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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It Is Known That In The Forests North Of The
Line The Rains Are Earlier Than In The Less Woody Plains Of The
Southern Torrid Zone.
To this local cause is joined another, which
acts perhaps equally on the tardy swellings of the Nile.
The Amazon
receives a great part of its waters from the Cordillera of the Andes,
where the seasons, as everywhere among mountains, follow a peculiar
type, most frequently opposite to that of the low regions.
The law of the increase and decrease of the Orinoco is more difficult
to determine with respect to space, or to the magnitude of the
oscillations, than with regard to time, or the period of the maxima
and minima. Having been able to measure but imperfectly the risings of
the river, I report, not without hesitation, estimates that differ
much from each other.* (* Tuckey, Maritime Geogr. volume 4 page 309.
Hippisley, Expedition to the Orinoco page 38. Gumilla volume 1 pages
56 to 59. Depons volume 3 page 301. The greatest height of the rise of
the Mississippi is, at Natchez, fifty-five English feet. This river
(the largest perhaps of the whole temperate zone) is at its maximum
from February to May; at its minimum in August and September.
Ellicott, Journal of an Expedition to the Ohio.) Foreign pilots admit
ninety feet for the ordinary rise in the Lower Orinoco. M. Depons, who
has in general collected very accurate notions during his stay at
Caracas, fixes it at thirteen fathoms.
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