Saint Elias). Over an extent of 63 degrees of latitude, I know only
twelve summits of the Andes which reach the height of 2600 toises, and
consequently exceed by 140 toises, the height of Mont Blanc. Only
three of these twelve summits are situated north of the isthmus of
Panama.
2. INSULATED GROUP OF THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS OF SANTA MARTA.
In the enumeration of the different systems of mountains, I place this
group before the littoral chain of Venezuela, though the latter, being
a northern prolongation of the Cordillera of Cundinamarca, is
immediately linked with the chain of the Andes. The Sierra Nevado of
Santa Marta is encompassed within two divergent branches of the Andes,
that of Bogota, and that of the isthmus of Panama. It rises abruptly
like a fortified castle, amidst the plains extending from the gulf of
Darien, by the mouth of the Magdalena, to the lake of Maracaybo. The
old geographers erroneously considered this insulated group of
mountains covered with eternal snow, as the extremity of the high
Cordilleras of Chita and Pamplona. The loftiest ridge of the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta is only three or four leagues in length from
east to west; it is bounded (at nine leagues distance from the coast)
by the meridians of the capes of San Diego and San Augustin. The
culminant points, called El Picacho and Horqueta, are near the western
border of the group; they are entirely separated from the peak of San
Lorenzo, also covered with eternal snow, but only four leagues distant
from the port of Santa Marta, towards the south-east. I saw this
latter peak from the heights that surrounded the village of Turbaco,
south of Carthagena. No precise measurement has hitherto given us the
height of the Sierra Nevada, which Dampier affirms to be one of the
highest mountains of the northern hemisphere. Calculations founded on
the maximum of distance at which the group is discerned at sea, give a
height of more than 3004 toises. That the group of the mountains of
Santa Marta is insulated is proved by the hot climate of the lands
(tierras calientes) that surround it. Low ridges and a succession of
hills indicate, perhaps, an ancient connection between the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta on one side, by the Alto de las Minas, with the
phonolitic and granitic rocks of the Penon and Banca, and on the
other, by the Sierra de Perija, with the mountains of Chiliguana and
Ocana, which are the spurs of the eastern chain of the Andes of New
Grenada. In this latter chain, the febrifuge species of cinchona
(corollis hirsutis, staminibus inclusis) are found in the Sierra
Nevada de Merida; but the real cinchona, the most northern of South
America, is found in the temperate region of the Sierra Nevada de
Santa Marta.
3. LITTORAL CHAIN OF VENEZUELA.
This is the system of mountains the configuration and direction of
which have excited so powerful an influence on the cultivation and
commerce of the ancient Capitania General of Venezuela. It bears
different names, as the mountains of Coro, of Caracas, of the
Bergantin, of Barcelona, of Cumana, and of Paria; but all these names
belong to the same chain, of which the northern part runs along the
coast of the Caribbean Sea. This system of mountains, which is 160
leagues long,* is a prolongation of the eastern Cordillera of the
Andes of Cundinamarca. (* It is more than double the length of the
Pyrenees, from Cape Creux to the point of Figuera.) There is an
immediate connection of the littoral chain with the Andes, like that
of the Pyrenees with the mountains of Asturia and Galicia; it is not
the effect of transversal ridges, like the connection of the Pyrenees
with the Swiss Alps, by the Black Mountain and the Cevennes. The
points of junction are between Truxillo and the lake of Valencia.
The eastern chain of New Grenada stretches north-east by the Sierra
Nevada de Merida, as well as by the four Paramos of Timotes, Niquitao,
Bocono and Las Rosas, of which the absolute height cannot be less than
from 1400 to 1600 toises. After the Paramo of Las Rosas, which is more
elevated than the two preceding, there is a great depression, and we
no longer see a distinct chain or ridge, but merely hills, and high
table-lands surrounding the towns of Tocuyo and Barquisimeto. We know
not the height even of Cerro del Altar, between Tocuyo and Caranacatu;
but we know by recent measures that the most inhabited spots are from
300 to 350 toises above sea-level. The limits of the mountainous land
between Tocuyo and the valleys of Aragua are, the plains of San Carlos
on the south, and the Rio Tocuyo on the north; the Rio Siquisique
flows into that river. From the Cerro del Altar on the north-east
towards Guigue and Valencia, succeed, as culminant points, the
mountains of Santa Maria (between Buria and Nirgua); then the Picacho
de Nirgua, supposed to be 600 toises high; and finally Las Palomeras
and El Torito (between Valencia and Nirgua). The line of
water-partition runs from west to east, from Quibor to the lofty
savannahs of London, near Santa Rosa. The waters flow on the north,
towards the Golfo triste of the Caribbean Sea; and on the south,
towards the basins of the Apure and the Orinoco. The whole of this
mountainous country, by which the littoral chain of Caracas is linked
to the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca, was celebrated in Europe in the
middle of the nineteenth century; for that part of the territory
formed of gneiss-granite, and lying between the Rio Tocuyo and the Rio
Yaracui, contains the auriferous veins of Buria, and the copper-mine
of Aroa which is worked at the present day. If, across the knot of the
mountains of Barquisimeto, we trace the meridians of Aroa, Nirgua and
San Carlos, we find that on the north-west that knot is linked with
the Sierra de Coro, and on the north-east with the mountains of
Capadare, Porto Cabello and the Villa de Cura. It may be said to form
the eastern wall of that vast circular depression of which the lake of
Maracaybo is the centre and which is bounded on the south and west by
the mountains of Merida, Ocana, Perija and Santa Marta.
The littoral chain of Venezuela presents towards the centre and the
east the same phenomena of structure as those observed in the Andes of
Peru and New Grenada; namely, the division into several parallel
ranges and the frequency of longitudinal basins or valleys. But the
irruptions of the Caribbean Sea having apparently overwhelmed, at a
very remote period, a part of the mountains of the shore, the ranges
or partial chains are interrupted and some basins have become oceanic
gulfs. To comprehend the Cordillera of Venezuela in mass we must
carefully study the direction and windings of the coast from Punta
Tucacas (west of Porto Cabello) as far as Punta de la Galera of the
island of Trinidad. That island, those of Los Testigos, Marguerita and
Tortuga constitute, with the mica-slates of the peninsula of Araya,
one and the same system of mountains. The granitic rocks which appear
between Buria, Duaca and Aroa cross the valley of the Rio Yaracui and
draw near the shore, whence they extend, like a continuous wall, from
Porto Cabello to Cape Codera. This prolongation forms the northern
chain of the Cordillera of Venezuela and is traversed in going from
south to north, either from Valencia and the valleys of Aragua, to
Burburata and Turiamo, or from Caracas to La Guayra. Hot springs*
issue from those mountains (* The other hot springs of the Cordillera
of the shore are those of San Juan, Provisor, Brigantin, the gulf of
Cariaco, Cumucatar and Irapa. MM. Rivero and Boussingault, who visited
the thermal waters of Mariara in February, 1823, during their journey
from Caracas to Santa Fe de Bogota, found their maximum to be 64
degrees centigrade. I found it at the same season only 59.2 degrees.
Has the great earthquake of the 26th March, 1812, had an influence on
the temperature of these springs? The able chemists above mentioned
were, like myself, struck with the extreme purity of the hot waters
that issue from the primitive rocks of the basin of Aragua. Those of
Onoto, which flow at the height of 360 toises above the level of the
sea, have no smell of sulphuretted hydrogen; they are without taste,
and cannot be precipitated, either by nitrate of silver or any other
re-agent. When evaporated they have an inappreciable residue which
consists of a little silica and a trace of alkali; their temperature
is only 44.5 degrees, and the bubbles of air which are disengaged at
intervals are at Onoto, as well as in the thermal waters of Mariara,
pure nitrogen. The waters of Mariara (244 toises) have a faint smell
of sulphuretted hydrogen; they leave, by evaporation, a slight
residuum, that yields carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, soda, magnesia
and lime. The quantities are so small that the water is altogether
without taste. In the course of my journey I found only the springs of
Cumangillas hotter than the thermal waters of Las Trincheras: they are
situated on the south of Porto Cabello. The waters of Comangillas are
at the height of 1040 toises and are alike remarkable for their purity
and their temperature of 96.3 degrees centigrade.), those of Las
Trincheras (90.4 degrees) on its southern slope and those of Onoto and
Mariara on its southern slope. The former issue from a granite with
large grains, very regularly stratified; the latter from a rock of
gneiss. What especially characterizes the northern chain is a summit
which is not only the loftiest of the system of the mountains of
Venezuela, but of all South America, on the east of the Andes. The
eastern summit of the Silla of Caracas, according to my barometric
measurement made in 1800, is 1350 toises high,* (* The Silla of
Caracas is only 80 toises lower than the Canigou in the Pyrenees.) and
notwithstanding the commotion which took place on the Silla during the
great earthquake of Caracas, that mountain did not sink 50 or 60
toises, as some North American journals asserted. Four or five leagues
south of the northern chain (that of Mariara, La Silla and Cape
Codera) the mountains of Guiripa, Ocumare and Panaquire form the
southern chain of the coast, which stretches in a parallel direction
from Guigue to the mouth of the Rio Tuy, by the Guesta of Yusma and
the Guacimo. The latitudes of the Villa de Cura and San Juan, so
erroneously marked on our maps, enabled me to ascertain the mean
breadth of the whole Cordillera of Venezuela. Ten or twelve leagues
may be reckoned as the distance from the descent of the northern chain
which bounds the Caribbean Sea, to the descent of the southern chain
bounding the immense basin of the Llanos. This latter chain, which
also bears the name of the Inland Mountains, is much lower than the
northern chain; and I can hardly believe that the Sierra de Guayraima
attains the height of 1200 toises.
The two partial chains, that of the interior, and that which runs
along the coast, are linked by a ridge or knot of mountains known by
the names of Altos de las Cocuyzas (845 toises) and the Higuerote (835
toises between Los Teques and La Victoria) in longitude 69 degrees 30
minutes and 69 degrees 50 minutes. On the west of this ridge lies the
enclosed basin* of the lake of Valencia or the Valles de Aragua (*
This basin contains a small system of inland rivers which do not
communicate with the ocean. The southern chain of the litteral
Cordillera of Venezuela is so depressed on the south-west that the Rio
Pao is separated from the tributary streams of the lake of Tacarigua
or Valencia. Towards the east the Rio Tuy, which takes its rise on the
western declivity of the knot of mountains of Las Cocuyzas, appears at
first to empty itself into the valleys of Aragua; but hills of
calcareous tufa, forming a ridge between Consejo and Victoria, force
it to take its course south-east.); and on the east the basin of
Caracas and of the Rio Tuy. The bottom of the first-mentioned basins
is between 220 and 250 toises high; the bottom of the latter is 460
toises above the level of the Caribbean Sea. It follows from these
measures that the most western of the two longitudinal valleys
enclosed by the littoral Cordillera is the deepest; while in the
plains near the Apure and the Orinoco the declivity is from west to
east; but we must not forget that the peculiar disposition of the
bottom of the two basins, which are bounded by two parallel chains, is
a local phenomenon altogether separate from the causes on which the
general structure of the country depends. The eastern basin of the
Cordillera of Venezuela is not shut up like the basin of Valencia. It
is in the knot of the mountains of Las Cocuyzas, and of Higuerote,
that the Serrania de los Teques and Oripoto, stretching eastward, form
two valleys, those of the Rio Guayre and Rio Tuy; the former contains
the town of Caracas and both unite below the Caurimare. The Rio Tuy
runs through the rest of the basin, from west to east, as far as its
mouth which is situated on the north of the mountains of Panaquire.
