SYSTEM IN THE SURFACE FORMS OF THE CONTINENTS. 33 



The great desert-plateau of Gobi or Mongolia, 3000 to 4000 feet in eleva- 

 tion, is a great interior basin, and the Altai and associated ranges are the 

 mountains facing the Arctic seas. But the distance to those seas is so great 

 that it is as reasonable to regard the Mongolian area as a plateau between 

 high mountain ranges facing the Indian Ocean, and Arctic Asia, like Arctic 

 America, as without any mountains bordering the sroall Arctic sea. 



The interior drainage system for Asia is without outlet. The waters are 

 shut up within the great basin, the Caspian and Aral being the seas which 

 receive the part of those waters not lost in the plains. The Volga and other 

 streams, from a region of a million of square miles, flow into the Caspian. 

 Lake Baikal, regarded as a Siberian lake, is 30 degrees of latitude, or over 

 2000 miles, from the Arctic coast. 



The Urals, 2000 to 3000 feet in mean altitude, stand as a partial barrier 

 between Asia and Europe, parallel nearly with the mountains of Norway. 



Looking over the broad surface of North America and of Eurasia on the 

 map, on page 47, the fact that the higher lands are on the side of the greater 

 ocean is strikingly illustrated. In each, the dark shaded or more elevated 

 portion is mainly on the Pacific side. 



(3) Africa. — Africa has the Atlantic on the west, the broader Indian 

 Ocean on the east, with Europe and the Mediterranean on the north, and the 

 South Atlantic and Southern Ocean on the south. The northern half has 

 the east-and-west position of Asia, and the southern the north-and-south of 

 America ; and its reliefs correspond with this structure. The Guinea coast, 

 belonging to the northern half, projects west in front of the south Atlantic, 

 and is faced by the east-and-west Kong range, about 2000 feet high ; and 

 opposite, on the Mediterranean, there are the Atlas Mountains, the high 

 plateau of which is about 3000 feet ; one peak in the Atlas of Morocco 

 is 13,000 feet high, although the ridges are generally 5000 to 7000 feet. 



The larger part of the Abyssinian Plateau is 6000 to 7000 feet in eleva- 

 tion, but it has one summit of 15,000 feet. It extends into the great plateau 

 of southern Africa; and just south of the equator stand Mount Kilima-Njaro, 

 18,715 feet high, and Mount Kenia, 18,000 feet, and near the meridian of 

 30°, and 2° S., Euwenzori, 19,000 feet (Stanley). The pass from Zanzibar 

 to Tanganyika is 5700 feet. A height of 6000 to 8000 feet continues south, 

 becoming nearly 9000 feet in the South African Pepublic. The drainage of 

 the interior is consequently westward, and the Zambesi is the only stream 

 that breaks through and" reaches the Indian Ocean. Africa has been well 

 described as a shut-up continent, its coasts being mostly without bays. 



19. 



The section Eig. 19 gives a general idea of its features from south 

 to north (the heights necessarily much exaggerated in proportion to the 

 Dana's manual — 3 



