These Straits Are Also Plains Stretching From North To South, And Traversed By Ridges Imperceptible To The Eye But Forming Divortia Aquarum.

These ridges (and this remarkable phenomenon has hitherto escaped the attention of geologists) are situated between 2 and 3 degrees north latitude, and 16 and 18 degrees south latitude.

The first ridge forms the partition of the waters which fall into the Lower Orinoco on the north-east, and into the Rio Negro and the Amazon on the south and south-east; the second ridge divides the tributary streams of the right bank of the Amazon and the Rio de la Plata. These ridges, of which the existence is only manifested, as in Volhynia, by the course of the waters, are parallel with the coast-chain of Venezuela; they present, as it were, two systems of counter-slopes partially developed, in the direction from west to east, between the Guaviare and the Caqueta, and between the Mamori and the Pilcomayo. It is also worthy of remark that in the southern hemisphere the Cordillera of the Andes sends an immense counterpoise eastward in the promontory of the Sierra Nevada de Cochabamba, whence begins the ridge stretching between the tributary streams of the Madeira and the Paraguay to the lofty group of the mountains of Brazil or Minas Geraes. Three transversal chains (the coast-mountains of Venezuela, of the Orinoco or Parime, and the Brazil mountains) tend to join the longitudinal chain (the Andes) either by an intermediary group (between the lake of Valencia and Tocuyo), or by ridges formed by the intersection of counter-slopes in the plains. The two extremities of the three Llanos which communicate by land-straits, the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata or of Buenos Ayres, are steppes covered with gramina, while the intermediary Llano (that of the Amazon) is a thick forest. With respect to the two land-straits forming bands directed from north to south (from the Apure to Caqueta across the Provincia de los Llanos, and the sources of the Mamori to Rio Pilcomayo, across the province of Mocos and Chiquitos) they are bare and grassy steppes like the plains of Caracas and Buenos Ayres.

In the immense extent of land east of the Andes, comprehending more than 480,000 square sea leagues, of which 92,000 are a mountainous tract of country, no group rises to the region of perpetual snow; none even attains the height of 1400 toises. This lowering of the mountains in the eastern region of the New Continent extends as far as 60 degrees north latitude; while in the western part, on the prolongation of the Cordillera of the Andes, the highest Summits rise in Mexico (latitude 18 degrees 59 minutes) to 2770 toises, and in the Rocky Mountains (latitude 37 to 40 degrees) to 1900 toises. The insulated group of the Alleghenies, corresponding in its eastern position and direction with the Brazil group, does not exceed 1040 toises.* (* The culminant point of the Alleghenies is Mount Washington in New Hampshire, latitude 44 1/4 degrees.

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