move-ments [L. moveo, to move], motions, changes of position. ex-ten-sive [L. ex, out; tendo, to stretch], large, occupying a great deal of space. for-ma-tion [L. forma, shape], production; the act or manner of making. rude [L. rudis, unskilled], rough, rugged.

IN examining the outer crust of the earth, endeavouring to discover signs of movement, and the nature and causes of the movements which take place, suppose that, after traversing the mountains and plains of Europe, you at length set off to look at the most extensive of all mountain ridges, which is that which extends almost from pole to pole along the western coasts of North and South America.

You traverse the pampas, where the land is for the most

part slightly undulated, so that in riding over it the horizon is constantly changing, and the eye is ever on the alert as objects appear or vanish in the distance. After passing San Luiz, you traverse a series of undulations, which give to the country the appearance of a succession of huge ocean rollers pressing forward in parallel lines towards the mountains.

You cannot fail to be struck with the peculiarity of the scene. They are a series of undulations upon a much greater undulation, for the land falls again before reaching the mountain. When yet two hundred miles east of that mountain-range you may catch sight of it, as its snowcovered peaks fling back the rays of the rising sun.

You

pass through the ruins of the city of Mendoza, which but five years ago was destroyed by a comparatively slight movement of the outer crust of the earth. At length you. commence to mount the eastern slope of the huge mountainridge.

You may glance eagerly from mountain to mountainfrom valley to valley-districts of gravel, districts of sand, districts of earth, stratified masses, and unstratified masses. You may glance at all, vainly endeavouring by inductive steps to learn the process of their formation; all appears crude disorder and confusion. As the keen winds rush by, perchance they laugh a derisive laugh, and the vast mountain-ranges--rugged, stern, and inhospitable-frown in silent, majestic disdain.

Here man is scorned. The rude mountains frown and the angry winds rage, as if threatening destruction to all who dare to venture here. But man shall triumph yet; for as you stand upon a narrow ridge which rises like a wall fourteen thousand feet above the sea, and on your right and left snow-covered peaks tower upwards nine or ten thousand feet higher, there, stung by the failure of your efforts, by the paths of induction, you boldly rush upon the dizzy heights which are traversed by the dangerous paths of deduction. With a vigorous effort you fling imagination back through time, and let it place you in an age between which and the present countless ages have intervened.

You then find that not only the mountains but the whole

continent has fallen away from beneath you, and there now lies below you one vast expanse of water. The water is deep, but below there is a hard, stratified ground, beneath which the interior of the earth is in a state of liquid heat, but gradually cooling, and as it cools the hardened surface is compelled to bend in graceful curves in order to suit the decreasing size of the globe. By this bending the water becomes of unequal depths, deepening in parts as it becomes shallow in other parts.

At length, immediately below you a ridge of dry land appears; this, then, is the birth of the South American continent-it continues gradually to rise, throwing off the water to the east and west. There then lies the Pacific, and there the Atlantic ocean. The bending upwards and downwards in the same easy graceful curves continues as long as the surface remains sufficiently pliant; but at length becoming more hard and brittle as the strain still continues, it cracks with a tremendous crash, the rent extending north and south almost from pole to pole.

Up to this moment the surface has yielded gradually_to the power of gravitation, offering great resistance. But once broken, this resistance is gone; and gravitation, acting with unchecked power, crushes and grinds the broken edges together with a force scarcely conceivable by the mind of man. Enormous masses of what had once been horizontal strata are now perpendicular, or even reversed. The smashing and grinding of the broken edges by the overwhelming lateral pressure caused by gravitation, leaves scarcely a trace of the former stratified order, but leaves mass piled on mass in vast confusion, forming this huge mountain range along the course of the crack.

And more than this, the outer crust of the earth had hitherto been in a great measure self-supporting, its weight resting upon itself laterally in all parts, so that the interior parts of the earth were in the same measure relieved from the weight of its inward pressure. That is, inward pressure had been changed to lateral pressure in proportion as the hardening surface of the earth offered increased resistance to the power of gravitation. But when the hardening surface of the earth becoming more brittle had bent upwards

as far as it could without breaking, it at length breaks along the top of the ridge, and in proportion with the loss of lateral support thus caused, the weight of the adjacent parts of the surface press inwards, and the inner parts of the earth being in a state of liquid heat, the increased weight pressing upon the fluid part forces the fluid matter upwards through the fissures in the crack, and thus in some places mountain ranges of unstratified rock are formed as the fluid hardens on the surface; but here the accumulation of broken masses of stratified matter is so enormous that this part of the range seems to consist of nothing else.

The stratified surface to the east of the crack has here overlapped that to the west; so that on the west the Pacific Ocean rolls against the disjointed masses that have been piled up abreast of it, whereas on the east, the elevated strata slopes away gradually to the Atlantic Ocean. That slope is itself undulated by pressure, but those undulations are probably precedent to the occurrence of the crack which led to the piling up of the Andes, most, if not all, subsequent readjustments of the surface having been arranged by movements along the still uniformly placed edges of the crack.

The sudden movements in this neighbourhood even now cause at times a shock or earthquake sufficient to overwhelm cities. In these movements also, either by direct pressure of the surface downwards, or oftener probably by water or other matter being suddenly brought into contact with intense heat, matter from below the stratified surface is, in a state of liquid heat, forced upwards through openings in the crack, thus forming, as the matter hardens on the surface, those high volcanic peaks which are here so numerous. Or in other places the same expansion, not having sufficient force to burst through the surface, simply raises it in the form of an evenly rounded hill.

EXERCISE.-58. MEANINGS OF WORDS.

1. Give the meaning of the following:-traversing, undulated, pampas, horizon, alert, parallel, stratified, derisive, gravitation, overwhelm, induction, deduction, conceivable, enormous, adjacent.

2. Distinguish between :-fissures, fishers; plains, planes; seems, seams. 3. Illustrate the different meanings of:-mount, lies, leaves, traces, rock, mass, press, crack, stern.

THE HOUSE OF HANOVER.

GEORGE IV.; WILLIAM IV.

ad-mit-tance [L. ad, to; mitto, to send], entrance, leave to enter. in-de-pen-dence [L. in, not; de, from; pendeo, to hang], freedom from the control or power of others. op-po-si-tion [L. ob, against; pono, to place], any attempt to check, resistance.

ON the death of George III. the Prince Regent became king, under the title of George IV. He was the eldest of thirteen children, all of whom had been carefully trained, but he grew up a dissolute man, spending his days and nights in all kinds of revelry and dissipation.

Before he became king, the only event that induced seriousness on his part was the loss of his beloved daughter, the Princess Charlotte. She was the pride and favourite of the nation, and amid great rejoicing she had gone forth as the bride of Prince Leopold, afterwards king of the Belgians. But a short year ended her happiness and her life, which proved a severe blow to her father and a source of grief to the people. Leopold, her husband, survived until 1866, full of age and honours, bearing the character of one of the wisest and most prudent of kings, indeed the Nestor of his day.

George IV. had long been separated from his wife, the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, and when the time of his coronation drew near, he heard with consternation that she intended to claim her rank and title, and on the day of the ceremony a great scandal was caused by her being forced from the door of Westminster Abbey to which she had demanded admittance. Her husband had also the meanness to have her tried on a charge of having been guilty of acts that were disgraceful to her as a queen and a woman. Being defended by the now celebrated Lord Brougham and others, she was acquitted, to the great joy of the multitude who had warmly espoused her cause, and threatened the king with grave annoyance if he persisted in his unpopular and unmanly conduct.

The queen did not long enjoy her triumph, for she died of grief shortly after the bill against her was withdrawn from the House of Lords.