The Chain of the Andes. 119 



and fifty miles from the coast. Were the Andes on the 

 Atlantic side. South America would be turned into a vast 

 Sahara. As it is, the interest which attaches to this conti- 

 nent, save a few relics of the Incas, is exclusively that of 

 pure nature. Nowhere does Nature affect us more deeply 

 with the feeling of her grandeur ; nowhere does she ex- 

 hibit wilder freaks or more startling contrasts; nowhere 

 do we find such a theatre for the free development of veg- 

 etable and animal life. 



The long and lofty chain of tlie Andes is certainly on(* 

 of the grandest results of the plications and uplifts of the 

 earth's crust. While the waves of the Pacific, from Pana- 

 ma to Patagonia, submissively kiss the feet of the Andes, 

 and the showers that swell the Amazon fall within sight 

 of the mariner 'on that peaceful ocean, the Eocky Moun- 

 tains are situated five hundred miles from the sea. The 

 space west of the Andes does not contain 20,000 square 

 leagues, while the country east of it equals 424,600. While 

 the compact Andes have an average width of only sixty 

 miles,* the straggling mountain system beyond the Missis- 

 sippi has the breadth of the Empire State ; but the mean ele- 

 vation of the latter would scarcely reach the bottom of the 

 Quito Valley. The mountains of Asia may surpass the Cor- 

 dilleras in height, but, situated beyond the tropics, and desti- 

 tute of volcanoes, they do not present that inexhaustible va- 

 riety of phenomena which characterizes the latter. The out- 

 bursts of poi-phyry and trachytic domes, so characteristic 

 of the high crests of the Cordilleras, impart a physiognomy 

 quite distinct from that presented by the mountains of Eu- 

 rope. The Andes offer, in the least space, the greatest pos- 

 sible variety of impressions.f There is near Huanca, Peru, 



* The width of the chain south of the equator varies with that of the con- 

 tinent. 



t ' ' No mountains which I have seen in Hungary, Saxony, or the Pyrenees 



