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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We Find The Name Of
Snowy Mountains (Himalaya, Imaus) Repeated In Every Zone, White
(Alpes, Alb), Black And Blue.
The greater part of the Sierra Parime
is, as it were, edged round by the Orinoco.
I have, however, avoided a
denomination having reference to this circumstance, because the group
of mountains to which I am about to direct attention extends far
beyond the banks of the Orinoco. It stretches south-east, towards the
banks of the Rio Negro and the Rio Branco, to the parallel of 1 1/2
degrees north latitude. The geographical name of Parime has the
advantage of reviving recollections of the fable of El Dorado, and the
lofty mountains which, in the sixteenth century, were supposed to
surround the lake Rupunuwini, or the Laguna de Parime. The
missionaries of the Orinoco still give the name of Parime to the whole
of the vast mountainous country comprehended between the sources of
the Erevato, the Orinoco, the Caroni, the Rio Parime* (a tributary of
the Rio Branco) and the Rupunuri or Rupunuwini, a tributary of the Rio
Essequibo. (* The Rio Parime, after receiving the waters of the
Uraricuera, joins the Tacutu, and forms, near the fort of San
Joacquim, the Rio Branco, one of the tributary streams of the Rio
Negro.) This country is one of the least known parts of South America
and is covered with thick forests and savannahs; it is inhabited by
independent Indians and is intersected by rivers of dangerous
navigation, owing to the frequency of shoals and cataracts.
The system of the mountains of Parime separates the plains of the
Lower Orinoco from those of the Rio Negro and the Amazon; it occupies
a territory of trapezoidal form, comprehended between the parallels of
3 and 8 degrees, and the meridians of 61 and 70 1/2 degrees. I here
indicate only the elements of the loftiest group, for we shall soon
see that towards south-east the mountainous country, in lowering,
draws near the equator, as well as to French and Portuguese Guiana.
The Sierra Parime extends most in the direction north 85 degrees west
and the partial chains into which it separates on the westward
generally follow the same direction. It is less a Cordillera or a
continuous chain in the sense given to those denominations when
applied to the Andes and Caucasus than an irregular grouping of
mountains separated the one from the other by plains and savannahs. I
visited the northern, western and southern parts of the Sierra Parime,
which is remarkable by its position and its extent of more than 25,000
square leagues. From the confluence of the Apure, as far as the delta
of the Orinoco, it is uniformly three or four leagues removed from the
right bank of the great river; only some rocks of gneiss-granite,
amphibolic slate and greenstone advance as far as the bed of the
Orinoco and create the rapids of Torno and of La Boca del Infierno.*
(* To this series of advanced rocks also belong those which pierce the
soil between the Rio Aquire and the Rio Barima; the granitic and
amphibolic rocks of the Vieja Guayana and of the town of Angostura;
the Cerro de Mono on the south-east of Muitaco or Real Corono; the
Cerro of Taramuto near the Alta Gracia, etc.) I shall name
successively, from north-north-east to south-south-west, the different
chains seen by M. Bonpland and myself as we approached the equator and
the river Amazon.
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