[footnote] *Bernhard Cotta, 'Geognosie', 1839, s. 273.
This surface of the granite, owing to the great expansion that accompanied its first upheaval."*
[footnote] *Leop. von Buch, 'Ueber Granit and Gneiss', in the 'Abhandl. der Berl. Akad.' for the year 1842, s. 60.
Both in Northern Asia,* on the charming and romantic shores of the Lake of Kolivan, on the northwest declivity of p. 252 the Altai Mountains, and at Las Trincheras, on the slop of the littoral chain of Caraccas,** I have seen granite divided into ledges, owing probably to a similar contraction, although the divisions appeared to penetrate far into the interior.
[footnote] * In the projecting mural masses of granite of Lake Kolivan, divided into narrow parallel beds, there are numerous crystals of feldspar and albite, and a few of titanium (Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', t. i., p. 295, Gustav Rose, 'Reise mach dem Ural', bd. i., s. 524).
[footnote] *Humboldt, 'Relation Historique', t. ii., p. 99
Further to the south of Lake Kolivan, toward the boundaries of the Chinese province Ili (between Buchtarminsk and the River Narym), the formation of the erupted rock, in which there is no gneiss, is more remarkable than I ever observed in any other part of the earth. The granite, which is always covered with scales and characterized by tabular divisions, rises in the steppes, either in small hemispherical eminences, scarcely six or eight feet in height, or like basalt, in mounds, terminating on either side of their bases in narrow streams.*
[footnote] ** See the sketch of Biri-tau, which I took from the south side, where the Kirghis tents stood, and which is given in Rose's 'Reise', bd. i., s. 584. On spheres of granite scaling off concentrically, see my 'Relat. Hist.', t. ii., p. 497, and 'Essai Geogn. sur les Gisement des Roches', p. 78.
At the cataracts of the Orinoco, as well as in the district of the Fichtelgebirge (Seissen), in Galicia, and between the Pacific and the highlands of Mexico (on the Papagallo), I have seen granite in large, flattened spherical masses, which could be divided, like basalt, into concentric layers. In the valley of Irtysch, between Buchtarminsk and Ustkamenogorsk, granite covers transition slate for a space of four miles,* penetrating into it from above in narrow, variously ramified, wedge-like veins.
[footnote] *Humboldt, 'Asie Centrale', t. i., p. 299-311, and the drawings in Rose's 'Reise', bd. i., s. 611, in which we see the curvature in the layers of granite which Leop. von Buch has pointed out as chracteristic.