an animated 
but confused mass of infinitely varied parts, melting gradually 
into the distant obscure from which emerges the amazing 
frame of the Pyrenees, rearing their silver bheads far above 
the clouds, their towering masses heaped one upon another in 
a stupendous manner, and covered with snow , offering a variety 
of lights and shades, from their indented forms, and the im- 
mensity of their projections. One of the first phenomena which 
strike the observer on approaching a mountain chain, is the 
line of demarcation with the plain below 3 and thus we find the 
Pyrenees bordered on the north by an immense plain, while, 
to the south, transverse chains 2, succeeded by isolated rocks, 
advance far into the kingdom of Spain. The plains of Lom- 
bardy stretch to the very foot of the Alps, forming a well 
marked line at the base of the mountains: the same occurs in 
the plains of Tartary, attaining, according to some, an eleva- 
tion of about 3000 yards above the level of the sea; a calcu- 
lation, however, far surpassed by Barrow. ‘The extent of the 
base is found to vary in different formations ; but, as a general 
fact, mountains which do not form a part of the chain, or 
that are more or less isolated, have the most extended base. 
Almost all the accidents presented in the phenomena of the 
mountain chains of the Pyrenees, whether in their grouping, 
their alegnation, their departition *, their approximation, the 
regularity of acclivity, the uniformity of height, the form of 
their summits, or in the general accidents which accompany 
these, are attached to similar circumstances. Leaving the 
extensive lands to the north-west, the chain is approached, 
after crossing the Adour, through a country of hills of alpine 
limestone ; their height is insignificant, their summits rounded, 
and their necliviaes: as their valleys, clothed with eran 
crops, or the scattered huts of the Basques. ‘The granite 
mountain of Irsovia Mendi presents itself at the foot of the 
Pyrenees, but its summit is rounded. Several hills of old 
red sandstone are traversed near St. Jean pied de Port, 
without any difference in outline being perceptible. From the 
latter town there is a road traversing the chain; another 
recedes north-easterly round a long transverse ridge of tran- 
sition rocks, from whose rugged heights are again perceptible 
the snow-topped mountains sot perontlen y rocks, which consti- 
tute the principal crest in this part of the chain. The green- 
* The study of physical geography is yet so novel, that we have been 
obliged to adopt terms scarcely yet in general use. 
Vor ltl;— No. 16: LL 
