upheaved or depressed, fractured or crushed, inclined or contorted; denuded by rain and rivers with the assistance of heat and cold, of frost and ice, in an unceasing series of changes, so that however varied the surface may be, with hill and dale, plains and uplands, mountain ranges and deep intervening valleys, these are as nothing to the diversities of interior structure, as exhibited in the sides of every alpine valley or precipitous escarpment, and made known to us by the work of the miner and the well-borer in every part of the world.
Structural Straight Lines on the Earth.
The great characteristic of the earth, both on its surface and in its interior, is thus seen to be extreme diversity both of form and structure, and this is further intensified by the varied texture, constitution, hardness, and density of the various rocks and debris of which it is composed. It is therefore not surprising that, with such a complex outer crust, we should nowhere find examples of those geometrical forms and almost world-wide straight lines that give such a remarkable, and as Mr. Lowell maintains, 'non-natural' character to the surface of Mars, but which, as it seems to me, of themselves afford prima facie evidence of a corresponding simplicity and uniformity in its internal structure.
Yet we are not ourselves by any means devoid
