Scarcely has the earth cast one glance upon herself ere she not merely compares herself to the Heavens above, but vaunts her own superiority. Geology, the mere infant, hurls a Titanic cry against her elder sister, Astronomy, that haughty and splendid queen of all the sciences. "Our mountains," exclaims Geology, "are not _cast confusedly hither and thither like those stars in the sky_; our mountains form systems in which are found the elements of a general and orderly arrangement of which the celestial constellations present no trace." Such is the bold and impassioned phrase which is uttered by a man as modest as he is illustrious,--M. Elias de Beaumont. Doubtless, we have not yet developed the order, which, yet, we may not doubt is great, which prevails in the seeming confusion of the Milky Way, but the more obvious regularity of the surface of the globe, the result of the revolutions in its unfathomed and unfathomable depths, preserve still, and ever will preserve, for the most ingenious science, many clouds and many mysteries. The forms of that great mountain, upheaved from the mighty mass of waters, which we call the Earth, shows many arrangements which, while they are sufficiently symmetrical, are still not reducible to what would seem a perfect system. The dry and elevated portions show themselves more or less as the waters leave them bare. It is the limiting line of the sea which, in reality, traces out the form of continent and of island; it is by the Sea that we commence all true understanding of Geography. Let us note another fact, which has been discovered only within a few years past. The Earth presents us with some seemingly antagonistic features. The New World, for instance, stretches from north to south, the Old World from east to west; the sea, on the contrary, exhibits a great harmony, an exact correspondence between the two hemispheres. It is in the fluid portion of our world, that portion which we have deemed to be so capricious, that the greatest regularity exists. That which this globe of ours presents of the most rigidly regular, the most symmetrical, is just that which appears to be most utterly free, most entirely the mere sport of unrestricted motion. No doubt, the vertebræ and the bones of that vast creature have peculiarities which we, as yet, are not qualified to comprehend. But its living movements which cause the ocean currents, convert salt water into fresh water, which anon is converted to vapor to return again to the salt water, that admirable mechanism is as perfect and systematic as the sanguineous circulation of the superior animals; as perfect a resemblance as possible to the constant transformation of your own venous and arterial blood. The world would wear quite another aspect, were we to class its regions, not by _chains of mountains_ but by _maritime basins_.