GENERAL FEATURES OF THE EARTH. 29 



against the continent of Europe with only the Mediterranean 

 between, instead of an ocean, is a sufficient reason for the excep- 

 tions. Africa has some resemblance to America, but America 

 turned about, with the most elevated border on the east instead of 

 the west. 



32. (4.) Australia. — Australia conforms also to the continental 

 model. The highest mountains are on the side of the Pacific, — 

 the larger of its border-oceans. The Australian Alps, in New South 

 Wales, facing the southwest shores, have peaks 5000 to 6500 feet in 

 height. The range is continued northward in the Blue Mountains, 

 which are 3000 to 4000 feet high, with some more elevated summits, 

 and, beyond these, in ridges under other names, the whole range 

 being mostly between 2000 and 6000 feet in elevation. The interior 

 is regarded as a low, arid region. 



The continents thus exemplify the law laid down, and not 

 merely as to high borders around a depressed interior, — a prin- 

 ciple stated by many geographers, — but also as to the highest border 

 being on the side of the greatest ocean.* The continents, then, are 

 all built on one model, and in their structures and origin have a 

 relation to the oceans that is of fundamental importance. 



It is owing to this law that America and Europe literally stand 

 facing one another, and pouring their waters and the treasures of 

 the soil into a common channel, the Atlantic. America has her 

 loftier mountains, not on the east, as a barrier to intercourse with 

 Europe, but off in the remote west, on the broad Pacific, where 

 they stand open to the moist easterly winds as well as those of 

 the west, to gather rains and snows, and make rivers and alluvial 

 plains for the continent ; and the waters of all the great streams, 

 lakes, and seas make their way eastward to the narrow ocean that 

 divides the civilized world. Europe has her slopes, rivers, and 

 great seas opening into the same ocean; and even central Asia 

 has her most natural outlet westward to the Atlantic. Thus, under 

 this simple law, the civilized world is brought within one great 

 country, the centre of which is the Atlantic, uniting the land by a 

 convenient ferriage, and the sides the slopes of the Eocky Moun- 

 tains and Andes on the west, and the remote mountains of Mon- 

 golia, India, and Abyssinia on the east.f 



This subject affords an answer to the inquiry, What is a continent 

 as distinct from an island ? It is a body of land so large as to have 

 the typical basin-form, — that is, mountain-borders about a low inte- 



* First announced American Jour. Sci. [2], xvii., vols. iii. iv v 1847, and xxii. 

 335, 1856. f See Guyot's Earth and Man. 



