398 Origin of the Grand Outline Features of the Earth. yg 
or not to the lines of jointed structure according as the force of 
tension acted in accordance with this structure or obliquely to it. 
(3) The age of mountains cannot therefore be determined neces 
sarily by their courses; a different direction in a particular region 
in different ages is not improbable, since the same contracting area 
might exert its horizontal force in somewhat different directions 
at different epochs, or other such areas might codperate, and exert 
a modifying influence; and at the same time, an identity of di- 
rection for different ages was to have been expected. 
From the facts before us it may be inferred that the great vol- 
canie band which is drawn by von Buch in the East Indies, in 
the shape of the letter U, from Sumatra and Java around by the 
Philippines, gives an incorrect view of the volcanic system in 
that part of the world. Much the larger part of the Philippines 
consists of primary and secondary rocks instead of volcanic, and 
in Luzon, the southern volcanic portion corresponds nearly to 
the west-northwest trends of the Pacific. 'The voleanic line of 
Sumatra and Java, including also the islands farther east, belongs, 
as we have shown, to the system of the Pacific, to the north- 
westward courses which characterize nearly all the groups of that 
ocean ; and it is continued east by a volcanic line along North New 
Guinea to the New Hebrides. Although an erroneous impression 
may therefore be conveyed by the chart of von Buch, it presents 
properly the fact intended to be illustrated by its distinguished au- 
thor, that volcanoes prevail along the trick laid down. The band 
seems like a grand voleanic border to the Asiatic continent, stretch- 
ing from the vicinity of northern New Holland, (and we may say 
from New Zealand,) to Kamschatka; and it curves around into 
the great American range through the Alaschka Archipelago. 
It isa fact of no little interest that the Pacific Ocean should 
Notr.—On page 188, it is implied that Lyell and Poisson admitted the former 
fluidity of our globe ; whereas the writer simply intended to acknowledge that 
a globe while it was in a state of free liquidity. See Lyell’s Principles, ti, 
ee Tk is mentioned as having presented the argument subsequently ta 
" See this volume, pp. 96, 98, 181, 185, 186. f Ibid, pp- 94, 176. 