Cape Codera seems to terminate the northern range of the littoral
mountains of Venezuela but this termination is only apparent. The
coast forms a vast nook, thirty-five sea leagues in length, at the
bottom of which is the mouth of the Rio Unare and the road of Nueva
Barcelona. Stretching first from west to east, in the parallel of 10
degrees 37 minutes, this coast recedes at the parallel 10 degrees 6
minutes, and resumes its original direction (10 degrees 37 minutes to
10 degrees 44 minutes) from the western extremity of the peninsula of
Araya to the eastern extremities of Montana de Paria and the island of
Trinidad. From this dissection of the coast it follows that the range
of mountains bordering the shore of the provinces of Caracas and
Barcelona, between the meridian 66 degrees 32 minutes and 68 degrees
29 minutes (which I saw on the south of the bay of Higuerote and on
the north of the Llanos of Pao and Cachipo), must be considered as the
continuation of the southern chain of Venezuela and as being linked on
the west with the Sierras de Panaquire and Ocumare. It may therefore
be said that between Cape Codera and Cariaco the inland chain itself
forms the coast. This range of very low mountains, often interrupted
from the mouth of the Rio Tuy to that of the Rio Neveri, rises
abruptly on the east of Nueva Barcelona, first in the rocky island of
Chimanas, and then in the Cerro del Bergantin, elevated probably more
than 800 toises, but of which the astronomical position and the
precise height are yet alike unknown. On the meridian of Cumana the
northern chain (that of Cape Codera and the Silla of Caracas) again
appears. The micaceous slate of the peninsula of Araya and Maniquarez
joins by the ridge or knot of mountains of Meapire the southern chain,
that of Panaquire the Bergantin, Turimiquiri, Caripe and Guacharo.
This ridge, not more than 200 toises of absolute height, has, in the
ancient revolutions of our planet, prevented the irruption of the
ocean, and the union of the gulfs of Paria and Cariaco. On the west of
Cape Codera the northern chain, composed of primitive granitic rocks,
presents the loftiest summits of the whole Cordillera of Venezuela;
but the culminant points east of that cape are composed in the
southern chain of secondary calcareous rocks. We have seen above that
the peak of Turimiquiri, at the back of the Cocollar, is 1050 toises,
while the bottoms of the high valleys of the convent of Caripe and of
Guardia de San Augustin are 412 and 533 toises of absolute height. On
the east of the ridge of Meapire the southern chain sinks abruptly
towards the Rio Arco and the Guarapiche; but, on quitting the main
land, we again see it rising on the southern coast of the island of
Trinidad which is but a detached portion of the continent, and of
which the northern side unquestionably presents the vestiges of the
northern chain of Venezuela, that is, of the Montana de Paria (the
Paradise of Christopher Columbus), the peninsula of Araya and the
Silla of Caracas. The observations of latitude I made at the Villa de
Cura (10 degrees 2 minutes 47 seconds), the farm of Cocollar (10
degrees 9 minutes 37 seconds) and the convent of Caripe (10 degrees 10
minutes 14 seconds), compared with the more anciently known position
of the south coast of Trinidad (latitude 10 degrees 6 minutes), prove
that the southern chain, south of the basins of Valencia and of Tuy*
(* The bottom of the first of these four basins bounded by parallel
chains is from 230 to 460 toises above, and that of the two latter
from 30 to 40 toises below the present sea-level. Hot springs gush
from the bottom of the gulf of the basin of Cariaco, as from the
bottom of the basin of Valencia on the continent.) and of the gulfs of
Cariaco and Paria, is still more uniform in the direction from west to
east than the northern chain from Porto Cabello to Punta Galera. It is
highly important to know the southern limit of the littoral Cordillera
of Venezuela because it determines the parallel at which the Llanos or
the savannahs of Caracas, Barcelona and Cumana begin. On some
well-known maps we find erroneously marked between the meridians of
Caracas and Cumana two Cordilleras stretching from north to south, as
far as latitude 8 3/4 degrees, under the names of Cerros de Alta
Gracia and del Bergantin, thus describing as mountainous a territory
of 25 leagues broad, where we should seek in vain a hillock of a few
feet in height.
Turning to the island of Marguerita, composed, like the peninsula of
Araya, of micaceous slate, and anciently linked with that peninsula by
the Morro de Chacopata and the islands of Coche and Cubagua, we seem
to recognize in the two mountainous groups of Macanao and La Vega de
San Juan traces of a third coast-chain of the Cordillera of Venezuela.
Do these two groups of Marguerita, of which the most westerly is above
600 toises high, belong to a submarine chain stretching by the isle of
Tortuga, towards the Sierra de Santa Lucia de Coro, on the parallel of
11 degrees? Must we admit that in latitude 11 1/4 and 12 1/2 degrees a
fourth chain, the most northerly of all, formerly stretched out in the
direction of the island of Hermanos, by Blanquilla, Los Roques,
Orchila, Aves, Buen Ayre, Curacao and Oruba, towards Cape Chichivacoa?
These important problems can only be solved when the chain of islands
parallel with the coast has been properly examined. It must not be
forgotten that a great irruption of the ocean appears to have taken
place between Trinidad and Grenada,* and that no where else in the
long series of the Lesser Antilles are two neighbouring islands so far
removed from each other. (* It is affirmed that the island of Trinidad
is traversed in the northern part by a chain of primitive slate, and
that Grenada furnishes basalt. It would be important to examine of
what rock the island of Tobago is composed; it appeared to me of
dazzling whiteness; and on what point, in going from Trinidad
northward, the trachytic and trappean system of the Lesser Antilles
begins.) We observe the effect of the rotatory current in the
direction of the coast of Trinidad, as in the coasts of the provinces
of Cumana and Caracas, between Cape Paria and Punta Araya and between
Cape Codera and Porto Cabello. If a part of the continent has been
overwhelmed by the ocean on the north of the peninsula of Araya it is
probable that the enormous shoal which surrounds Cubagua, Coche the
island of Marguerita, Los Frailes, La Sola and the Testigos marks the
extent and outline of the submerged land. This shoal or placer, which
is of the extent of 200 square leagues, is well known only to the
tribe of the Guayqueries; it is frequented by these Indians on account
of its abundant fishery in calm weather. The Gran Placer is believed
to be separated only by some canals or deep furrows of the bank of
Grenada from the sand-bank that extends like a narrow dyke from Tobago
to Grenada, and which is known by the lowering of the temperature of
the water and from the sand-banks of Los Roques and Aves. The
Guayquerie Indians and, generally speaking, all the inhabitants of the
coast of Cumana and Barcelona, are imbued with an idea that the water
of the shoals of Marguerita and the Testigos diminishes from year to
year; they believe that, in the lapse of ages, the Morro do Chacopata
on the peninsula of Araya will be joined by a neck of land to the
islands of Lobos and Coche. The partial retreat of the waters on the
coast of Cumana is undeniable and the bottom of the sea has been
upheaved at various times by earthquakes; but these local phenomena,
which it is so difficult to account for by the action of volcanic
force, the changes in the direction of currents, and the consequent
swelling of the waters, are very different from the effects manifested
at once over the space of several hundred square leagues.
4. GROUP OF THE MOUNTAINS OF PARIME.
It is essential to mineralogical geography to designate by one name
all the mountains that form one system. To attain this end, a
denomination belonging to a partial group only may be extended over
the whole chain; or a name may be employed which, by reason of its
novelty, is not likely to give rise to homogenic mistakes.
Mountaineers designate every group by a special denomination; and a
chain is generally considered as forming a whole only when it is seen
from afar bounding the horizon of the plains. We find the name of
snowy mountains (Himalaya, Imaus) repeated in every zone, white
(Alpes, Alb), black and blue. The greater part of the Sierra Parime
is, as it were, edged round by the Orinoco. I have, however, avoided a
denomination having reference to this circumstance, because the group
of mountains to which I am about to direct attention extends far
beyond the banks of the Orinoco. It stretches south-east, towards the
banks of the Rio Negro and the Rio Branco, to the parallel of 1 1/2
degrees north latitude. The geographical name of Parime has the
advantage of reviving recollections of the fable of El Dorado, and the
lofty mountains which, in the sixteenth century, were supposed to
surround the lake Rupunuwini, or the Laguna de Parime. The
missionaries of the Orinoco still give the name of Parime to the whole
of the vast mountainous country comprehended between the sources of
the Erevato, the Orinoco, the Caroni, the Rio Parime* (a tributary of
the Rio Branco) and the Rupunuri or Rupunuwini, a tributary of the Rio
Essequibo. (* The Rio Parime, after receiving the waters of the
Uraricuera, joins the Tacutu, and forms, near the fort of San
Joacquim, the Rio Branco, one of the tributary streams of the Rio
Negro.) This country is one of the least known parts of South America
and is covered with thick forests and savannahs; it is inhabited by
independent Indians and is intersected by rivers of dangerous
navigation, owing to the frequency of shoals and cataracts.
The system of the mountains of Parime separates the plains of the
Lower Orinoco from those of the Rio Negro and the Amazon; it occupies
a territory of trapezoidal form, comprehended between the parallels of
3 and 8 degrees, and the meridians of 61 and 70 1/2 degrees. I here
indicate only the elements of the loftiest group, for we shall soon
see that towards south-east the mountainous country, in lowering,
draws near the equator, as well as to French and Portuguese Guiana.
The Sierra Parime extends most in the direction north 85 degrees west
and the partial chains into which it separates on the westward
generally follow the same direction. It is less a Cordillera or a
continuous chain in the sense given to those denominations when
applied to the Andes and Caucasus than an irregular grouping of
mountains separated the one from the other by plains and savannahs. I
visited the northern, western and southern parts of the Sierra Parime,
which is remarkable by its position and its extent of more than 25,000
square leagues. From the confluence of the Apure, as far as the delta
of the Orinoco, it is uniformly three or four leagues removed from the
right bank of the great river; only some rocks of gneiss-granite,
amphibolic slate and greenstone advance as far as the bed of the
Orinoco and create the rapids of Torno and of La Boca del Infierno.*
(* To this series of advanced rocks also belong those which pierce the
soil between the Rio Aquire and the Rio Barima; the granitic and
amphibolic rocks of the Vieja Guayana and of the town of Angostura;
the Cerro de Mono on the south-east of Muitaco or Real Corono; the
Cerro of Taramuto near the Alta Gracia, etc.) I shall name
successively, from north-north-east to south-south-west, the different
chains seen by M. Bonpland and myself as we approached the equator and
the river Amazon. First. The most northern chain of the whole system
of the mountains of Parime appeared to us to be that which stretches
(latitude 7 degrees 50 minutes) from the Rio Arui, in the meridian of
the rapids of Camiseta, at the back of the town of Angostura, towards
the great cataracts of the Rio Carony and the sources of the Imataca.
