Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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From Botzen However, To The Ridge Of Brenner
(Culminant Point 746 Toises) Is Only 11 Leagues.
The Valais is a
longitudinal valley; and in a barometric measurement which I made very
recently from Paris to
Naples and Berlin, I was surprised to find that
from Sion to Brigg, the bottom of the valley rises only to from 225 to
350 toises of absolute height; nearly the level of the plains of
Switzerland, which, between the Alps and the Jura, are only from 274
to 300 toises.) In this region, which has been carefully measured, the
different basins lower very sensibly from the equator northward. The
elevation of the bottom of enclosed basins merits great attention in
connection with the causes of the formation of the valleys. I do not
deny that the depressions in the plains may be sometimes the effect of
ancient pelagic currents, or slow erosions. I am inclined to believe
that the transversal valleys, resembling crevices, have been widened
by running waters; but these hypotheses of successive erosions cannot
well be applied to the completely enclosed basins of Titicaca and
Mexico. These basins, as well as those of Jauja, Cuenca and Almaguer,
which lose their waters only by a lateral and narrow issue, owe their
origin to a cause more instantaneous, more closely linked with the
upheaving of the whole chain. It may be said that the phenomenon of
the narrow declivities of the Sarenthal and of the valley of Eysack in
the Tyrol, is repeated at every step, and on a grander scale, in the
Cordilleras of equinoctial America.
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