446 H. H. Howorth — Elevation of American Cordillera. 



These facts are assuredly remarkable, and it is not strange, there- 

 fore, to find that Humboldt, after remarking how the bones of the 

 great pachyderms scattered in the auriferous gravels on the flanks 

 of the Urals prove the very recent origin of that chain, should go on 

 to say: " Cette meme conclusion de soulevement s'applique aux 

 Andes, ou, dans les deux hemispheres sur les plateaux du Mexique, 

 de Cundinamaska (near Bogota), de Quito et du Chili, on decouvre 

 des ossemens fossiles de mastodontes a 1200 et 1500 toises de hauteur " 

 (Geol. et Olim. Asiatique, pp. 381, 382, note). 



See also his Eelat. Hist. vol. i. pp. 386, 414, 429 ; vol. iii. p. 579. 



Turning to another part, one curious feature of the Rocky 

 Mountains pointing to their cataclj'smic origin is the sudden and 

 abrupt way in which they rise out of the adjoining plains. Thus 

 Mr. Ball says : " The Kocky Mountain rises up from the midst as 

 it were of a horizontal sea of red sandstone ; as if some tremendous 

 force had driven it upwards, like an island forced up from the depths 

 of the ocean" (Silliman's Journal, vol. xxv. p. 35). 



Reclus says : " La chaine des Montagues Rocheuses ne prqjette 

 pas de rameaux proprement dit dans les plaines orientales. Des 

 terrains onduleux viennent se heurter au pied des Monts comme des 

 ragues qui frappent les rocs d'un promontoire : la transition est 

 brusque entre les escarpements et les plaines " (Nouvelle Geog. 

 Univ. voh XV.). 



This is assuredly only consistent with this chain having been 

 elevated by a local paroxysmic movement, and not by a slow general 

 alteration of the level of the continent. 



Another feature in which America and Asia resemble one another, 

 and which points to a recent elevation of the land, is the fact of the 

 existence of a number of small salt lakes which attest to wide areas 

 of water having been recently drained. Thus, Mr. J. K. Gilbert, in 

 his Geological Report, says that the level of what is now " Great 

 Salt Lake must at one time have been much higher, and its area 

 must have been much greater than it is at present. Former levels 

 are marked by a series of conspicuous shore-lines carved on the 

 adjacent mountain slopes to a height of more than 900 feet. When 

 the waters rose to the uppermost beach, they must have covered an 

 area of about 18,000 square miles, eleven times that of the present 

 lake, and a trifle less than that of Lake Huron. The average depth 

 was 450 feet, and the volume of water nearly 400 times greater than 

 now." Mr. Gilbert believes " that the flooding of the Great Salt 

 Lake Valley was contemporary with the general glaciation of the 

 northern portion of North America, and with the formation of the 

 numerous local glaciers of the western mountain systems, he considers 

 it a phenomenon of the Glacial Epoch" (" Nature," vol. xii. p. 299). 



Reclus describes the American salt wastes in his usual graphic 

 manner. Thus, speaking of the desert of Utah, he says, " It is an 

 immense surface of clay, dotted over with thin tufts of Artemisia; 

 in certain places, however, it exhibits no trace of vegetation, and 

 resembles a causeway of concrete, intersected by innummerable 

 clefts, forming nearly regular polygons. In the midst of these 