In the missions of the Catalonian Capuchins this chain, which is not
300 toises high, separates the tributary streams of the Orinoco and
those of the Rio Cuyuni, between the town of Upata, Cupapui and Santa
Marta. Westward of the meridian of the rapids of Camiseta (longitude
67 degrees 10 minutes) the high mountains in the basin of the Rio
Caura only commence at 7 degrees 20 minutes of latitude, on the south
of the mission of San Luis Guaraguaraico, where they occasion the
rapids of Mura. This chain stretches westward by the sources of the
Rio Cuchivero, the Cerros del Mato, the Cerbatana and Maniapure, as
far as Tepupano, a group of strangely-formed granitic rocks
surrounding the Encaramada. The culminant points of this chain
(latitude 7 degrees 10 minutes to 7 degrees 28 minutes) are, according
to the information I gathered from the Indians, situated near the
sources of Cano de la Tortuga. In the chain of the Encaramada there
are some traces of gold. This chain is also celebrated in the
mythology of the Tamanacs; for the painted rocks it contains are
associated with ancient local traditions. The Orinoco changes its
direction at the confluence of the Apure, breaking a part of the chain
of the Encaramada. The latter mountains and scattered rocks in the
plain of the Capuchino and on the north of Cabruta may be considered
either as the vestiges of a destroyed spur or (on the hypothesis of
the igneous origin of granite) as partial eruptions and upheavings. I
shall not here discuss the question whether the most northerly chain,
that of Angostura and of the great fall of Carony, be a continuation
of the chain of Encaramada. Third. In navigating the Orinoco from
north to south we observe, alternately, on the east, small plains and
chains of mountains of which we cannot distinguish the profiles, that
is, the sections perpendicular to their longitudinal axes. From the
mission of the Encaramada to the mouth of the Rio Qama I counted seven
recurrences of this alternation of savannahs and high mountains.
First, on the south of the isle Cucuruparu rises the chain of
Chaviripe (latitude 7 degrees 10 minutes); it stretches, inclining
towards the south (latitude 6 degrees 20 minutes to 6 degrees 40
minutes), by the Cerros del Corozal, the Amoco, and the Murcielago, as
far as the Erevato, a tributary of the Caura. It there forms the
rapids of Paru and is linked with the summits of Matacuna. Fourth. The
chain of Chaviripe is succeeded by that of the Baraguan (latitude 6
degrees 50 minutes to 7 degrees 5 minutes), celebrated for the strait
of the Orinoco, to which it gives its name. The Saraguaca, or mountain
of Uruana, composed of detached blocks of granite, may be regarded as
a northern spur of the chain of the Baraguan, stretching south-west
towards Siamacu and the mountains (latitude 5 degrees 50 minutes) that
separate the sources of the Erevato and the Caura from those of the
Ventuari. Fifth. The chain of Carichana and of Paruaci (latitude 6
degrees 25 minutes), wild in aspect, but surrounded by charming
meadows. Piles of granite crowned with trees and insulated rocks of
prismatic form (the Mogote of Cocuyza and the Marimaruta or Castillito
of the Jesuits) belong to this chain. Sixth. On the western bank of
the Orinoco, which is low and flat, the Peak of Uniana rises abruptly
more than 3000 feet high. The spurs (latitude 5 degrees 35 minutes to
5 degrees 40 minutes) which this peak sends eastward are crossed by
the Orinoco in the first Great Cataract (that of Mapura or the
Atures); further on they unite together and, rising in a chain,
stretch towards the sources of the Cataniapo, the rapids of Ventuari,
situated on the north of the confluence of the Asisi (latitude 5
degrees 10 minutes) and the Cerro Cunevo. Seventh. Five leagues south
of the Atures is the chain of Quittuna, or of Maypures (latitude 15
degrees 13 minutes), which forms the bar of the Second Great Cataract.
None of those lofty summits are situated on the west of the Orinoco;
on the east of that river rises the Cunavami, the truncated peak of
Calitamini and the Jujamari, to which Father Gili attributes an
extraordinary height. Eighth. The last chain of the south-west part of
the Sierra Parime is separated by woody plains from the chain of
Maypures; it is the chain of the Cerros de Sipapo (latitude 4 degrees
50 minutes); an enormous wall behind which the powerful chief of the
Guaypunabi Indians intrenched himself during the expedition of Solano.
The chain of Sipapo may be considered as the beginning of the range of
lofty mountains which bound, at the distance of some leagues, the
right bank of the Orinoco, where that river runs from south-east to
north-west, between the mouth of the Ventuari, the Jao and the Padamo
(latitude 3 degrees 15 minutes). In ascending the Orinoco, above the
cataract of Maypures, we find, long before we reach the point where it
turns, near San Fernando del Atabapo, the mountains disappearing from
the bed of the river, and from the mouth of the Zama there are only
insulated rocks in the plains. The chain of Sipapo forms the
south-west limit of the system of mountains of Parime, between 70 1/2
and 68 degrees of longitude. Modern geologists have observed that the
culminant points of a group are less frequently found at its centre
than towards one of its extremities, preceding, and announcing in some
sort, a great depression* of the chain. (* As seen in Mont Blanc and
Chimborazo.) This phenomenon is again observed in the group of the
Parime, the loftiest summits of which, the Duida and the Maraguaca,
are in the most southerly range of mountains, where the plains of the
Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro begin.
These plains or savannahs which are covered with forests only in the
vicinity of the rivers do not, however, exhibit the same uniform
continuity as the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, of the Meta and of
Buenos Ayres. They are interrupted by groups of hills (Cerros de
Daribapa) and by insulated rocks of grotesque form which pierce the
soil and from a distance fix the attention of the traveller. These
granitic and often stratified masses resemble the ruins of pillars or
edifices. The same force which upheaved the whole group of the Sierra
Parime has acted here and there in the plains as far as beyond the
equator. The existence of these steeps and sporadic hills renders it
difficult to determine the precise limits of a system in which the
mountains are not longitudinally ranged as in a vein. As we advance
towards the frontier of the Portuguese province of the Rio Negro the
high rocks become more rare and we no longer find the shelves or dykes
of gneiss-granite which cause rapids and cataracts in the rivers.
Such is the surface of the soil between 68 1/2 and 70 1/2 degrees of
longitude, between the meridian of the bifurcation of the Orinoco and
that of San Fernando de Atabapo; further on, westward of the Upper Rio
Negro, towards the source of that river, and its tributary streams the
Xie and the Uaupes (latitude 1 to 2 1/4 degrees, longitude 72 to 74
degrees) lies a small mountainous tableland, in which Indian
traditions place a Laguna de oro, that is, a lake surrounded with beds
of auriferous earth.* (* According to the journals of Acunha and Fritz
the Manao Indians (Manoas) obtained from the banks of the Yquiari
(Iguiare or Iguare) gold of which they made thin plates. The
manuscript notes of Don Apollinario also mention the gold of the Rio
Uaupes. La Condamine, Voyage a l'Amazone. We must not confound the
Laguna de Oro, which is said to be found in going up the Uaupes (north
latitude 0 degrees 40 minutes) with another gold lake (south latitude
1 degree 10 minutes) which La Condamine calls Marahi or Morachi
(water), and which is merely a tract often inundated between the
sources of the Jurubech (Urubaxi) and the Rio Marahi, a tributary
stream of the Caqueta.) At Maroa, the most westerly mission of the Rio
Negro, the Indians assured me that that river as well as the Inirida
(a tributary of the Guavare) rises at the distance of five days'
march, in a country bristled with hills and rocks. The natives of San
Marcellino speak of a Sierra Tunuhy, nearly thirty leagues west of
their village, between the Xie and the Icanna. La Condamine learned
also from the Indians of the Amazon that the Quiquiari comes from a
country of mountains and mines. Now, the Iquiari is placed by the
French astronomer between the equator and the mouth of the Xie (Ijie),
which identifies it with the Iguiare that falls into the Icanna. We
cannot advance in the geologic knowledge of America without having
continually recourse to the researches of comparative geography. The
small system of mountains, which we may provisionally call that of the
sources of the Rio Negro and the Uaupes, and the culminant points of
which are not probably more than 100 or 120 toises high, appears to
extend southward to the basin of Rio Yupura, where rocky ridges form
the cataracts of the Rio de los Enganos and the Salto Grande de Yupura
(south latitude 0 degrees 40 minutes to north latitude 0 degrees 28
minutes), and the basin of the Upper Guaviare towards the west. We
find in the course of this river, from 60 to 70 leagues west of San
Fernando del Atabapo, two walls of rocks bounding the strait (nearly 3
degrees 10 minutes north latitude and 73 3/4 degrees longitude) where
father Maiella terminated his excursion. That missionary told me that,
in going up the Guaviare, he perceived near the strait (angostura) a
chain of mountains bounding the horizon on the south. It is not known
whether those mountains traverse the Guaviare more to the west, and
join the spurs which advance from the eastern Cordillera of New
Grenada, between the Rio Umadea and the Rio Ariari, in the direction
of the savannahs of San Juan de los Llanos. I doubt the existence of
this junction. If it really existed, the plains of the Lower Orinoco
would communicate with those of the Amazon only by a very narrow
land-strait, on the east of the mountainous country which surrounds
the source of the Rio Negro: but it is more probable that this
mountainous country (a small system of mountains, geognostically
dependent on the Sierra Parime) forms as it were an island in the
Llanos of Guaviare and Yupura. Father Pugnet, Principal of the
Franciscan convent at Popayan, assured me, that when he went from the
missions settled on the Rio Caguan to Aramo, a village situated on the
Rio Guayavero, he found only treeless savannahs, extending as far as
the eye could reach. The chain of mountains placed by several modern
geographers, between the Meta and the Vichada, and which appears to
link the Andes of New Grenada with the Sierra Parime, is altogether
imaginary.
