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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Between The Coast-Chain Of
Venezuela And The Group Of The Parime, The Plains Of The Apure And The
Lower
Orinoco extend; between the group of Parime and the Brazil
mountains are the plains of the Amazon, of the Rio
Negro and the
Madeira, and between the groups of Brazil and the southern extremity
of the continent are the plains of Rio de la Plata and of Patagonia.
As the group of the Parime in Spanish Guiana, and of the Brazil
mountains (or of Minas Geraes and Goyaz), do not join the Cordillera
of the Andes of New Grenada and Upper Peru towards the west, the three
plains of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata, are
connected by land-straits of considerable breadth. These straits are
also plains stretching from north to south, and traversed by ridges
imperceptible to the eye but forming divortia aquarum. These ridges
(and this remarkable phenomenon has hitherto escaped the attention of
geologists) are situated between 2 and 3 degrees north latitude, and
16 and 18 degrees south latitude. The first ridge forms the partition
of the waters which fall into the Lower Orinoco on the north-east, and
into the Rio Negro and the Amazon on the south and south-east; the
second ridge divides the tributary streams of the right bank of the
Amazon and the Rio de la Plata. These ridges, of which the existence
is only manifested, as in Volhynia, by the course of the waters, are
parallel with the coast-chain of Venezuela; they present, as it were,
two systems of counter-slopes partially developed, in the direction
from west to east, between the Guaviare and the Caqueta, and between
the Mamori and the Pilcomayo.
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