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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The Group Of Russian America, From Latitude 60 To 70 Degrees (Mount
Saint Elias).
Over an extent of 63 degrees of latitude, I know only
twelve summits of the Andes which reach the height of 2600 toises, and
consequently exceed by 140 toises, the height of Mont Blanc.
Only
three of these twelve summits are situated north of the isthmus of
Panama.
2. INSULATED GROUP OF THE SNOWY MOUNTAINS OF SANTA MARTA.
In the enumeration of the different systems of mountains, I place this
group before the littoral chain of Venezuela, though the latter, being
a northern prolongation of the Cordillera of Cundinamarca, is
immediately linked with the chain of the Andes. The Sierra Nevado of
Santa Marta is encompassed within two divergent branches of the Andes,
that of Bogota, and that of the isthmus of Panama. It rises abruptly
like a fortified castle, amidst the plains extending from the gulf of
Darien, by the mouth of the Magdalena, to the lake of Maracaybo. The
old geographers erroneously considered this insulated group of
mountains covered with eternal snow, as the extremity of the high
Cordilleras of Chita and Pamplona. The loftiest ridge of the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta is only three or four leagues in length from
east to west; it is bounded (at nine leagues distance from the coast)
by the meridians of the capes of San Diego and San Augustin. The
culminant points, called El Picacho and Horqueta, are near the western
border of the group; they are entirely separated from the peak of San
Lorenzo, also covered with eternal snow, but only four leagues distant
from the port of Santa Marta, towards the south-east.
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