Henry Woodward — Address to the Geologists' Association. 535 



of beauty, grace and grandeur wliich impress themselves in varying 

 degrees of intensity upon our senses. But there is none perhaps 

 calculated to produce a more vivid and durable impression on the 

 mind than the contemplation of a lofty mountain, especially when 

 viewed from a level plain or from the sea. With the exception of 

 volcanic cones, there are however but very few solitary mountains 

 which rise by themselves in the midst of a level country. 



In almost all the countries of the world — in those at least which 

 possess any at all strongly-defined relief — we meet with summits in 

 considerable numbers, either arranged in groups or in long ranges. 

 As an illustration of the former we may give the Hartz Mountains 

 in Germany ; Mount Sinai in the Arabian Peninsula ; and the lofty 

 cluster of the Sierra-Nevada of Santa Marta rising to 19,680 feet. 



The chains, properly so called, which are always distinguished by 

 a considerable development of the length of the upheaved ground, 

 sometimes also have a dominant peak as their central culmination on 

 each side of which the summits of the ridge become gradually lower. 

 One of the finest illustrations of a mountain-chain is that of the South 

 American Andes ; their extreme regularity of form and the harmony 

 of their arrangement through the enormous length of 4350 miles, 

 together with the great height which its peaks maintain over a space 

 of about 50 degrees of longitude, give to this chain a unique and 

 typical character.^ 



In past ages every mountain-peak of importance and prominence 

 was worshipped or venerated as the seat of some divinity. Although 

 this particular form of idolatry is not pursued in the nineteenth 

 century (save by the members of the Alpine Club, who make still 

 their annual human sacrifice upon the summits of the Matterhorn 

 or Monte Eosa), to the geologist of to-day the mountains afford 

 peculiar attraction. For to him they are illustrations of accumula- 

 tion and elevation upon the grandest possible scale, extending over 

 the largest area of surface, and occupying the longest period of time 

 in their formation of any feature of the earth's crust with which he 

 is brought in contact. To a certain extent they govern the form of 

 continents : for their direction or axis being that of the elevating 

 force, must correspond in a general way with that of the land around 

 them and at their feet. They are also ainong the most permanent 

 features of the earth's surface, and the most difficult to obliterate.^ 



The question of the formation of mountain-chains has of late 

 occupied the consideration of many of our ablest and most profound 

 physical geologists. Names like those of Poulett-Scrope,^ Dana,* 



1 Reclus' " The Earth," English Edition, section i. chap. xix. 



"^ Ansted's Physical Geography, p. 74. 



3 See "Observations on the Internal Fluidity of the Earth," by G. Poulett-Scrope, 

 F.R.S., Geol. Mag. 1868, Vol. V. p. 537, and Vol. VI. p. 145. " Cause of Volcanic 

 Action," Geol. Mag. 1869, Vol. VI. p. 196. Prefatory Remarks to the Reissue of 

 Mr. Poulett-Scrope's great work on Volcanos, 1872, Loudon, 8vo., Longmans, 

 pp. 490, illustrated by plate and map and about seventy woodcuts, with a Second 

 Appendix of Earthquakes and Volcanic Eruptions from 1860-72. 



* See Prof. Dana's papers in Dana's and Silliman's American Journal of Science, 

 .1873, vol. V. no. 29, p. 347, no. 30, p. 423; vol. vi. no. 31, p. 6, no. 32, p. 104, 

 no. 33, p. 161. Prof. Dana's views were originally published in 1847. 



