The Diversity Of The Superposed Table-Lands And Climates Varies The Agricultural Productions As Well As The Character Of The Inhabitants.

It gives activity to the exchange of productions, and renews over a vast surface, north of the equator, the picture of the sultry valleys and cool and temperate plains of Peru.

It is also worthy of remark that, by the separation of one of the branches of the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca and by the deviation of the chain of Bogota towards the north-east, the colossal group of the mountains of Merida is enclosed in the territory of the ancient Capitania-general of Venezuela, and that the continuity of the same mountainous land from Pamplona to Barquisimeto and Nirgua may be said to have facilitated the political union of the Columbian territory. As long as the central chain (that of Quindiu) presents its snowy summits, no peak of the eastern chain (that of La Suma Paz) rises, in the same parallels, to the limit of perpetual snow. Between latitude 2 and 5 1/2 degrees neither the Paramos situated on the east of Gigante and Neiva, nor the tops of La Suma Paz, Chingasa, Guachaneque, and Zoraca, exceed the height of 1900 to 2000 toises; while on the north of the parallel of Paramo d'Erve (latitude 5 degrees 5 minutes), the last of the Nevados of the central Cordillera, we discover in the eastern chain the snowy summits of Chita (latitude 5 degrees 50 minutes), and of Mucuchies (latitude 8 degrees 12 minutes). Hence it results that from latitude 5 degrees the only mountains covered with snow during the whole year are the Cordilleras of the east; and although the Sierra Nevada of Santa Marta is not, properly speaking, a continuation of the Nevados of Chita and Mucuchies (west of Patute and east of Merida), it is at least very near their meridian.

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