In <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">Asie Centrale</hi> Humboldt likened the “tripartition” of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020292 https://www.geonames.org/466003">southern Urals</placeName> to the parallelism of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0002454">Andean Cordilleras</placeName>, so named for their cord-like bifurcation in <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000448 https://www.geonames.org/3686110">Columbia</placeName>.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn50" n="50"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Humboldt 1844</bibl>, I, 277–278. Cf. “Paralletisme [sic] des formations” in <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/94v">Humboldt RST I, 94v</ref>.</note> As <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0020378 https://d-nb.info/gnd/142106380">Bernard Debarbieux</persName> observed, Humboldt tended to arrange mountains into meridians and parallels. This brought the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009659 https://www.geonames.org/1488441">Urals</placeName> into a dialogue with the longitudinal ranges of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0001698 https://www.geonames.org/7729890">North</placeName> and <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0010380 https://www.geonames.org/6255150">South America</placeName>, forming a marked right angle with the meridians figured by the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0009367 https://www.geonames.org/1489643">Tian Shan</placeName> and <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000502 https://www.geonames.org/1280792">Kunlun</placeName> on Humboldt’s map of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0015014 https://www.geonames.org/7729893">Central Asia</placeName>.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn51" n="51"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/ZPUIZUYQ">Debarbieux 2012</bibl>, 22–25.</note> The Andean reference also stemmed from wider survey of geological analogies, both in the <ref xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/0">Russo-Siberian journal</ref> and in a global study of the parallelism of mountain formations. Indeed, as Lachlan Fleetwood has shown, the quest to make disparate global mountain environments “commensurate” was characteristic of early nineteenth-century European efforts to map and govern Central Asia’s bewildering upland expanses.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn52" n="52"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/TBSKHBA8">Fleetwood 2018</bibl>, 6, 34; <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/H4B7J2KD">Fleetwood 2022</bibl>.</note> In Humboldt’s case, this project also had clear implications for mineral prospecting.<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn53" n="53"> E.g. Humboldt to <persName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0012872 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118666878">Cancrin</persName>, 3 April 1830, in <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/INI9PQE6">Humboldt/Cancrin 1869</bibl>, 124–126. See also <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/W9N24TFG">Päßler 2017</bibl>.</note> Comparison to gold and platinum deposits of <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005346 https://www.geonames.org/3469034">Brazil</placeName> led Humboldt to tell <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0012872 http://d-nb.info/gnd/118666878">Cancrin</persName> “the Ural is a true El Dorado.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn54" n="54"> Humboldt to Cancrin, <placeName ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0008855 https://www.geonames.org/1498894">Miass</placeName>, 3/15 September 1829, in <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/RQ7INXBQ">Humboldt 2009a</bibl>, 185.</note> The Cordilleras-concept of parallel chains was therefore useful in establishing orographic coherence, especially in the complex and by no means <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">mountainous</hi> geography of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0000374 https://www.geonames.org/1519671">Kyrgyz Steppe</placeName>. <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011946 https://explore.gnd.network/gnd/116951079">Hofmann</persName> and <persName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0011769 http://d-nb.info/gnd/116691174">Helmersen</persName> did themselves concede that “the height of the <placeName xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" ref="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0006673 https://www.geonames.org/1505865/">Ilmeny Chain</placeName> … diminishes greatly in its southern extension,” only to add that this “does not generally matter” in tracing the Urals “into the Kyrghyz Steppe.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn55" n="55"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/GKQENRV5">Hofmann/Helmersen 1831</bibl>, 3; editors’ notes to <ref target="https://edition-humboldt.de/H0005449/95v">Humboldt RST I, 95v</ref>.</note> Humboldt agreed: the Ural’s southern terminus in the Steppe “might be invalid if one was not authorized to regard a single <hi xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" rendition="#i">mountain-system</hi> as sometimes composed of several partial, heterogenous upheavals.”<note xmlns="http://www.tei-c.org/ns/1.0" place="foot" xml:id="ftn56" n="56"> <bibl corresp="https://edition-humboldt.de/DV9UD9GW">Humboldt 1844</bibl>, I, 276.</note>