Physical Geography, Volume 1 |
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Common terms and phrases
Alps Altaï Amazons animals Archipelago Arctic Arctic Ocean Asia Atlantic basin branches Cape Cape Horn Caribbean Sea centre chain coal coast continent coral Cordillera course covered deep deposits depth desert distance earth earthquake east eastern elevation equator Europe extends feet high flow forests fossil geological geological period glaciers globe granite greater ground Gulf Gulf of Mexico high land Himalaya islands lagoon lakes latitude low lands mass meridian Mexico miles broad miles long mines moun mountain-chains mountains navigable nearly Nile northern ocean Orinoco Pacific parallel peaks peninsula period perpetual plains quantity range reefs regions ridges rise rivers rocks Rocky runs shores Siberia side Silurian Sir James Ross snow soil South America southern species square miles Straits strata streams surface table-land tains temperature Tibet tion tributaries tropical Ural Ural mountains valley Van Diemen's Land vast vegetation volcanic waves western wind
Popular passages
Page 344 - ... to be but little probability of our ships holding together much longer, so frequent and violent were the shocks they sustained. The loud crashing noise of the straining and working of the timbers and decks, as she was driven against some of the heavier pieces, which all the activity and exertions of our people could not prevent, was sufficient to fill the stoutest heart, that was not supported by trust in Him who controls all events...
Page 419 - The style of this astonishing production is so clear and unaffected, and conveys, with so much simplicity, SO great a mass of profound knowledge, that it should be placed in the hands of every youth, the moment he has mastered the general rudiments of education.
Page 184 - Vast, and scarcely comprehensible as such changes must ever appear, yet they have all occurred within a period, recent when compared with the history of the Cordillera; and the Cordillera itself is absolutely modern as compared with many of the fossiliferous strata of Europe and America.
Page 343 - Soon after midnight our ships were involved in an ocean of rolling fragments of ice, hard as floating rocks of granite, which were dashed against them by the waves with so much violence that their masts quivered as if they should fall at every successive blow; and the destruction of the ships seemed inevitable from the tremendous shocks they received.
Page 239 - Even at the small distance of some hundred yards no bottom has been found with a sounding-line a mile and a half long. All the coral at a moderate depth below water is alive, all above is dead, being the detritus of the living part, washed up by the surf, which is so tremendous on the windward side of the tropical islands of the Pacific and Indian Oceans that it is often heard miles off, and is frequently the first warning to seamen of their approach to an atoll.
Page 147 - On the interminable sands and rocks of these deserts no animal — no insect — breaks the dread silence ; not a tree nor a shrub is to be seen in this land without a shadow. In the glare of noon the air quivers with the heat reflected from the red sand,. and in the night it is chilled under a clear sky sparkling with its host of stars.
Page 327 - ... It continues to heave the smooth and glassy surface of the deep, long after the winds and billows are at rest. A swell frequently comes from a quarter in direct opposition to the wind, and sometimes from various points of the compass at the same time, producing a vast commotion in a dead sea without ruffling the surface. They are the heralds that point out to the mariner the distant region where the tempest has howled, and they are not unfrequently the harbingers of its approach...
Page 116 - And Winter oft at eve resumes the breeze, Chills the pale morn, and bids his driving sleets Deform the day delightless...
Page 93 - ... a scene of wild and wonderful beauty. At midnight, when myriads of stars sparkle in the black sky, and the pure blue of the mountains looks deeper still below the pale white gleam of the earth and...
Page 2 - The increase of temperature with the depth below the surface of the earth, and the tremendous desolation hurled over wide regions by numerous fire-breathing mountains, show that man is removed but a few miles from immense lakes or seas of liquid fire. The very shell on which he stands is unstable under his feet, not only from those temporary convulsions that seem to shake the globe to its centre, but from a slow almost imperceptible elevation in some places, and an equally gentle subsidence in others,...