COEBIIIiEBA OE CALIEOENIA. 
323 
m-nd in tlie Alto de los EoWes (lat. 2° 20' north), on the west. 
The ridge that separates the Eoeky Mountains extends from 
west to 'cast, towards Lake Superior, betw'een the basins of 
the Missouri and those of Lake AVinnipeg and the Slave 
Lake. The central Cordillera of Mexico and the Eocky 
Mountains follow the direction N. 10° W ., from lat. 25° to 
88° ; the chain from that point to the Polar Sea prolongs in 
the direction N. 24° W., and ends in the parallel G0°, at the 
mouth of the M ackenzie Eiver.* 
In thus developing the structure of the Cordilleras of the 
Andes from 56° south to beyond the Arctic circle, we see 
that its northern extremity (long. 130° 30'), is nearly 61“ 
of longitude west of its southern extremity (long. 60° 40); 
this is the eftect of the long-continued direction from S.L. 
to N.W. north of the isthmus of Panama. By the extra- 
ordinarv breadth of the New Continent, in the 30° and 
60“ north lat., the Cordillera of the Andes, continually 
upproaching nearer to the western coast in the southern 
hemisphere” is removed 400 leagues on the north from the 
source of the Eio de la Paz. The Andes of Chile may 
he considered as maritime Alps,"! while, in their most 
northern continuation, the Eocky Mountains arc a chain in 
the interior of a continent. There is, no doubt, brtween 
lutitude 23^ and 60^^, froTU Cape Saint Lucas^ in California, 
to Alaska on the western coast of the Sea of Kams- 
chatka, a real littoral Cordillera ; hut it forms a system ot 
mountains almost entirely distinct from tlie Andes of 
IMexico and Canada. This system, which we shall call the 
Cordillera of California, or of New Albion, is linked between 
lat. 33° and 34“ with the Pimeria alta, and the western 
branch of the Cordilleras of Anahuac ; and between lat. 4t> 
mid 53“, with the Eocky Mountains, by transversal ridges 
* The eastern houndary of the Rocky Mountains lies 
In 38° latitude 107° 20' longitude. 
40» 108° 30' 
03. 124° 40' 
68° 130° 30' 
t Geognostically speaking, a littoral chain is not a range of mountains 
forming of itself the coast ; this name is extended to a chain separated 
from the ooast by a narrow plain. 
Y ^ 
