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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Summits of trap-porphyry rise beyond three thousand
three hundred toises, and the mean height of the chain* is one
thousand eight hundred and fifty toises.
(* In New Grenada, Quito, and
Peru, according to measurements taken by Bouguer, La Condamine, and
myself.) It stretches in the direction of a meridian, and sends into
each hemisphere a lateral branch, in the latitudes of 10 degrees
north, and 16 and 18 degrees south. The first of these two branches,
that of the coast of Caracas, is of considerable length, and forms in
fact a chain. The second branch, the Cordillera of Chiquitos and of
the sources of the Guapore, is very rich in gold, and widens toward
the east, in Brazil, into vast tablelands, having a mild and temperate
climate. Between these two transverse chains, contiguous to the Andes,
an isolated group of granitic mountains is situated, from 3 to 7
degrees north latitude; which also runs parallel to the Equator, but,
not passing the meridian of 71 degrees, terminates abruptly towards
the west, and is not united to the Andes of New Grenada. These three
transverse chains have no active volcanoes; we know not whether the
most southern, like the two others, be destitute of trachytes or
trap-porphyry. None of their summits enter the limit of perpetual
snow; and the mean height of the Cordillera of La Parime, and of the
littoral chain of Caracas, does not reach six hundred toises, though
some of its summits rise fourteen hundred toises above the level of
the sea.* (* We do not reckon here, as belonging to the chain of the
coast, the Nevados and Paramos of Merida and of Truxillo, which are a
prolongation of the Andes of New Grenada.) The three transverse chains
are separated by plains entirely closed towards the west, and open
towards the east and south-east. When we reflect on their small
elevation above the surface of the ocean, we are tempted to consider
them as gulfs stretching in the direction of the current of rotation.
If, from the effect of some peculiar attraction, the waters of the
Atlantic were to rise fifty toises at the mouth of the Orinoco, and
two hundred toises at the mouth of the Amazon, the flood would
submerge more than the half of South America. The eastern declivity,
or the foot of the Andes, now six hundred leagues distant from the
coast of Brazil, would become a shore beaten by the waves. This
consideration is the result of a barometric measurement, taken in the
province of Jaen de Bracamoros, where the river Amazon issues from the
Cordilleras. I found the mean height of this immense river only one
hundred and ninety-four toises above the present level of the
Atlantic. The intermediate plains, however, covered with forests, are
still five times higher than the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and the
grass-covered Llanos of Caracas and the Meta.
Those Llanos which form the basin of the Orinoco, and which we crossed
twice in one year, in the months of March and July, communicate with
the basin of the Amazon and the Rio Negro, bounded on one side by the
Cordillera of Chiquitos, and on the other by the mountains of Parime.
The opening which is left between the latter and the Andes of New
Grenada, occasions this communication.
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