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 Second
Spur, Called The Sierra De Salta And The Jujui, Of Which The Greatest
Breadth Is 25 Degrees Of Latitude, Widens From The Valley Of Catamarca
And San Miguel Del Tucuman, In The Direction Of The Rio Vermejo
(Longitude 64 Degrees).
Finally, the third and most majestic spur, the
Sierra Nevada de Cochabamba and Santa Cruz (from 22 to 17 1/2 degrees
of latitude), is linked with the knot of the mountains of Porco.
It
forms the points of partition (divortia aquarum, between the basin of
the Amazon and that of the Rio de la Plata. The Cachimayo and the
Pilcomayo, which rise between Potosi, Talavera de la Puna, and La
Plata or Chuquisaca, run in the direction of south-east, while the
Parapiti and the Guapey (Guapaiz, or Rio de Mizque) pour their waters
into the Mamori, to north-east. The ridge of partition being near
Chayanta, south of Mizque, Tomina and Pomabamba, nearly on the
southern declivity of the Sierra de Cochabamba in latitude 19 and 20
degrees, the Rio Guapey flows round the whole group, before it reaches
the plains of the Amazon, as in Europe the Poprad, a tributary of the
Vistula, makes a circuit in its course from the southern part of the
Carpathians to the plains of Poland. I have already observed above,
that where the mountains cease (west* of the meridian of 66 1/2
degrees (* I agree with Captain Basil Hall, in fixing the port of
Valparaiso in 71 degrees 31 minutes west of Greenwich, and I place
Cordova 8 degrees 40 minutes, and Santa Cruz de la Sierra 7 degrees 4
minutes east of Valparaiso. The longitudes mentioned in the text refer
always to the meridian of the Observatory of Paris.)) the partition
ridge of Cochabamba goes up towards the north-east, to 16 degrees of
latitude, forming, by the intersection of two slightly inclined
planes, only one ridge amidst the savannahs, and separating the waters
of the Guapore, a tributary of the Madeira, from those of the Aguapehy
and Jauru, tributaries of the Rio Paraguay. This vast country between
Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Villabella, and Matogrosso, is one of the
least known parts of South America. The two spurs of Cordova and Salta
present only a mountainous territory of small elevation, and linked to
the foot of the Andes of Chile. Cochabamba, on the contrary, attains
the limit of perpetual snow (2300 toises) and forms in some sort a
lateral branch of the Cordilleras, diverging even from their tops
between La Paz and Oruro. The mountains composing this branch (the
Cordillera de Chiriguanaes, de los Sauces and Yuracarees) extend
regularly from west to east; their eastern declivity* is very rapid,
and their loftiest summits are not in the centre, but in the northern
part of the group. (* For much information concerning the Sierra de
Cochabamba I am indebted to the manuscripts of my countryman, the
celebrated botanist Taddeus Haenke, which a monk of the congregation
of the Escurial, Father Cisneros, kindly communicated to me at Lima.
Mr. Haenke, after having followed the expedition of Alexander
Malaspina, settled at Cochabamba in 1798.
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