We have now examined the prolongation of the Sierra Parime on the
west, towards the source of the Rio Negro: it remains for us to follow
the same group in its eastern direction. The mountains of the Upper
Orinoco, eastward of the Raudal of the Guaharibos (north latitude 1
degree 15 minutes longitude 67 degrees 38 minutes), join the chain of
Pacaraina, which divides the waters of the Carony and the Rio Branco,
and of which the micaceous schist, resplendent with silvery lustre,
figures so conspicuously in Raleigh's El Dorado. The part of that
chain containing the sources of the Orinoco has not yet been explored;
but its prolongation more to the east, between the meridian of the
military post of Guirior and the Rupunuri, a tributary of the
Essequibo, is known to me through the travels of the Spaniards Antonio
Santos and Nicolas Rodriguez, and also by the geodesic labours of two
Portuguese, Pontes and Almeida. Two portages but little frequented*
are situated between the Rio Branco and the Rio Essequibo, south of
the chain of Pacaraina; they shorten the land-road leading from the
Villa del Rio Negro to Dutch Guiana. (* The portages of Sarauru and
the lake Amucu.) On the contrary, the portage between the basin of the
Rio Branco and that of the Carony crosses the summit of the chain of
Pacaraina. On the northern slope of this chain rises the Anocapra, a
tributary of the Paraguamusi or Paravamusi; and on the southern slope,
the Araicuque, which, with the Uraricapara, forms the famous Valley of
Inundations, above the destroyed mission of Santa Rosa (latitude 3
degrees 46 minutes, longitude 65 degrees 10 minutes). The principal
Cordillera, which appears of little breadth, stretches on a length of
80 leagues, from the portage of Anocapra (longitude 65 degrees 35
minutes) to the left bank of the Rupunuri (longitude 61 degrees 50
minutes), following the parallels of 4 degrees 4 minutes and 4 degrees
12 minutes. We there distinguish from west to east the mountains of
Pacaraina, Tipique, Tauyana, among which rises the Rio Parime (a
tributary of the Uraricuera), Tubachi, Christaux (latitude 3 degrees
56 minutes, longitude 62 degrees 52 minutes) and Canopiri. The Spanish
traveller, Rodriguez, marks the eastern part of the chain by the name
of Quimiropaca; but preferring to adopt general names, I continue to
give the name of Pacaraina to the whole of this Cordillera which links
the mountains of the Orinoco to the interior of Dutch and French
Guiana, and which Raleigh and Keymis made known in Europe at the end
of the 16th century. This chain is broken by the Rupunuri and the
Essequibo, so that one of their tributary streams, the Tavaricuru,
takes its rise on the southern declivity, and the other, the Sibarona,
on the northern. On approaching the Essequibo, the mountains are more
developed towards the south-east, and extend beyond 2 1/2 degrees
north latitude. From this eastern branch of the chain of Pacaraina the
Rio Rupunuri rises near the Cerro Uassari. On the right bank of the
Rio Branco, in a still more southern latitude (between 1 and 2 degrees
north) is a mountainous territory in which the Caritamini, the
Padaviri, the Cababuri (Cavaburis) and the Pacimoni take their source,
from east to west. This western branch of the mountains of Pacaraina
separates the basin of Rio Branco from that of the Upper Orinoco, the
sources of which are probably not found east of the meridian of 66 15
minutes: it is linked with the mountains of Unturan and Yumariquin,
situated south-east of the mission of Esmeralda. Thence it results
that, while on the west of the Cassiquiare, between that river, the
Atabapo, and the Rio Negro, we find only vast plains, in which rise
some little hills and insulated rocks; real spurs stretch eastward of
the Cassiquiare, from north-west to south-east, and form a continued
mountainous territory as far as 2 degrees north latitude. The basin
only, or rather the transversal valley of the Rio Branco, forms a kind
of gulf, a succession of plains and savannahs (campos) several of
which penetrate from south to north, into the mountainous land between
the eastern and western branches of the chain of Pacaraina, to the
distance of eight leagues north of the parallel of San Joaquin.
We have just examined the southern part of the vast system of the
mountains of Parime, between 2 and 4 degrees of latitude, and between
the meridians of the sources of the Orinoco and the Essequibo. The
development of this system of mountains northward between the chain of
Pacaraina and Rio Cuyuni, and between the meridians 66 and 61 3/4
degrees, is still less known. The only road frequented by white men is
that of the river Paragua, which receives the Paraguamusi, near the
Guirior. We find indeed, in the journal of Nicolas Rodriguez, that he
was constantly obliged to have his canoe carried by men (arrastrando)
past the cataracts which intercept the navigation; but we must not
forget a circumstance of which my own experience furnished me with
frequent proofs--that the cataracts in this part of South America are
often caused only by ridges of rocks which do not form mountains.
Rodriguez names but two between Barceloneta and the mission of San
Jose; while the missionaries place more to the east, in 6 degrees
latitude, between the Rio Caroni and the Cuyuni, the Serranias of
Usupama and Rinocote. The latter crosses the Mazaruni, and forms
thirty-nine cataracts in the Essequibo, from the military post of
Arinda (latitude 5 degrees 30 minutes) to the mouth of Rupunuri.
With respect to the continuation of the system of the mountains of
Parime, south-east of the meridian of the Essequibo, the materials are
entirely wanting for tracing it with precision. The whole interior of
Dutch, French and Portuguese Guiana is a terra incognita; and the
astronomical geography of those countries has scarcely made any
progress during the space of thirty years. If the American limits
recently fixed between France and Portugal should one day cease to be
mere diplomatic illusions and acquire reality in being traced on the
territory by means of astronomical observations (as was projected in
1817), this undertaking would lead geographical engineers to that
unknown region which, at 3 1/2 degrees west of Cayenne, divides the
waters between the coast of Guiana and the Amazon. Till that period,
which the political state of Brazil seems to retard, the geognostic
table of the group of Parime can only be completed by scattered
notions collected in the Portuguese and Dutch colonies. In going from
the Uassari mountains (latitude 2 degrees 25 minutes, longitude 61
degrees 50 minutes) which form a part of the eastern branch of the
Cordillera of Pacaraina, we find towards the east a chain of
mountains, called by the missionaries Acaray and Tumucuraque. Those
two names are found on our maps between 1/2 and 3 degrees north
latitude. Raleigh first made known, in 1596, the system of the
mountains of Parime, between the sources of the Rio Carony and the
Essequibo, by the name of Wacarima (Pacarima), and the Jesuits Acunha
and Artedia furnished, in 1639, the first precise notions of that part
of this system which extends from the meridian of Essequibo to that of
Oyapoc. There they place the mountains of Yguaracuru and Paraguaxo,
the former of which gives birth to a gold river (Rio de oro), a
tributary of the Curupatuba;* (* When we know that in Tamanac gold is
called caricuri; in Carib, caricura: in Peruvian, cori (curi), we
easily recognize in the names of the mountains and rivers
(Yguara-curu, Cura-patuba) which we have just marked, the indication
of auriferous soil. Such is the analogy of the imported roots in the
American tongues, which otherwise differ altogether from each other,
that 300 leagues west of the mountain Ygaracuru, on the banks of the
Caqueta, Pedro de Ursua heard of the province of Caricuri, rich in
gold washings. The Curupatuba falls into the Amazon near the Villa of
Monte Alegre, north-east of the mouth of the Rio Topayos.); and
according to the assertion of the natives, subterraneous noises are
sometimes heard from the latter. The ridge of this chain of mountains,
which runs in a direction south 85 degrees east from the peak of Duida
near the Esmeralda (latitude 3 degrees 19 minutes), to the rapids of
the Rio Manaye near Cape Nord (latitude 1 degree 50 minutes), divides,
in the parallel of 2 degrees, the northern sources of the Essequibo,
the Maroni and the Oyapoc, from the southern sources of the Rio
Trombetas, Curupatuba and Paru. The most southern spurs of this chain
approach nearer to the Amazon, at the distance of fifteen leagues.
These are the first heights which we perceived after having left
Xeberos and the mouth of the Huallaga. They are constantly seen in
navigating from the mouth of the Rio Topayo towards that of Paru, from
the town of Santarem to Almeirim. The peak Tripoupou is nearly in the
meridian of the former of those towns and is celebrated among the
Indians of Upper Maroni. It is said that farther eastward, at Melgaco,
the Serras do Velho and do Paru are still distinguished in the
horizon. The real boundaries of this series of sources of the Rio
Trombetas are better known southward than northward, where a
mountainous country appears to advance in Dutch and French Guiana, as
far as within twenty to twenty-five leagues of the coast. The numerous
cataracts of the rivers of Surinam, Maroni and Oyapoc, prove the
extent and the prolongation of rocky ridges; but in those regions
nothing indicates the existence of continued plains or table-lands
some hundred toises high, fitted for the cultivation of the plants of
the temperate zone.
The system of the mountains of Parime surpasses in extent nineteen
times that of the whole of Switzerland. Even considering the
mountainous group of the sources of the Rio Negro and the Xie as
independent or insulated amidst the plains, we still find the Sierra
Parime (between Maypures and the sources of the Oyapoc) to be 340
leagues in length; its greatest breadth (the rocks of Imataca, near
the delta of the Orinoco, at the sources of the Rio Paru) is 140
leagues. In the group of the Parime, as well as in the group of the
mountains of central Asia, between the Himalaya and the Altai, the
partial chains are often interrupted and have no uniform parallelism.
Towards the south-west, however (between the strait of Baraguan, the
mouth of the Rio Zama and the Esmeralda), the line of the mountains is
generally in the direction of north 70 degrees west. Such is also the
position of a distant coast, that of Portuguese, French, Dutch and
English Guiana, from Cape North to the mouth of the Orinoco; such is
the mean direction of the course of the Rio Negro and Yupura. It is
desirable to fix our attention on the angles formed by the partial
chains, in different regions of America, with the meridians; because
on less extended surfaces, for instance in Germany, we find also this
singular co-existence of groups of neighbouring mountains following
laws of direction altogether different, though every separate group
exhibits the greatest uniformity in the line of chains.
The soil on which the mountains of Parime rise, is slightly convex. By
barometric measures I found that, between 3 and 4 degrees north
latitude, the plains are elevated from 160 to 180 toises above
sea-level. This height will appear considerable if we reflect that at
the foot of the Andes of Peru, at Tomependa, 900 leagues from the
coast of the Atlantic Ocean, the Llanos or plains of the Amazon rise
only to the height of 194 toises. The distinctive characteristics of
the group of the mountains of Parime are the rocks of granite and
gneiss-granite, the total absence of calcareous secondary formations,
and the shelves of bare rock (the tsy of the Chinese deserts), which
occupy immense spaces in the savannahs.
5. GROUP OF THE BRAZIL MOUNTAINS.
This group has hitherto been marked on the maps in a very erroneous
way. The temperate table-lands and real chains of 300 to 500 toises
high have been confounded with countries of exceedingly hot
temperature, and of which the undulating surface presents only ranges
of hills variously grouped. But the observations of scientific
travellers have recently thrown great light on the orography of
Portuguese America. The mountainous region of Brazil, of which the
mean height rises at least to 400 toises, is comprehended within very
narrow limits, nearly between 18 and 28 degrees south latitude; it
does not appear to extend, between the provinces of Goyaz and
Matogrosso, beyond longitude 53 degrees west of the meridian of Paris.
When we regard in one view the eastern configuration of North and
South America, we perceive that the coast of Brazil and Guiana, from
Cape Saint Roque to the mouth of the Orinoco (stretching from
south-east to north-west), corresponds with that of Labrador, as the
coast from Cape Saint Roque to the Rio de la Plata corresponds with
that of the United States (stretching from south-west to north-east).
