GEOLOGICAL EEATUEES OF OUR GLOBE. 
473 
the south, and continued by Java and Sumatra through 
central Asia ; these rise abruptly from the west, where the 
sea attains its greatest depth ; on the western side of 
America it has been found to reach five miles, and on those 
of Africa upwards of three, whilst the North Atlantic is still 
deeper, gradually shoaling to the eastern shores of America. 
The New Zealand mountain range seems to rise abruptly 
from an immense depth, even from their almost perpen- 
dicular bases ; the extended plains on the eastern sides of 
these lines are as remarkable as the absence of them on the 
western ; these Alps, standing out so abruptly from the 
ocean, appear only as the tops of a far higher range now 
partly submerged ; their present height seems to have once 
been entirely clothed with glaciers, since even to the very 
sea level their grooving effects in former times are distinctly 
marked on their precipitous sides, far below the snow line of 
the present day. 
In these grand lines all the gold fields are found. Hum- 
bolt seems, in some respects, to have entertained a similar 
view, stating that, “ Gold is constant in Meridional ranges 
of the Paleozoic and Metamorphic formation.” Wherever 
surface gold is found, it seems to indicate that such parts 
have been exempted from convulsions, or at any rate pre- 
served their primitive conditions, as in parts of Australia, 
America, Africa, and New Zealand. 
It is also in these lines that nearly all the active volcanoes 
are found, and where the chief volcanic disturbances occur. 
There are three active volcanoes in the Aleutian Archipelago, 
adjoining the American coast, and three more commencing 
as far north as Mount St. Elias ; in Mexico there are five ; in 
Guatimala and Nicaragua nineteen, within the short distance 
of five degrees ; in Quito and Popayan eleven ; in the province 
of Las Pastos three ; in Peru four, and in Chili seven ; thus, 
on the western coast line of this continent, the longest in 
the world, there are as many as fifty-five active volcanoes. 
On the eastern American line, which is chiefly confined to 
the Antilles, there are nine, with two on the mainland ; in 
the grand Pacific Ocean, two of these volcanic lines may 
