In Africa, the highest mountains of the Moon, and Monomotapa, the great and the little Atlas, are under the equator, or not far from it.
In Asia, Mount Caucasus, the chain of which extends under different names as far as the mountains of China, is nearer the equator than the poles.
In Europe, the Pyrennees, the Alps, and mountains of Greece, which are only the same chain, are still less distant from the equator than the poles.
Now these mountains which we have enumerated, are all higher, more considerable and extended in length and breadth than the mountains of the northern countries.
With respect to their direction, the Alps form a chain which crosses the whole continent from Spain to China. These mountains begin at the sea coast of Galicia, reach to the Pyrennees, cross France, by Vivares, and Auvergne, pass through Italy and extend into Germany, beyond Dalmatia, as far as Macedonia; from thence they join with the mountains of Armenia, Caucasus, Taurus, Imaus, and extend as far as the Tartarian sea. So likewise Mount Atlas traverses the whole continent of Africa, from west to east, from the kingdom of Fez to the Straits of the Red Sea; and the mountains of the Moon have the same direction.
But in America, the direction is quite contrary, and the chains of the Cordeliers and other mountains extend from south to north more than from east to west.
What we have now said on the great eminences of the earth, may also be observed on the greatest depths of the sea. The vast and highest seas are nearer the equator than the poles; and there results from this observation, that the greatest inequalities of the globe are in the southern climate. These irregularities on the surface of the earth, are the causes of an infinity of extraordinary effects: for example, between the Indus and the Ganges, there is a large peninsula, which is divided through its middle, by a chain of high mountains called the Gate, and which extends from north to south, from the extremities of Mount Caucasus to Cape Comorin; on one is the coast of Malabar, and the other Coromandel; on the side of Malabar, between this chain of mountains and the sea, the summer season lasts from September to April, during which the sky is serene and dry; on the other side the Coromandel the above period is their winter, and it rains every day plentifully and from the month of April to the month of September is their summer, whereas it is winter in Malabar; insomuch, that in many places, which are scarcely 20 miles distant, we may, by crossing the mountains, change seasons. It is said that the same
thing takes place at Razalgat in Arabia, and at Jamaica, which is divided through its middle by a chain of mountains, whose direction is from east to west, and that the plantations to the south of these mountains feel the summer heat, at the time those to the north endure the rigor of winter.
Peru, which is situated under the line, and extends about a thousand leagues to the south, is divided into three long and narrow parts; these the natives call Lanos, Sierras, and Andes. The Lanos, which comprehends the plains, extends along the coast of the South Sea: the Sierras are hills with some vallies, and the Andes are the famous Cordeliers, the highest mountains that are known. The Lanos is about ten leagues in breadth; in many places the Sierras are twenty leagues broad, and the Andes in some places more and in some less. The breadth is from east to west, and the length from north to south. This part of the world is remarkable for the following particulars: first, in the Lanos the wind almost constantly blows from the south-west, which is contrary to what happens in the torrid zone: secondly, it never rains nor thunders in the Lanos, although there is plenty of dew: thirdly, it almost continually
rains in the Andes: fourthly, in the Sierras, between the Lanos and the Andes, it rains from September to April.