Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Ridge Of The Eastern
Cordillera Is At The Distance Of Thirty-Five Leagues From This Knot,
So That The Contraction Of The Bed Of The Rio Magdalena, Between Honda
And Ambalema, Is Caused Only By The Approximation Of The Spurs Of
Mariquita And Guaduas.
There is not, therefore, properly speaking, a
group of mountains between latitude 5 and 5 1/4 degrees, uniting the
three chains at once.
In the group of the province of Antioquia, which
forms the junction of the central and western Cordilleras, we may
distinguish two great masses; one between the Magdalena and the Cauca,
and the other between the Cauca and the Atrato. The first of these
masses, which is linked most immediately to the snowy summits of
Herveo, gives birth on the east to the Rio de la Miel and the Nare;
and on the north to Porce and Nechi; its average height is only from
1200 to 1350 toises. The culminant point appears to be near Santa
Rosa, south-west of the celebrated Valley of Bears (Valle de Osos).
The towns of Rio Negro and Marinilla are built on table-lands 1060
toises high. The western mass of the knot of the mountains of
Antioquia, between the Cauca and the Atrato, gives rise, on its
western descent, to the Rio San Juan, Bevara, and Murri. It attains
its greatest height in the Alto del Viento, north of Urrao, known to
the first conquistadores by the name of the Cordilleras of Abide or
Dabeida. This height (latitude 7 degrees 15 minutes) does not,
however, exceed 1500 toises. Following the western slope of this
system of mountains of Antioquia, we find that the point of partition
of the waters that flow towards the Pacific and the Caribbean Sea
(latitude 5 1/2 and 6 degrees ) nearly corresponds with the parallel
of the isthmus of Raspadura, between the Rio San Juan and the Atrato.
It is remarkable that in this group, more than 30 leagues broad,
without sharp summits, between latitude 5 1/4 and 7 degrees, the
highest masses rise towards the west; while, further south, before the
union of the two chains of Quindiu and Choco, we saw them on the east
of Cauca.
The ramifications of the knot of Antioquia, on the north of the
parallel 7 degrees, are very imperfectly known; it is observed only
that their lowering is in general more rapid and complete towards the
north-west, in the direction of the ancient province of Biruquete and
Darien, than towards the north and north-east, on the side of Zaragoza
and Simiti. From the northern bank of the Rio Nare, near its
confluence with the Samana, a spur stretches out, known by the name of
La Simitarra, and the Mountains of San Lucar. We may call it the first
branch of the group of Antioquia. I saw it, in going up the Rio
Magdalena, on the west, from the Regidor and the mouth of the Rio
Simiti, as far as San Bartolome (on the south of the mouth of the Rio
Sogamozo); while, eastward, in latitude 7 3/4 and 8 1/4 degrees, the
spur of the mountains of Ocana appear in the distance; they are
inhabited by some tribes of Molitone Indians. The second branch of the
group of Antioquia (west of Samitarra) commences at the mountains of
Santa Rosa, stretches out between Zaragoza and Caceres, and terminates
abruptly at the confluence of the Rio Nechi (latitude 8 degrees 33
minutes): at least if the hills, often conical, between the mouth of
the Rio Sinu and the small town of Tolu, or even the calcareous
heights of Turbaco and Popa, near Carthagena, may not be regarded as
the most northern prolongation of this second branch. A third advances
towards the gulf of Uraba or Darien, between the Rio San Jorge and the
Atrato. It is linked southward with the Alto del Viento, or Sierra de
Abide, and is rapidly lost, advancing as far as the parallel of 8
degrees. Finally, the fourth branch of the Andes of Antioquia,
situated westward of Zitara and the Rio Atrato, undergoes, long before
it enters the isthmus of Panama, such a depression, that between the
Gulf of Cupica and the embarcadero of the Rio Naipipi, we find only a
plain across which M. Gogueneche has projected a canal for the
junction of the two seas. It would be interesting to know the
configuration of the strata between Cape Garachine, or the Gulf of St.
Miguel, and Cape Tiburon, especially towards the source of the Rio
Tuyra and Chucunaque or Chucunque, so as to determine with precision
where the mountains of the isthmus of Panama begin to rise; mountains
whose elevation does not appear to be more than 100 toises. The
interior of Darfur is not more unknown to geographers than the humid,
insalubrious forest-land which extends on the north-west of Betoi and
the confluence of the Bevara with the Atrato, towards the isthmus of
Panama. All that we positively know of it hitherto is that between
Cupica and the left bank of the Atrato there is either a land-strait,
or a total absence of the Cordillera. The mountains of the isthmus of
Panama, by their direction and their geographical position, may be
considered as a continuation of the mountains of Antioquia and Choco;
but on the west of Bas-Atrato, there is scarcely a ridge in the plain.
We do not find in this country a group of interposed mountains like
that which links (between Barquisimeto, Nirgua and Valencia) the
eastern chain of New Grenada (that of Suma Paz and the Sierra Nevada
de Merida) to the Cordillera of the shore of Venezuela.
The Cordillera of the Andes, considered in its whole extent, from the
rocky wall of the island of Diego Ramirez to the isthmus of Panama, is
sometimes ramified into chains more or less parallel, and sometimes
articulated by immense knots of mountains. We distinguish nine of
those knots, and consequently an equal number of branching-points and
ramifications.
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