The chain of the Alleghenies is opposite to the latter coast, as the
principal Cordilleras of Brazil are nearly parallel to the shore of
the provinces of Porto Seguro, Rio Janeiro and Rio Grande. The
Alleghenies, generally composed of grauwacke and transition rocks, are
somewhat loftier than the almost primitive mountains (of granite,
gneiss and mica-slate) of the Brazilian group; they are also of a far
more simple structure, their chains lying nearer to each other and
preserving, as in the Jura, a more uniform parallelism.
If, instead of comparing those parts of the new continent situated
north and south of the equator, we confine ourselves to South America,
we find on the western and northern coasts in their whole length, a
continued chain near the shore (the Andes and the Cordillera of
Venezuela), while the eastern coast presents masses of more or less
lofty mountains only between the 12 and 30 degrees south latitude. In
this space, 360 leagues in length, the system of the Brazil mountains
corresponds geologically in form and position with the Andes of Chile
and Peru. Its most considerable portion lies between the parallels 15
and 22 degrees, opposite the Andes of Potosi and La Paz, but its mean
height is five toises less, and cannot even be compared with that of
the mountains of Parime, Jura and Auvergne. The principal direction of
the Brazilian chains, where they attain the height of from four to
five hundred toises, is from south to north, and from south-south-west
to north-north-east; but, between 13 and 19 degrees the chains are
considerably enlarged, and at the same time lowered towards the west.
Ridges and ranges of hills seem to advance beyond the land-straits
which separate the sources of the Rio Araguay, Parana, Topayos,
Paraguay, Guapore and Aguapehy, in 63 degrees longitude. As the
western widening of the Brazilian group, or rather the undulations of
the soil in the Campos Parecis, correspond with the spurs of Santa
Cruz de la Sierra, and Beni, which the Andes send out eastward, it was
formerly concluded that the system of the mountains of Brazil was
linked with that of the Andes of Upper Peru. I myself laboured under
this error in my first geologic studies.
A coast chain (Serra do Mar) runs nearly parallel with the coast,
north-east of Rio Janeiro, lowering considerably towards Rio Doce, and
losing itself almost entirely near Bahia (latitude 12 degrees 58
minutes). According to M. Eschwege* some small ridges reach Cape Saint
Roque (latitude 5 degrees 12 minutes). (* Geognostiches Gemulde von
Brasilien, 1822. The limestone of Bahia abounds in fossil wood.)
South-east of Rio Janeiro the Serra do Mar follows the coast behind
the island of Saint Catherine as far as Torres (latitude 29 degrees 20
minutes); it there turns westward and forms an elbow stretching by the
Campos of Vacaria towards the banks of the Jacuy.
Another chain is situated westward of the shore-chain of Brazil. This
is the most lofty and considerable of all and is called the chain of
Villarica. Mr. Eschwege distinguishes it by the name of Serra do
Espinhaco and considers it as the principal part of the whole
structure of the mountains of Brazil. This Cordillera loses itself
northward,* between Minas Novas and the southern extremity of the
Capitania of Bahia, in 16 degrees latitude. (* The rocky ridges that
form the cataract of Paulo Affonso, in the Rio San Francisco, are
supposed to belong to the northern prolongation of the Serra do
Espinhaco, as a series of heights in the province of Seara (fetid
calcareous rocks containing a quantity of petrified fish) belong to
the Serra dos Vertentes.) It is there more than 60 leagues removed
from the coast of Porto Seguro; but southward, between the parallels
of Rio Janeiro and Saint Paul (latitude 22 to 23 degrees), in the knot
of the mountains of Serra da Mantiquiera, it draws so near to the
Cordillera of the shore (Serra do Mar), that they are almost
confounded together. In the same manner the Serra do Espinhaco follows
constantly the direction of a meridian, towards the north; while
towards the south it runs south-east, and terminates about 25 degrees
latitude. The chain reaches its highest elevation between 18 and 21
degrees; and there the spurs and table-lands at its back are of
sufficient extent to furnish lands for cultivation where, at
successive heights, there are temperate climates comparable to the
delicious climates of Xalapa, Guaduas, Caracas and Caripe. This
advantage, which depends at once on the widening of the mass of the
chain and of its spurs, is nowhere found in the same degree east of
the Andes, not even in chains of more considerable absolute height, as
those of Venezuela and the Orinoco. The culminant points of the Serra
do Espinhaco, in the Capitania of Minas Geraes, are the Itambe (932
toises), the Serra da Piedade, near Sabara (910 toises), the
Itacolumi, properly Itacunumi (900 toises), the Pico of Itabira (816
toises), the Serras of Caraca, Ibitipoca and Papagayo. Saint Hilaire
felt piercing cold in the month of November (therefore in summer) in
the whole Cordillera of Lapa, from the Villa do Principe to the Morro
de Gaspar Suares.
We have just noticed two chains of mountains nearly parallel but of
which the most extensive (the littoral chain) is the least lofty. The
capital of Brazil is situated at the point where the two chains draw
nearest together and are linked together on the east of the Serra de
Mantiqueira, if not by a transversal ridge, at least by a mountainous
territory. Old systematic ideas respecting the rising of mountains in
proportion as we advance into a country, would have warranted the
belief that there existed, in the Capitania of Mato Grosso, a central
Cordillera much loftier than that of Villarica or do Espinhaco; but we
now know (and this is confirmed by climateric circumstances) that
there exists no continued chain, properly speaking, westward of Rio
San Francisco, on the frontiers of Minas Geraes and Goyaz. We find
only a group of mountains, of which the culminant points are the
Serras da Canastra (south-west of Paracatu) and da Marcella (latitude
18 1/2 and 19.10 degrees), and, further north, the Pyrenees stretching
from east to west (latitude 16 degrees 10 minutes) between Villaboa
and Mejaponte). M. Eschwege has named the group of mountains of Goyaz
the Serra dos Vertentes, because it divides the waters between the
southern tributary streams of the Rio Grande or Parana, and the
northern tributary streams of Rio Tucantines. It runs southward beyond
the Rio Grande (Parana), and approaches the chain of Espinpapo in 23
degrees latitude, by the Serra do Franca. It attains only the height
of 300 or 400 toises, with the exception of some summits north-west of
Paracatu, and is consequently much lower than the chain of Villarica.
Further on, west of the meridian of Villaboa, there are only ridges
and a series of low hills which, on a length of 12 degrees, form the
division of water (latitude 13 to 17 degrees) between the Araguay and
the Paranaiba (a tributary of the Parana), between the Rio Topayos and
the Paraguay, between the Guapore and the Aguapehy. The Serra of San
Marta (longitude 15 1/2 degrees) is somewhat lofty, but maps have
vastly exaggerated the height of the Serras or Campos Parecis north of
the towns of Cuyaba and Villabella (latitude 13 to 14 degrees,
longitude 58 to 62 degrees). These Campos, which take their name from
that of a tribe of wild Indians, are vast, barren table-lands,
entirely destitute of vegetation; and in them the sources of the
tributary streams of three great rivers, the Topayos, the Madeira and
the Paraguay, take their rise.
According to the measures and geologic observations of M. Eschwege,
the high summits of the Serra do Mar (the coast-chain) scarcely attain
660 toises; those of the Serra do Espinhaco (chain of Villarica), 950
toises; those of Serra de los Vertentes (group of Canastra and the
Brazilian Pyrenees), 450 toises. Further west the surface of the soil
seems to present but slight undulations; but no measure of height has
been made beyond the meridian of Villaboa. Considering the system of
the mountains of Brazil in their real limits, we find, except some
conglomerates, the same absence of secondary formations as in the
system of the mountains of the Orinoco (group of Parime). These
secondary formations, which rise to considerable heights in the
Cordillera of Venezuela and Cumana, belong only to the low regions of
Brazil.
B. PLAINS (LLANOS) OR BASINS.
In that part of South America situated on the east of the Andes we
have successively examined three systems of mountains, those of the
shore of Venezuela, of the Parime and Brazil: we have seen that this
mountainous region, which equals the Cordillera of the Andes, not in
mass, but in area and horizontal section of surface, is three times
less elevated, much less rich in precious metals adhering to the rock,
destitute of recent traces of volcanic fire and, with the exception of
the coast of Venezuela, little exposed to the violence of earthquakes.
The average height of the three systems diminishes from north to
south, from 750 to 400 toises; those of the culminant points (maxima
of the height of each group) from 1350 to 1000 or 900 toises. Hence it
results that the loftiest chain, with the exception of the small
insulated system of the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta, is the
Cordillera of the shore of Venezuela, which is itself but a
continuation of the Andes. Directing our attention northward, we find
in Central America (latitude 12 to 30 degrees) and North America
(latitude 30 to 70 degrees), on the east of the Andes of Guatimala,
Mexico and Upper Louisiana, the same regular lowering which struck us
towards the south. In this vast extent of land, from the Cordillera of
Venezuela to the polar circle, eastern America presents two distinct
systems, the group of the mountains of the West Indies (which in its
eastern part is volcanic) and the chain of the Alleghenies. The former
of these systems, partly covered by the ocean, may be compared, with
respect to its relative position and form, to the Sierra Parime; the
latter, to the Brazil chains, running also from south-west to
north-east. The culminant points of those two systems rise to 1138 and
1040 toises. Such are the elements of this curve, of which the convex
summit is in the littoral chain of Venezuela:
AMERICA, EAST OF THE ANDES.
COLUMN 1 : SYSTEMS OF MOUNTAINS.
COLUMN 2 : MAXIMA OF HEIGHTS IN TOISES.
Brazil Group : Itacolumi 900 (south latitude 20 1/2 degrees).
Parime Group : Duida 1300 (north latitude 3 1/4 degrees).
Littoral Chain of Venezuela : Silla of Caracas 1350 (north latitude 10
1/2 degrees).
Group of the West Indies : Blue Mountains 1138 (north latitude 18 1/5
degrees).
Chain of the Alleghenies : Mount Washington 1040 (north latitude 44
1/4 degrees).
