382 Origin of the Grand Outline Features of the Earth. 
our view, and may be properly appealed to with reference to the 
earth’s features. The evidence has not been overlooked by the 
philosophers of the day, and is more or less fully discussed by 
umboldt, Malte Brun, L. A. Necker, Elie de Beaumont, Boué, 
and other geographers and geologists. Yet it has failed of fixing 
general attention. It is proposed to pass briefly in review the 
principal facts, and consider the causes to which the existing fea- 
tures of the earth are attributable. 
The remarks which follow will be hardly intelligible to the 
reader without a globe before him, or a Mercator’s chart of the 
world: and the latter, though the best kind of map for the pur- 
pose, is somewhat erroneous in consequence of the parallelism of 
the meridians. 
Trends of Coasts and other Features of Continents.—1. On the 
continent of America, the reader will observe the nearly straight 
coast line from the Gulf of Mexico along by Newfoundland and 
Greenland, a distance of 5000 miles; the near parallelism of this 
iles 1 
length ; also with the line of Lakes Ontario and Erie, and the river 
St. Lawrence ; also with the coast on the northwest of Hudson’s 
Bay, and that by Prince Regent’s inlet. These parallelisms are 
too striking not to be at once obvious. 'They are instances of @ 
northeast and southwest trend; and the distance between these 
great parallel lines are respectively about 3000 miles, 250 miles, 
1400, and 380 miles. 
_ Again: look at the west coast of the same continent, from Da~ 
rien to Russian America, and laying down a rule, mark the near 
parallelism of the course with the line of great lakes, from Ene 
through Michigan, Superior, Winnipeg, Slave and Bear, to the 
coast by the mouth of the Mackenzie ; also with the southwest 
side of Hudson Bay; with the coast on the west of Davis 
Strait and Baffin Bay, and that also on the east. Here the 
uniformity is even more remarkable. These are instances of @ 
northwest and southeast trend. To one of the two lines corres- 
pond the greater part of all the grand features of the continent. 
The apparent exceptions will be hereafter considered. ‘The dis- ° 
tances separating these northwest lines average respectively 1000 
miles, 350, 700, and 400 miles. ; 
Compare the sides of the Atlantic Ocean. 'The southeast 
coast of South America, from Magellan to St. Roque, is almost 
nent, by western Africa, Spain, and Norway or the Baltic ; and 
the break in the line made by the Atlantic, is partly filled by - 
belongs to the northwest system of trends, and extends by 
Guatemala and California northward; and if we cross the ocean, 
