Notes on the Pyrenees. 505 



the sea, and in front to the Pyrenees. Then opens to our eyes 

 a prospect of an oceanic vastness, in which the eye loses 

 itself; an almost boundless scene of cultivation, an animated 

 but confused mass of infinitely varied parts, melting gradually 

 into the distant obscure from which emerges the amazing 

 frame of the Pyrenees, rearing their silver heads far above 

 the clouds, their towering masses heaped one upon another in 

 a stupendous manner, and covered with snow, offering a variety 

 of lights and shades, from th^^ indented forms, and the im- 

 mensity of their projections. One of the first phenom,ena which 

 strike the observer on approaching a mountain chain, is the 

 line of demarcation with the plain below ; and thus we find the 

 Pyrenees bordered on the north by an immense plain, while, 

 to the south, transverse chains, succeeded by isolated rocks, 

 advance far into the kingdom of Spain. The plains of Lom- 

 bardy stretch to the very foot of the Alps, forming a well 

 marked line at the base of the mountains : the same occurs in 

 the plains of Tartary, attaining, according to some, an eleva- 

 tion of about 3000 yards above the level of the sea; a calcu- 

 lation, however, far surpassed by Barrow. The extent of the 

 base is found to vary in different formations ; but, as a general 

 fact, mountains which do not form a part of the chain, or 

 that are more or less isolated, have the most extended base. 

 Almost all the accidents presented in the phenomena of the 

 mountain chains of the Pyrenees, whether in their grouping, 

 their alegnation, their departition *, their approximation, the 

 regularity of acclivity, the uniformity of height, the form of 

 their summits, or in the general accidents which accompany 

 these, are attached to similar circumstances. Leaving the 

 extensive lands to the north-west, the chain is approached, 

 after crossing the Adour, through a country of hills of alpine 

 limestone ; their height is insignificant, their summits rounded, 

 and their acclivities, as their valleys, clothed, with luxuriant 

 crops, or the scattered huts of the Basques. The granite 

 mountain of Irsovia Mendi presents itself at the foot of the 

 Pyrenees, but its summit is rounded. Several hills of old 

 red sandstone are traversed near St. Jean pied de Port, 

 without any difference in outline being perceptible. From the 

 latter town there is a road traversing the chain; another 

 recedes north-easterly round a long transverse ridge of tran- 

 sition rocks, from whose rugged heights are again perceptible 

 the snow-topped mountains of secondary rocks, which consti- 

 tute the principal crest in this part of the chain. The green- 



* The study of physical geography is yet so novel, that we have been 

 obliged to adopt terms scarcely yet in general use. 



Vol. III. — No. 16. l l 