I have preferred indicating in this table the culminant points of each
system to the mean height of the line of elevation; the culminant
points are the results of direct measures, while the mean height is an
abstract idea somewhat vague, particularly when there is only one
group of mountains, as in Brazil, Parime and the West Indies, and not
a continued chain. Although it cannot be doubted that, among the five
systems of mountains on the east of the Andes, of which one only
belongs to the southern hemisphere, the littoral chain of Venezuela is
the most elevated (having a culminant point of 1350 toises, and a mean
height from the line of elevation of 750), we yet recognise with
surprise that the mountains of eastern America (whether continental or
insular) differ very inconsiderably in their height above the level of
the sea. The five groups are all nearly of an average height of from
500 to 700 toises; and the culminant points (maxima of the lines of
elevation) from 1000 to 1300 toises. That uniformity of structure, in
an extent twice as great as Europe, appears to me a very remarkable
phenomenon. No summit east of the Andes of Peru, Mexico and Upper
Louisiana rises beyond the limit of perpetual snow.* (* Not even the
White Mountains of the state of New Hampshire, to which Mount
Washington belongs. Long before the accurate measurement of Captain
Partridge I had proved (in 1804), by the laws of the decrement of
heat, that no summit of the White Mountains could attain the height
assigned to them by Mr. Cutler, of 1600 toises.) It may be added that,
with the exception of the Alleghenies, no snow falls sporadically in
any of the eastern systems which we have just examined. From these
considerations it results, and above all, from the comparison of the
New Continent with those parts of the old world which we know best,
with Europe and Asia, that America, thrown into the aquatic
hemisphere* of our planet, is still more remarkable for the continuity
and extent of the depressions of its surface, than for the height and
continuity of its longitudinal ridge. Beyond and within the isthmus of
Panama, but eastward of the Cordillera of the Andes, the mountains
scarcely attain, over an extent of 600,000 square leagues, the height
of the Scandinavian Alps, the Carpathians, the Monts-Dores (in
Auvergne) and the Jura. (* The southern hemisphere, owing to the
unequal distribution of seas and continents, has long been marked as
eminently aquatic; but the same inequality is found when we consider
the globe as divided not according to the equator but by meridians.
The great masses of land are stinted between the meridian of 10
degrees west, and 150 degrees east of Paris, while the hemisphere
eminently aquatic begins westward of the meridian of the coast of
Greenland, and ends on the east of the meridian of the eastern coast
of New Holland and the Kurile Isles. This unequal distribution of land
and water has the greatest influence on the distribution of heat over
the surface of the globe, on the inflexions of the isothermal lines,
and the climateric phenomena in general. For the inhabitants of the
central parts of Europe the aquatic hemisphere may be called western,
and the land hemisphere eastern; because in going to the west we reach
the former sooner than the latter. It is the division according to the
meridians, which is intended in the text. Till the end of the 15th
century the western hemisphere was as much unknown to the nations of
the eastern hemisphere, as one half of the lunar globe is to us at
present, and will probably always remain.) One system only, that of
the Andes, comprises in America, over a long and narrow zone of 3000
leagues, all the summits exceeding 1400 toises high. In Europe, on the
contrary, even considering the Alps and the Pyrenees as one sole line
of elevation, we still find summits far from this line or principal
ridge, in the Sierra Nevada of Grenada, Sicily, Greece, the Apennines,
perhaps also in Portugal, from 1500 to 1800 toises high.* (* Culminant
points; Malhacen of Grenada, 1826 toises; Etna, according to Captain
William Henry Smith, 1700 toises; Monte Corno of the Apennines, 1489
toises. If Mount Tomoros in Greece and the Serra Gaviarra of Portugal
enter, as is alleged, into the limit of perpetual snow, those summits,
according to their position in latitude, should attain from 1400 to
1600 toises. Yet on the loftiest mountains of Greece, Tomoros, Olympus
in Thessaly, Polyanos in Dolope and Mount Parnassus, M. Pouqueville
saw, in the month of August, snow lying only in patches, and in
cavities sheltered from the rays of the sun.) The contrast between
America and Europe, with respect to distribution of the culminant
points, which attain from 1300 to 1500 toises, is the more striking,
as the low eastern mountains of South America, of which the maximum of
elevation is only from 1300 to 1400 toises, are situated beside a
Cordillera of which the mean height exceeds 1800 toises, while the
secondary system of the mountains of Europe rises to maxima of
elevation of 1500 to 1800 toises, near a principal chain of at least
1200 toises of average height.
MAXIMA OF THE LINE OF ELEVATION IN THE SAME PARALLELS.
Andes of Chile, Upper Peru. Knots of the mountains of Porco and Cuzco,
2500 toises. : Group of the Brazil Mountains; a little lower than the
Cevennes 900 to 1000 toises.
Andes of Popayan and Cundinamarca. Chain of Guacas, Quindiu, and
Antioquia. More than 2800 toises. : Group of Parime Mountains; little
lower than the Carpathians; 1300 toises.
Insulated group of the Snowy Mountains of Santa Marta. It is believed
to be 3000 toises high. : Littoral Chain of Venezuela; 80 toises lower
than the Scandinavian Alps; 1350 toises.
Volcanic Andes of Guatimala, and primitive Andes of Oaxaca, from 1700
to 1800 toises. : Group of the West Indies, 170 toises higher than the
mountains of Auvergne, 1140 toises.
Andes of New Mexico and Upper Louisiana (Rocky Mountains) and further
west. The Maritime Alps of New Albion, 1600 to 1900 toises. : Chain of
the Alleghenies; 160 toises higher than the chains of Jura and the
Gates of Malabar; 1040 toises.
This table contains the whole system of mountains of the New
Continent; namely: the Andes, the maritime Alps of California or New
Albion and the five groups of the east.
I may subjoin to the facts I have just stated an observation equally
striking; in Europe the maxima of secondary systems, which exceed 1500
toises, are found solely on the south of the Alps and Pyrenees, that
is, on the south of the principal continental ridge. They are situated
on the side where that ridge approaches nearest the shore, and where
the Mediterranean has not overwhelmed the land. On the north of the
Alps and Pyrenees, on the contrary, the most elevated secondary
systems, the Carpathian and the Scandinavian mountains* do not attain
the height of 1300 toises. (* The Lomnitzer Spitz of the Carpathians
is, according to M. Wahlenberg, 1245 toises; Sneehattan, in the chain
of Dovrefjeld in Norway (the highest summit of the old continent,
north of the parallel of 55 degrees), is 1270.) The depression of the
line of elevation of the second order is consequently found in Europe
as well as in America, where the principal ridge is farthest removed
from the shore. If we did not fear to subject great phenomena to too
small a scale, we might compare the difference of the height of the
Alps and the mountains of eastern America, with the difference of
height observable between the Alps or the Pyrenees, and the Monts
Dores, the Jura, the Vosges or the Black Forest.
We have just seen that the causes which upheaved the oxidated crust of
the globe in ridges, or in groups of mountains, have not acted very
powerfully in the vast extent of country stretching from the eastern
part of the Andes towards the Old World; that depression and that
continuity of plains are geologic facts, the more remarkable, as they
extend nowhere else in other latitudes. The five mountain systems of
eastern America, of which we have stated the limits, divide that part
of the continent into an equal number of basins of which only that of
the Caribbean Sea remains submerged. From north to south, from the
polar circle to the Straits of Magellan, we see in succession:
1. THE BASIN OF THE MISSISSIPPI AND OF CANADA.
An able geologist, Mr. Edwin James, has recently shown that this basin
is comprehended between the Andes of New Mexico, or Upper Louisiana,
and the chains of the Alleghenies which stretch northward in crossing
the rapids of Quebec. It being quite as open northward as southward,
it may be designated by the collective name of the basin of the
Mississippi, the Missouri, the river St. Lawrence, the great lakes of
Canada, the Mackenzie river, the Saskatchewan and the coast of
Hudson's Bay. The tributary streams of the lakes and those of the
Mississippi are not separated by a chain of mountains running from
east to west, as traced on several maps; the line of partition of the
waters is marked by a slight ridge, a rising of two counter-slopes in
the plain. There is no chain between the sources of the Missouri and
the Assineboine, which is a branch of the Red River and of Hudson's
Bay. The surface of these plains, almost all savannah, between the
polar sea and the gulf of Mexico, is more than 270,000 square sea
leagues, nearly equal to the area of the whole of Europe. On the north
of the parallel of 42 degrees the general slope of the land runs
eastward; on the south of that parallel it inclines southward. To form
a precise idea how little abrupt are these slopes we must recollect
that the level of Lake Superior is 100 toises; that of Lake Erie, 88
toises, and that of Lake Ontario, 36 toises above the level of the
sea. The plains around Cincinnati (latitude 39 degrees 6 minutes) are
scarcely, according to Mr. Drake, 80 toises of absolute height.
Towards the west, between the Ozark mountains and the foot of the
Andes of Upper Louisiana (Rocky Mountains, latitude 35 to 38 degrees),
the basin of the Mississippi is considerably elevated in the vast
desert described by Mr. Nuttal. It presents a series of small
table-lands, gradually rising one above another, and of which the most
westerly (that nearest the Rocky Mountains, between the Arkansas and
the Padouca), is more than 450 toises high. Major Long measured a base
to determine the position and height of James Peak. In the great basin
of the Mississippi the line that separates the forests and the
savannahs runs, not, as may be supposed, in the manner of a parallel,
but like the Atlantic coast, and the Allegheny mountains themselves,
from north-east to south-west, from Pittsburg towards Saint Louis, and
the Red River of Nachitoches, so that the northern part only of the
state of Illinois is covered with gramina. This line of demarcation is
not only interesting for the geography of plants, but exerts, as we
have said above, great influence in retarding culture and population
north-west of the Lower Mississippi. In the United States the prairie
countries are more slowly colonized; and even the tribes of
independent Indians are forced by the rigour of the climate to pass
the winter on the banks of rivers, where poplars and willows are
found. The basins of the Mississippi, of the lakes of Canada and the
St. Lawrence, are the largest in America; and though the total
population does not rise at present beyond three millions, it may be
considered as that in which, between latitude 29 and 45 degrees
(longitude 74 to 94 degrees), civilization has made the greatest
progress. It may even be said that in the other basins (of the
Orinoco, the Amazon and Buenos Ayres) agricultural life scarcely
exists; it begins, on a small number of points only, to supersede
pastoral life, and that of fishing and hunting nations. The plains
between the Alleghenies and the Andes of Upper Louisiana are of such
vast extent that, like the Pampas of Choco and Buenos Ayres, bamboos
(Ludolfia miega) and palm-trees grow at one extremity, while the
other, during a great part of the year, is covered with ice and snow.
2. THE BASIN OF THE GULF OF MEXICO, AND OF THE CARIBBEAN SEA.
This is a continuation of the basin of the Mississippi, Louisiana and
Hudson's Bay. It may be said that all the low lands on the coast of
Venezuela situated north of the littoral chain and of the Sierra
Nevada de Merida belong to the submerged part of this basin. If I
treat here separately of the basin of the Caribbean Sea, it is to
avoid confounding what, in the present state of the globe, is partly
above and partly below the ocean. The recent coincidence of the
periods of earthquakes observed at Caracas and on the banks of the
Mississippi, the Arkansas and the Ohio, justifies the geologic
theories which regard as one basin the plains bounded on the south, by
the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela; on the east, by the Alleghenies
and the series of the volcanoes of the West Indies; and on the west,
by the Rocky Mountains (Mexican Andes) and by the series of the
volcanoes of Guatimala. The basin of the West Indies forms, as we have
already observed, a Mediterranean with several issues, the influence
of which on the political destinies of the New Continent depends at
once on its central position and the great fertility of its islands.
