Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.



































































































































 -  We
cannot advance in the geologic knowledge of America without having
continually recourse to the researches of comparative geography. The - Page 267
Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland. - Page 267 of 332 - First - Home

Enter page number    Previous Next

Number of Words to Display Per Page: 250 500 1000

We Cannot Advance In The Geologic Knowledge Of America Without Having Continually Recourse To The Researches Of Comparative Geography.

The small system of mountains, which we may provisionally call that of the sources of the Rio Negro and

The Uaupes, and the culminant points of which are not probably more than 100 or 120 toises high, appears to extend southward to the basin of Rio Yupura, where rocky ridges form the cataracts of the Rio de los Enganos and the Salto Grande de Yupura (south latitude 0 degrees 40 minutes to north latitude 0 degrees 28 minutes), and the basin of the Upper Guaviare towards the west. We find in the course of this river, from 60 to 70 leagues west of San Fernando del Atabapo, two walls of rocks bounding the strait (nearly 3 degrees 10 minutes north latitude and 73 3/4 degrees longitude) where father Maiella terminated his excursion. That missionary told me that, in going up the Guaviare, he perceived near the strait (angostura) a chain of mountains bounding the horizon on the south. It is not known whether those mountains traverse the Guaviare more to the west, and join the spurs which advance from the eastern Cordillera of New Grenada, between the Rio Umadea and the Rio Ariari, in the direction of the savannahs of San Juan de los Llanos. I doubt the existence of this junction. If it really existed, the plains of the Lower Orinoco would communicate with those of the Amazon only by a very narrow land-strait, on the east of the mountainous country which surrounds the source of the Rio Negro: but it is more probable that this mountainous country (a small system of mountains, geognostically dependent on the Sierra Parime) forms as it were an island in the Llanos of Guaviare and Yupura. Father Pugnet, Principal of the Franciscan convent at Popayan, assured me, that when he went from the missions settled on the Rio Caguan to Aramo, a village situated on the Rio Guayavero, he found only treeless savannahs, extending as far as the eye could reach. The chain of mountains placed by several modern geographers, between the Meta and the Vichada, and which appears to link the Andes of New Grenada with the Sierra Parime, is altogether imaginary.

We have now examined the prolongation of the Sierra Parime on the west, towards the source of the Rio Negro: it remains for us to follow the same group in its eastern direction. The mountains of the Upper Orinoco, eastward of the Raudal of the Guaharibos (north latitude 1 degree 15 minutes longitude 67 degrees 38 minutes), join the chain of Pacaraina, which divides the waters of the Carony and the Rio Branco, and of which the micaceous schist, resplendent with silvery lustre, figures so conspicuously in Raleigh's El Dorado. The part of that chain containing the sources of the Orinoco has not yet been explored; but its prolongation more to the east, between the meridian of the military post of Guirior and the Rupunuri, a tributary of the Essequibo, is known to me through the travels of the Spaniards Antonio Santos and Nicolas Rodriguez, and also by the geodesic labours of two Portuguese, Pontes and Almeida.

Enter page number   Previous Next
Page 267 of 332
Words from 140027 to 140564 of 174507


Previous 267 268 269 270 271 272 273 274 275 276 Next

More links: First 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100
 110 120 130 140 150 160 170 180 190 200
 210 220 230 240 250 260 270 280 290 300
 310 320 330 Last

Display Words Per Page: 250 500 1000

 
Africa (29)
Asia (27)
Europe (59)
North America (58)
Oceania (24)
South America (8)
 

List of Travel Books RSS Feeds

Africa Travel Books RSS Feed

Asia Travel Books RSS Feed

Europe Travel Books RSS Feed

North America Travel Books RSS Feed

Oceania Travel Books RSS Feed

South America Travel Books RSS Feed

Copyright © 2005 - 2022 Travel Books Online