308 
passed over the lofty littoral chain and the mountains of 
granite gneiss that stretch from the Lower Orinoco to the 
basin of the Rio Negro, and the Amazon, I recognized again 
the most surprising parallelism in the direction of the beds 
(crystalline bands); that direction was from S.S.W. to IN. A. k. 
During my survey of the Isthmus of Panama and A eraguas, 
where the same vertical structure is observed, the Californian 
o-old discoveries were made. American geologists suiveyed 
that gold region, and in their official reports I find the follow- 
ing observations : — . , 
“ The auriferous gravel and clay are deposited on the edges 
of the primary slate rocks. The fundamental rocks are com- 
posed of bands of granite, chloritic and micaceous slate, and 
have been traced running on their edges in a north and south 
direction for hundreds of miles.” 
On my arrival in Australia in 1852 I surveyed a very laige 
area of the gold districts, and found the same order of structure 
iu the primary rocks as I had observed in South America and 
other places. I then published a pamphlet, with illustrated 
sections of the vertical and meridional structure of the 
Australian rocks, which was much appreciated by the gold- 
diggers. — But I shall quote from others who have travelled in 
Australia, though not geologists, this further account of the 
general appearance of the exposed crystalline rocks of that 
country : — . . n ,, 
“ A great portion of the Australian quartz ridges, says 
Mr. W. Howitt “ runs from north to south over the hills of 
the gold regions. . . . The clay slates and other rocks are 
all perpendicular. . . . Some action has taken place whic j. 
has left them standing edgeways. . . . They are always 
true to the north and south direction, and are nearly as good as 
a compass where they prevail; and you may trace them for 
twenty or thirty miles at a stretch, and, no doubt, they extend 
across the colony/’ , 
The official reports of the Gold Commissioners of New feouth 
Wales furnish similar descriptions. They all agree in repre- 
senting the structure of the primary rocks as more or less 
vertical, and with a uniform bearing north and south. I there- 
fore venture to maintain that the crystalline rocks have no^ 
been formed in beds, like the superincumbent sedimentary de- 
posits, but that they have been produced by a semi-crystalline 
action under the influence of some universal power, which has 
given them the order of structure which they now present ; 
and which is plainly exhibited in all deep natural sections ol 
all the crystalline rocks in all parts of the world. 
I communicated these results of my geological researches m 
