546 



of the Alps and Pyrenees, on the contrary, the 

 most elevated secondary systems, the Carpa- 

 thian and the Scandinavian mountains ■* do not 

 attain 1300 toises of height. The depression 

 of the line of elevation of the second order is 

 consequently found in Europe as well as in 

 America, on the side where the principal ridge 

 is farthest removed from the shore. If we did 

 not fear to subject great phenomena to too 

 small a scale, we might compare the difference 

 of the height of the Alps and the mountains of 

 eastern America, with the difference of height 

 observed between the Alps or the Pyrenees, and 

 the mountains Dores, J ura, the Vosges, or the 

 Schwarzwald. 



We have just seen that the causes which 

 heaved up the oxidated crust of the globe in 

 ridges, or in groupes of mountains, have not 

 acted very powerfully in the vast extent of 

 country that stretches from the eastern part of 

 the Andes, towards the ancient continent ; that 

 depression and that continuity of plains are 

 geologic facts, so much the more remarkable, 

 as they extend no where else on more different 



* The Lomnitzer Spiz of the Carpathian, is, according to 

 M. Wahlenberg, 1245 toises j the Sneehaetta, in the chain 

 of Dovrefield in Norway (the highest summit of the whole 

 ancient continent, on the north of the parallel of 55°) , is 

 1270 toises above the level of the sea. 