The outlets of the basin, of which the four largest* are 75 miles
broad, are all on the eastern side, open towards Europe, and agitated
by the current of the tropics. (* Between Tobago and Grenada; Saint
Martin and the Virgin Isles; Porto Rico and Saint Domingo; and between
the Little Bank of Bahama and Cape Canaveral of Florida.) In the same
manner as we recognize, in our Mediterranean, the vestiges of three
ancient basins by the proximity of Rhodes, Scarpanto, Candia, and
Cerigo, as well as by that of Cape Sorello of Sicily, the island of
Pantelaria and Cape Bon, in Africa; so the basin of the West India
Islands, which exceeds the Mediterranean in extent, seems to present
the remains of ancient dykes which join* Cape Catoche of Yucatan to
Cape San Atonio of the island of Cuba (* I do not pretend that this
hypothesis of the rupture and the ancient continuity of lands can be
extended to the eastern foot of the basin of the West Indies, that is,
to the series of the volcanic islands in a line from Trinidad to Porto
Rico.); and that island to Cape Tiburon of St. Domingo; Jamaica, the
Bank of La Vibora and the rock of Serranilla to Cape Gracias a Dios on
the Mosquito Shore. From this situation of the most prominent islands
and capes of the continent, there results a division into three
partial basins. The most northerly has long been distinguished by a
particular denomination, that of the Gulf of Mexico; the intermediary
or central basin may be called the Sea of Honduras, on account of the
gulf of that name which makes a part of it; and the southern basin,
comprehended between the Caribbean Islands and the coast of Venezuela,
the isthmus of Panama, and the country of the Mosquito Indians, would
form the Caribbean Sea. The modern volcanic rocks distributed on the
two opposite banks of the basin of the West Indies on the east and
west, but not on the north and south, is also a phenomenon worthy of
attention. In the Caribbean Islands, a group of volcanoes, partly
extinct and partly burning, stretches from 12 to 18 degrees; and in
the Cordilleras of Guatimala and Mexico from latitude 9 to 19 1/2
degrees. I noticed on the north-west extremity of the basin of the
West Indies that the secondary formations dip towards south-east;
along the coast of Venezuela rocks of gneiss and primitive mica-slate
dip to north-west. The basalts, amygdaloids, and trachytes, which are
often surmounted by tertiary limestones, appear only towards the
eastern and western banks.
3. THE BASIN OF THE LOWER ORINOCO, OR THE PLAINS OF VENEZUELA.
This basin, like the plains of Lombardy, is open to the east. Its
limits are the littoral chain of Venezuela on the north, the eastern
Cordillera of New Grenada on the west, and the Sierra Parime on the
south; but as the latter group extends on the west only to the
meridian of the cataracts of Maypures (longitude 70 degrees 37
minutes), there remains an opening or land-strait, running from north
to south, by which the Llanos of Venezuela communicate with the basin
of the Amazon and the Rio Negro. We must distinguish between the basin
of the Lower Orinoco, properly so called (north of that river and the
Rio Apure), and the plains of Meta and Guaviare. The latter occupy the
space between the mountains of Parime and New Grenada. The two parts
of this basin have an opposite direction; but being alike covered with
gramina, they are usually comprehended in the country under the same
denomination. Those Llanos extend, in the form of an arch, from the
mouth of the Orinoco, by San Fernando de Apure, to the confluence of
the Rio Caguan with the Jupura, consequently along a length of more
than 360 leagues.
(3a.) PART OF THE BASIN OF VENEZUELA RUNNING FROM EAST TO WEST.
The general slope is eastward, and the mean height from 40 to 50
toises. The western bank of that great sea of verdure (mar de yerbas)
is formed by a group of mountains, several of which equal or exceed in
height the Peak of Teneriffe and Mont Blanc. Of this number are the
Paramos del Almorzadero, Cacota, Laura, Porquera, Mucuchies, Timotes,
and Las Rosas. The height of the northern and southern banks is
generally less than 500 or 600 toises. It is somewhat extraordinary
that the maximum of the depression of the basin is not in its centre,
but on its southern limit, at the Sierra Parime. It is only between
the meridians of Cape Codera and Cumana, where a great part of the
littoral Cordillera of Venezuela has been destroyed, that the waters
of the Llanos (the Rio Unare and the Rio Neveri) reach the northern
coast. The partition ridge of this basin is formed by small
table-lands, known by the names of Mesas de Amana, Guanipa and Jonoro.
In the eastern part, between the meridians 63 and 66 degrees, the
plains or savannahs run southward beyond the bed of the Orinoco and
the Imataca, and form (as they approach the Cujuni and the Essequibo)
a kind of gulf along the Sierra Pacaraina.
(3b.) PART OF THE BASIN OF VENEZUELA RUNNING FROM SOUTH TO NORTH.
The great breadth of this zone of savannahs (from 100 to 120 leagues)
renders the denomination of land-strait somewhat improper, at least if
it be not geognostically applied to every communication of basins
bounded by high Cordilleras. Perhaps this denomination more properly
belongs to that part in which is situated the group of almost unknown
mountains that surround the sources of the Rio Negro. In the basin
comprehended between the eastern declivity of the Andes of New Grenada
and the western part of the Sierra Parime, the savannahs, as we have
observed above, stretch far beyond the equator; but their extent does
not determine the southern limits of the basin here under
consideration. These limits are marked by a ridge which divides the
waters between the Orinoco and the Rio Negro, a tributary stream of
the Amazon. The rising of a counter-slope almost imperceptible to the
eye, forms a ridge that seems to join the eastern Cordillera of the
Andes to the group of the Parime. This ridge runs from Ceja (latitude
1 degree 45 minutes), or the eastern slope of the Andes of Timana,
between the sources of the Guayavero and the Rio Caguan, towards the
isthmus that separates the Tuamini from Pimichin. In the Llanos,
consequently, it follows the parallels of 20 degrees 30 minutes and 2
degrees 45 minutes. It is remarkable that we find the divortia aquarum
further westward on the back of the Andes, in the knot of mountains
containing the sources of the Magdalena, at a height of 900 toises
above the level of the Llanos, between the Caribbean Sea and the
Pacific ocean, and almost in the same latitude (1 degree 45 minutes to
2 degrees 20 minutes). From the isthmus of Javita towards the east,
the line of the partition of waters is formed by the mountains of the
Parime group; it first rises a little on the north-east towards the
sources of the Orinoco (latitude 3 degrees 45 minutes ?) and the chain
of Pacaraina (latitude 4 degrees 4 minutes to 4 degrees 12 minutes);
then, during a course of 80 leagues, between the portage of the
Anocapra and the banks of the Rupunuri, it runs very regularly from
west to east; and finally, beyond the meridian 61 degrees 50 minutes,
it again deviates towards lower latitudes, passing between the
northern sources of the Rio Suriname, the Maroni, the Oyapoc and the
southern sources of Rio Trombetas, Curupatuba, and Paru (latitude 2
degrees to 1 degree 50 minutes). These facts suffice to prove that
this first line of partition of the waters of South America (that of
the northern hemisphere) traverses the whole continent between the
parallels of 2 and 4 degrees. The Cassiquiare alone has cut its way
across the ridge just described. The hydraulic system of the Orinoco
displays the singular phenomenon of a bifurcation where the limit of
two basins (those of the Orinoco and the Rio Negro) crosses the bed of
the principal recipient. In that part of the basin of the Orinoco
which runs in the direction of from south to north, as well as in that
running from west to east, the maxima of depression are found at the
foot of the Sierra Parime, we may even say, on its outline.
4. THE BASIN OF THE RIO NEGRO AND THE AMAZON.
This is the central and largest basin of South America. It is exposed
to frequent equatorial rains, and the hot and humid climate develops a
force of vegetation to which nothing in the two continents can be
compared. The central basin, bounded on the north by the Parime group,
and on the south by the mountains of Brazil, is entirely covered by
thick forests, while the two basins at the extremities of the
continent (the Llanos of Venezuela and the Lower Orinoco, and the
Pampas of Buenos Ayres or the Rio de la Plata) are savannahs or
prairies, plains without trees and covered with gramina. This
symmetric distribution of savannahs bounded by impenetrable forests,
must be connected with physical revolutions which have operated
simultaneously over great surfaces.
(4a.) PART OF THE BASIN OF THE AMAZON, RUNNING FROM EAST TO WEST,
BETWEEN 2 DEGREES NORTH AND 12 DEGREES SOUTH; 880 LEAGUES IN LENGTH.
The western shore of this basin is formed by the chain of the Andes,
from the knot of the mountains of Huanuco to the sources of the
Magdalena. It is enlarged by the spurs of the Rio Beni,* (* The real
name of this great river, respecting the course of which geographers
have been so long divided, is Uchaparu, probably water (para) of Ucha;
Peni also signifies river or water; for the language of the Maypures
has very many analogies with that of the Moxos; and veni (oueni)
signifies water in Maypure, as una in Moxo. Perhaps the river retained
the name of Maypure, after the Indians who spoke that language had
emigrated northward in the direction of the banks of the Orinoco.)
rich in gem-salt, and composed of several ranges of hills (latitude 8
degrees 11 minutes south) which advance into the plains on the eastern
bank of the Paro. These hills are transformed on our maps into Upper
Cordilleras and Andes of Cuchao. Towards the north the basin of the
Amazon, of which the area (244,000 square leagues) is only one-sixth
less than the area of all Europe, rises in a gentle slope towards the
Sierra Parime. At 68 degrees of west longitude the elevated part of
this Sierra terminates at 3 1/2 degrees north latitude. The group of
little mountains surrounding the source of the Rio Negro, the Inirida
and the Xie (latitude 2 degrees) the scattered rocks between the
Atabapo and the Cassiquiare, appear like groups of islands and rocks
in the middle of the plain. Some of those rocks are covered with signs
or symbolical sculpture. Nations, very different from those who now
inhabit the banks of the Cassiquiare, penetrated into the savannahs;
and the zone of painted rocks, extending more than 150 leagues in
breadth, bears traces of ancient civilization. On the east of the
sporadic groups of rocks (between the meridian of the bifurcation of
the Orinoco and that of the confluence of the Essequibo with the
Rupunuri) the lofty mountains of the Parime commence only in 3 degrees
north latitude; where the plains of the Amazon terminate.
The limits of the plains of the Amazon are still less known towards
the south than towards the north. The mountains that exceed 400 toises
of absolute height do not appear to extend in Brazil northward of the
parallels 14 or 15 degrees of south latitude, and west of the meridian
of 52 degrees; but it is not known how far the mountainous country
extends, if we may call by that name a territory bristled with hills
of one hundred or two hundred toises high. Between the Rio dos
Vertentes and the Rio de Tres Barras (tributary streams of the Araguay
and the Topayos) several ridges of the Monts Parecis run northward. On
the right bank of the Topayos a series of little hills advance as far
as the parallel of 5 degrees south latitude, to the fall (cachoeira)
of Maracana; while further west, in the Rio Madeira, the course of
which is nearly parallel with that of the Topayos, the rapids and
cataracts indicate no rocky ridges beyond the parallel of 8 degrees.
