Page:Aspects of nature in different lands and different climates; with scientific elucidations (IA b29329668 0002).pdf/223

 *riety; it presents to us, on the contrary, an agreement in the constituent particles, in the superposition of the different kinds of masses, and in their regular recurrence, which excites the admiration of the geologist. In the chain of the Andes, as in the mountains of middle Europe, one formation appears, as it were, to summon to itself another. Rocks of the same name exhibit the same outlines; basalt and dolerite form twin mountains; dolomite, sandstone, and porphyry, abrupt precipices; and vitreous feldspathic trachyte, high dome-like elevations. In the most distant zones large crystals separate themselves in a similar manner from the compact texture of the primitive mass, as if by an internal development, form groups in association, and appear associated in layers, often announcing the vicinity of new independent formations. Thus in any single system of mountains of considerable extent we see the whole inorganic substances of which the crust of the earth is composed represented, as it were, with more or less distinctness; yet, in order to become completely acquainted with the important phenomena of the composition, the relative age, and mode of origin of rocks, we must compare together observations from the most varied and remote regions. Problems which long perplexed the geologist in his native land in these northern countries, find their solution near the equator. If, as has been already remarked, new zones do not necessarily present to us new kinds of rock (i. e. unknown groupings or associations of simple substances), they, on the other hand, teach us to discern the great and every where equally prevailing laws, according to which the strata of the crust of