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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(* For Much Information Concerning The Sierra De
Cochabamba I Am Indebted To The Manuscripts Of My Countryman, The
Celebrated Botanist
Taddeus Haenke, which a monk of the congregation
of the Escurial, Father Cisneros, kindly communicated to me at Lima.
Mr.
Haenke, after having followed the expedition of Alexander
Malaspina, settled at Cochabamba in 1798. A part of the immense herbal
of this botanist is now at Prague.)
The principal Cordillera of Chile and Upper Peru is, for the first
time, ramified very distinctly into two branches, in the group of
Porco and Potosi, between latitude 19 and 20 degrees. These two
branches comprehend the table-land extending from Carangas to Lamba
(latitude 19 3/4 to 15 degrees) and in which is situated the small
mountain lake of Paria, the Desaguadero, and the great Laguna of
Titicaca or Chucuito, of which the western part bears the name of
Vinamarca. To afford an idea of the colossal dimensions of the Andes,
I may here observe that the surface of the lake of Titicaca alone (448
square sea leagues) is twenty times greater than that of the Lake of
Geneva, and twice the average extent of a department of France. On the
banks of this lake, near Tiahuanacu, and in the high plains of Callao,
ruins are found which bear evidence of a state of civilization
anterior to that which the Peruvians assign to the reign of the Inca
Manco Capac. The eastern Cordillera, that of La Paz, Palca, Ancuma,
and Pelechuco, join, north-west of Apolobamba, the western Cordillera,
which is the most extensive of the whole chain of the Andes, between
the parallels 14 and 15 degrees.
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