Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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They Suppose
That, According To The Greater Part Of Our Maps Of America, This
Continent Has Only One Chain Of
Mountains, that of the Andes, which
stretches from south to north; and they form a vague idea of the
contiguity
Of all the plains from the Orinoco and the Apure to the Rio
de la Plata and the Straits of Magellan.
Without stopping here to give a mineralogical description of the
transverse chains which divide America from east to west, it will be
sufficient to notice the general structure of a continent, the
extremities of which, though situated in climates little analogous,
nevertheless present several features of resemblance. In order to have
an exact idea of the plains, their configuration, and their limits, we
must know the chains of mountains that form their boundaries. We have
already described the Cordillera of the coast, of which the highest
summit is the Silla de Caraccas, and which is linked by the Paramo de
las Rosas to the Nevada de Merida, and the Andes of New Grenada. We
have seen that, in the tenth degree of north latitude, it stretches
from Quibor and Barquesimeto as far as the point of Paria. A second
chain of mountains, or rather a less elevated but much larger group,
extends between the parallels of 3 and 7 degrees from the mouths of
the Guaviare and the Meta to the sources of the Orinoco, the Marony,
and the Essequibo, towards French and Dutch Guiana. I call this chain
the Cordillera of Parime, or of the great cataracts of the Orinoco.
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