ROSS — ON PARALLEL LINES OF ELEVATION. 133 



mountain range to Torres Strait. Across Torres Strait this line of 

 elevation is apparent in a volcanic island range. From Cape York 

 the Australian Alps extend to the southern extremity of this 

 insular continent. It is continued in an island range across Bass 

 Strait and in mountain range across the Island Tasmania ; thus 

 completing (from the Azores) a semi-circumference of the earth. 

 The same line of elevation is again apparent in the highly volcanic 

 range of South Victoria. Passing over the unexplored South Polar 

 Reofion v^e find Graham Land volcanic. The Falkland Islands and 

 the coast mountain ranges of Brazil are in the same line. 



Scandinavia and the British Islands are examples of the 

 development of this zone on one side of the axial line, and, as they 

 are well knovrn, illustrate vv^ell the law that the side of a zone or 

 subzone next to the axial line, shows the most plication — the bold- 

 est and greatest anticlinals. Greenland — comparatively unexplored 

 — represents its development on the other side of the axial line. 

 Brazil is the only other part of this zone which is well known, and 

 it also illustrates the law to which I have referred. 



The Scandinavian zone is the region of '* fiords," which 

 characterize it alike in every part of the circumference of the earth. 

 It is also characterized by a prodigious development of trachytic 

 rocks, which, often being basaltic, form spires, and pyramids, and 

 caves (Fingal's cave for example). Indeed the *' family likeness " 

 that regions of the same zone present, however widely apart, is very 

 remarkable. Especially is this apparent in the three zones with 

 w^hich we are best acquainted, viz : Nos. 1, 2, 4. It may confi- 

 dently be said that any one acquainted with their characteristic 

 features, would have little difficulty in recognizing each by the 

 general features of the face of the country, even without observing 

 the direction of the strike — that is of the lines of elevation. 



Zone No. 5, or the New Zealand zone, seems to have its axial 

 line parallel to the chief lines of elevation of the New Zealand 

 Islands, passing through Tasmania, the Fiji Islands, <fec., through 

 Hawaii in the Sandwich Islands, across North America from Cape 

 Mendocino to Cape Race. From Cape Race it is continued in a 

 chain of banks and volcanic Islands extending to Cape Juby. 

 From Cape Juby it would pass through the unexplored regions of 



