Islets of fresh-fallen
snow, varying in form and extent, arrest the last feeble traces of vegetable
development, and to these succeeds the region of perpetual snow, whose
elevation undergoes but little change, and may be easily determined. It is
but rarely that the elastic forces at work within the interior of our globe
have succeeded in breaking through the spiral domes, which, resplendent in
the brightness of eternal snow, crown the summits of the Cordilleras; and
even where these subterranean forces have opened a permanent communication
with the atmosphere, through circular craters or long fissures, they rarely
send forth currents of lava, but merely eject ignited scoriae, steam,
sulphureted hydrogen gas, and jets of carbonic acid.
In the earliest stages of civilization, the grand and imposing spectacle
presented to the minds of the inhabitants of the tropics could only awaken
feelings of astonishment and awe. It might, perhaps, be supposed, as we
have already said, that the periodical return of the same phenomena, and the
uniform manner in which they arrange themselves in successive groups, would
have enabled man more readily to attain to a knowledge of the laws of
nature; but, as far as tradition and history guide us, we do not find that
any application was made of the advantages presented by these favored
regions.
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