(* The Rocky Mountains Have Been At Different Periods Designated By The Names Of Chypewyan, Missouri, Columbian, Caous, Stony, Shining And

Sandy Mountains.) Towards latitude 40 degrees south of the sources of the Paduca, a tributary of the Rio de la

Plata, a branch known by the name of the Black Hills, detaches itself towards the north-east from the central chain. The Rocky Mountains at first seem to lower considerably in 46 and 48 degrees; and then rise to 48 and 49 degrees, where their tops are from 1200 to 1300 toises, and their ridge near 950 toises. Between the sources of the Missouri and the River Lewis, one of the tributaries of the Oregon or Columbia, the Cordilleras form in widening, an elbow resembling the knot of Cuzco. There, also, on the eastern declivity of the Rocky Mountains, is the partition of water between the Caribbean Sea and the Polar Sea. This point corresponds with those in the Andes of South America, at the spur of Cochabamba, on the east, latitude 19 degrees 20 minutes south; and in the Alto de los Robles (latitude 2 degrees 20 minutes north), on the west. The ridge that separates the Rocky Mountains extends from west to east, towards Lake Superior, between the basins of the Missouri and those of Lake Winnipeg and the Slave Lake. The central Cordillera of Mexico and the Rocky Mountains follow the direction north 10 degrees west, from latitude 25 to 38 degrees; the chain from that point to the Polar Sea prolongs in the direction north 24 degrees west, and ends in the parallel 69 degrees, at the mouth of the Mackenzie River.*

(* The eastern boundary of the Rocky Mountains lies: - In 38 degrees latitude : 107 degrees 20 minutes longitude. In 40 degrees latitude : 108 degrees 30 minutes longitude. In 63 degrees latitude : 124 degrees 40 minutes longitude. In 68 degrees latitude : 130 degrees 30 minutes longitude.)

In thus developing the structure of the Cordilleras of the Andes from 56 degrees south to beyond the Arctic circle, we see that its northern extremity (longitude 130 degrees 30 minutes) is nearly 61 degrees of longitude west of its southern extremity (longitude 60 degrees 40 minutes); this is the effect of the long-continued direction from south-east to north-west north of the isthmus of Panama. By the extraordinary breadth of the New Continent, in the 30 and 60 degrees north latitude, the Cordillera of the Andes, continually approaching nearer to the western coast in the southern hemisphere, is removed 400 leagues on the north from the source of the Rio de la Paz. The Andes of Chile may be considered as maritime Alps,* (* Geognostically speaking, a littoral chain is not a range of mountains forming of itself the coast; this name is extended to a chain separated from the coast by a narrow plain.) while, in their most northern continuation, the Rocky Mountains are a chain in the interior of a continent. There is, no doubt, between latitude 23 and 60 degrees from Cape Saint Lucas in California, to Alaska on the western coast of the Sea of Kamschatka, a real littoral Cordillera; but it forms a system of mountains almost entirely distinct from the Andes of Mexico and Canada.

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