The principal depression of the basin of which we have just examined
the outline, is not near one of its banks, as in the basin of the
Lower Orinoco, but at the centre, where the great recipient of the
Amazon forms a longitudinal furrow inclining from west to east, under
an angle of at least 25 degrees. The barometric measurements which I
made at Javita on the banks of the Tuamini, at Vasivia on the banks of
the Cassiquiare and at the cataract of Rentema, in the Upper Maranon,
seem to prove that the rising of the Llanos of the Amazon northward
(at the foot of the Sierra Parime) is 150 toises, and westward (at the
foot of the Cordillera of the Andes of Loxa), 190 toises above the
sea-level.
(4b.) PART OF THE BASIN OF THE AMAZON STRETCHING FROM SOUTH TO NORTH.
This is the zone or land-strait by which, between 12 and 20 degrees of
south latitude, the plains of the Amazon communicate with the Pampas
of Buenos Ayres. The western bank of this zone is formed by the Andes,
between the knot of Porco and Potosi, and that of Huanuco and Pasco.
Part of the spurs of the Rio Beni, which is but a widening of the
Cordilleras of Apolobamba and Cuzco and the whole promontory of
Cochabamba, advance eastward into the plains of the Amazon. The
prolongation of this promontory has given rise to the idea that the
Andes are linked with a series of hills which the Serras dos Parecis,
the Serra Melgueira, and the supposed Cordillera of San Fernando,
throw out towards the west. This almost unknown part of the frontiers
of Brazil and Upper Peru merits the attention of travellers. It is
understood that the ancient mission of San Jose de Chiquitos (nearly
latitude 17 degrees, longitude 67 degrees 10 minutes, supposing Santa
Cruz de la Sierra, in latitude 17 degrees 25 minutes, longitude 66
degrees 47 minutes) is situated in the plains, and that the mountains
of the spur of Cochabamba terminate between the Guapaix (Rio de
Mizque) and the Parapiti, which lower down takes the names of Rio San
Miguel and Rio Sara. The savannahs of the province of Chiquitos
communicate on the north with those of Moxos, and on the south with
those of Chaco; but a ridge or line of partition of the waters is
formed by the intersection of two gently sloping plains. This ridge
takes its origin on the north of La Plata (Chuquisaca) between the
sources of the Guapaix and the Cachimayo, and it ascends from the
parallel of 20 degrees to that of 15 1/2 degrees south latitude,
consequently on the north-east, towards the isthmus of Villabella.
From this point, one of the most important of the whole hydrography of
America, we may follow the line of the partition of the water to the
Cordillera of the shore (Serra do Mar). It is seen winding (latitude
17 to 20 degrees) between the northern sources of the Araguay, the
Maranhao or Tocantines, the Rio San Francisco and the southern sources
of the Parana. This second line of partition which enters the group of
the Brazil mountains on the frontier of Capitania of Goyaz separates
the flowings of the basin of the Amazon from those of the Rio de la
Plata, and corresponds, south of the equator, with the line we have
indicated in the northern hemisphere (latitude 2 to 4 degrees), on the
limits of the basins of the Amazon and the Lower Orinoco.
If the plains of the Amazon (taking that denomination in the
geognostic sense we have given it) are in general distinguished from
the Llanos of Venezuela and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, by the extent
and thickness of their forests, we are the more struck by the
continuity of the savannahs in that part running from south to north.
It would seem as though this sea of verdure stretched forth an arm
from the basin of Buenos Ayres, by the Llanos of Tucuman, Manso,
Chuco, the Chiquitos, and the Moxos, to the Pampas del Sacramento and
the savannahs of Napo, Guaviare, Meta and Apure. This arm crosses,
between 7 and 3 degrees south latitude, the basin of the forests of
the Amazon; and the absence of trees on so great an extent of
territory, together with the preponderance which the small
monocotyledonous plants have acquired, is a phenomenon of the
geography of plants which belongs perhaps to the action of ancient
pelagic currents or other partial revolutions of our planet.
5. PLAINS OF THE RIO DE LA PLATA, AND OF PATAGONIA, FROM THE
SOUTH-WESTERN SLOPE OF THE GROUP OF THE BRAZIL MOUNTAINS TO THE STRAIT
OF MAGELLAN; FROM 20 TO 53 DEGREES OF LATITUDE.
These plains correspond with those of the Mississippi and of Canada in
the northern hemisphere. If one of their extremities approaches less
nearly to the polar regions, the other enters much further into the
region of palm-trees. That part of this vast basin extending from the
eastern coast towards the Rio Paraguay does not present a surface so
perfectly smooth as the part situated on the west and the south-east
of the Rio de la Plata, and which has been known for ages by the name
of Pampas, derived from the Peruvian or Quichua language.* (* Hatan
Pampa signifies in that language, a great plain. We find the word
Pampa also in Riobamba and Guallabamba; the Spaniards, in order to
soften the geographical names, changing the p into b.) Geognostically
speaking these two regions of east and west form only one basin,
bounded on the east by the Sierra de Villarica or do Espinhaco, which
loses itself in the Capitania of San Paul, near the parallel of 24
degrees; issuing on the north-east by little hills, from the Serra da
Canastra and the Campos Parecis towards the province of Paraguay; on
the west by the Andes of Upper Peru and Chile; and on the north-west
by the ridge of the partition of the waters which runs from the spur
of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, across the plains of the Chiquitos,
towards the Serras of Albuquerque (latitude 19 degrees 2 minutes) and
San Fernando. That part only of this basin lying on the west of the
Rio Paraguay, and which is entirely covered with gramina, is 70,000
square leagues. This surface of the Pampas or Llanos of Manse,
Tucuman, Buenos Ayres and eastern Patagonia is consequently four times
greater than the surface of the whole of France. The Andes of Chile
narrow the Pampas by the two spurs of Salta and Cordova; the latter
promontory forms so projecting a point that there remains (latitude 31
to 32 degrees) a plain only 45 leagues broad between the eastern
extremity of the Sierra de Cordova and the right bank of the river
Paraguay, stretching in the direction of a meridian, from the town of
Nueva Coimbra to Rosario, below Santa Fe. Far beyond the southern
frontiers of the old viceroyalty of Buenos Ayres, between the Rio
Colorado and the Rio Negro (latitude 38 to 39 degrees) groups of
mountains seem to rise in the form of islands in the middle of a
muriatiferous plain. A tribe of Indians of the south (Tehuellet) have
there long borne the characteristic name of men of the mountains
(Callilehet) or Serranos. From the parallel of the mouth of the Rio
Negro to that of Cabo Blanco (latitude 41 to 47 degrees) scattered
mountains on the eastern Patagonian coast denote more considerable
inequalities inland. All that part, however, of the Straits of
Magellan, from the Virgins' Cape to the North Cape, on the breadth of
more than 30 leagues, is surrounded by savannahs or Pampas; and the
Andes of western Patagonia only begin to rise near the latter cape,
exercising a marked influence on the direction of that part of the
strait nearest the Pacific, proceeding from south-east to north-west.
If we have given the plains or great basins of South America the names
of the rivers that flow in their longitudinal furrows, we have not
meant by so-doing to compare them to mere valleys. In the plains of
the Lower Orinoco and the Amazon all the lines of the declivity
doubtless reach a principal recipient, and the tributaries of
tributary streams, that is the basins of different orders, penetrate
far into the group of the mountains. The upper parts or high valleys
of the tributary streams must be considered in a geological table as
belonging to the mountainous region of the country, and beyond the
plains of the Lower Orinoco and the Amazon. The views of the geologist
are not identical with those of the hydrographer. In the basin of the
Rio de la Plata and Patagonia the waters that follow the lines of the
greatest declivities have many issues. The same basin contains several
valleys of rivers; and when we examine nearly the polyedric surface of
the Pampas and the portion of their waters which, like the waters of
the steppes of Asia, do not go to the sea, we conceive that these
plains are divided by small ridges or lines of elevation, and have
alternate slopes, inclined, with reference to the horizon, in opposite
directions. In order to point out more clearly the difference between
geological and hydrographic views, and to prove that in the former,
abstracting the course of the waters which meet in one recipient, we
obtain a far more general point of view, I shall here again recur to
the hydrographic basin of the Orinoco. That immense river rises on the
southern slope of the Sierra Parime. It is bounded by plains on the
left bank, from the Cassiquiare to the mouth of the Atabapo, and flows
in a basin which, geologically speaking, according to one great
division of the surface of South America into three basins, we have
called the basin of the Rio Negro and the Amazon. The low regions,
which are bounded by the southern and northern declivities of the
Parime and Brazil mountains, and which the geologist ought to mark by
one name, contain, according to the no less precise language of
hydrography, two basins of rivers, those of the Upper Orinoco and the
Amazon, separated by a ridge that runs from Javita towards Esmeralda.
From these considerations it results that a geological basin (sit
venia verbo) may have several recipients and several emissaries,
divided by small ridges almost imperceptible; it may at the same time
contain waters that flow to the sea by different furrows independent
of each other, and the systems of inland rivers flowing into lakes
more or less charged with saline matter. A basin of a river, or
hydrographic basin, has but one recipient, one emissary; if, by a
bifurcation, it gives a part of its waters to another hydrographic
basin, it is because the bed of the river, or the principal recipient,
approaches so near the banks of the basin or the ridge of partition
that the ridge partly crosses it.
The distribution of the inequalities of the surface of the globe does
not present any strongly marked limits between the mountainous country
and the low regions, or geologic basins. Even where real chains of
mountains rise like rocky dykes issuing from a crevice, spurs more or
less considerable, seem to indicate a lateral upheaving. While I admit
the difficulty of properly defining the groups of mountains and the
basins or continuous plains, I have attempted to calculate their
surfaces according to the statements contained in the preceding
sheets.
TABLE OF AREAS FOR SOUTH AMERICA.
COLUMN 1 : GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION.
COLUMN 2 : AREA IN SQUARE MARINE LEAGUES.
1. MOUNTAINOUS PART:
Andes : 58,900.
Littoral Chain of Venezuela : 1,900.
Sierra Nevada de Merida : 200.
Group of the Parime : 25,800.
System of the Brazil mountains : 27,600.
TOTAL : 114,400.
2. PLAINS:
Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, the Meta, : 29,000.
and the Guaviare
Plains of the Amazon : 260,400.
Pampas of Rio de la Plata and Patagonia : 135,200.
Plains between the eastern chain of the
Andes of Cundinamarca and the chain of Choco : 12,300.
Plains of the shore on the west of the Andes : 20,000.
TOTAL : 456,900.
The whole surface of South America contains 571,300 square leagues (20
to a degree), and the proportion of the mountainous country to the
region of the plains is as 1 to 3.9. The latter region, on the east of
the Andes, comprises more than 424,600 square leagues, half of which
consists of savannahs; that is to say, it is covered with gramina.