{ _Hercynian_ 17 to 29 3,400
{ _Caucasus_ 33 to 40 17,000
{ _Alps_ 42 to 30 10,000
Of these different chains, the most important is that of the
_Apennines_, about 450 miles long, a length, however, far inferior to
that of many of the great mountain ranges of our globe. They skirt the
western shores of the _Mare Imbrium_, over which they rise in immense
cliffs, 18 or 20 thousand feet in height, steep as a wall and casting
over the plain intensely black shadows at least 90 miles long. Of Mt.
_Huyghens_, the highest in the group, the travellers were just barely
able to distinguish the sharp angular summit in the far west. To the
east, however, the _Carpathians_, extending from the 18th to 30th
degrees of east longitude, lay directly under their eyes and could be
examined in all the peculiarities of their distribution.
Barbican proposed a hypothesis regarding the formation of those
mountains, which his companions thought at least as good as any other.
Looking carefully over the _Carpathians_ and catching occasional
glimpses of semi-circular formations and half domes, he concluded that
the chain must have formerly been a succession of vast craters.
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