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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Eighth. The Last Chain Of The South-West Part Of
The Sierra Parime Is Separated By Woody Plains From The
Chain of
Maypures; it is the chain of the Cerros de Sipapo (latitude 4 degrees
50 minutes); an enormous wall
Behind which the powerful chief of the
Guaypunabi Indians intrenched himself during the expedition of Solano.
The chain of Sipapo may be considered as the beginning of the range of
lofty mountains which bound, at the distance of some leagues, the
right bank of the Orinoco, where that river runs from south-east to
north-west, between the mouth of the Ventuari, the Jao and the Padamo
(latitude 3 degrees 15 minutes). In ascending the Orinoco, above the
cataract of Maypures, we find, long before we reach the point where it
turns, near San Fernando del Atabapo, the mountains disappearing from
the bed of the river, and from the mouth of the Zama there are only
insulated rocks in the plains. The chain of Sipapo forms the
south-west limit of the system of mountains of Parime, between 70 1/2
and 68 degrees of longitude. Modem geologists have observed that the
culminant points of a group are less frequently found at its centre
than towards one of its extremities, preceding, and announcing in some
sort, a great depression* of the chain. (* As seen in Mont Blanc and
Chimborazo.) This phenomenon is again observed in the group of the
Parime, the loftiest summits of which, the Duida and the Maraguaca,
are in the most southerly range of mountains, where the plains of the
Cassiquiare and the Rio Negro begin.
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