248 CHARLES R. KEYES 



About the south pole are arranged : 



9. South American, 



10. South African, 



1 1. South Indian, 



12. South Pacific. 



. The great Cordilleran ridges of North America, from near 

 the extremity of South America to the Arctic Ocean lie directly 

 on the edges of the dodecahedral form. The line is marked by 

 a remarkable succession of volcanoes both active and only 

 recently extinct. Greenland lies on another of the polar edges 

 of the northern zone of rhombs. Another remarkable world- 

 ridge passes down on rhombic margins from Franz Joseph land, 

 through Novaya Zemlya, the Urals, the Himalayas, Sumatra and 

 the Sunda Islands, Australia to Tasmania. Between the last 

 named place and the south pole is Wilkes Land and Victoria Land, 

 with the active volcano Erebus near the line. 



From Sumatra, northeastward extends the most wonderful 

 line of active volcanoes known on the globe — the line bordering 

 the east coast of Asia. From Japan a north polar edge is con- 

 tinued in the long island of Saghalien, certain chains of north- 

 eastern Siberia, and farther north in the Arctic Ocean by the 

 Liakov Islands. 



Other mountain ridges and groups of active volcanoes char- 

 acterize most of the other edges of the dodecahedron, frequently 

 in a very notable way. 



The only apparently incongruous element in the scheme is 

 Europe. But this comparatively high land has its antipodal 

 representative rhomb in the deepest south Pacific. 



However fanciful the speculations of this kind may be 

 regarded, it is certain that mountain ranges are susceptible 

 of systematic arrangement. Moreover, mountain ranges must 

 be considered as having different taxonomic ranks according to 

 their genetic orip;in. 



We know that the smaller folds of the earth's strata are com- 

 plex, that little ones may ride, as it were, on larger ones, and 

 that these again may rise out of still greater swells. Structural 



