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 Most Southern Spurs Of This Chain
Approach Nearer To The Amazon, At The Distance Of Fifteen Leagues.
These Are The First Heights Which We Perceived After Having Left
Xeberos And The Mouth Of The Huallaga.
They are constantly seen in
navigating from the mouth of the Rio Topayo towards that of Paru, from
the town of Santarem to Almeirim.
The peak Tripoupou is nearly in the
meridian of the former of those towns and is celebrated among the
Indians of Upper Maroni. It is said that farther eastward, at Melgaco,
the Serras do Velho and do Paru are still distinguished in the
horizon. The real boundaries of this series of sources of the Rio
Trombetas are better known southward than northward, where a
mountainous country appears to advance in Dutch and French Guiana, as
far as within twenty to twenty-five leagues of the coast. The numerous
cataracts of the rivers of Surinam, Maroni and Oyapoc, prove the
extent and the prolongation of rocky ridges; but in those regions
nothing indicates the existence of continued plains or table-lands
some hundred toises high, fitted for the cultivation of the plants of
the temperate zone.
The system of the mountains of Parime surpasses in extent nineteen
times that of the whole of Switzerland. Even considering the
mountainous group of the sources of the Rio Negro and the Xie as
independent or insulated amidst the plains, we still find the Sierra
Parime (between Maypures and the sources of the Oyapoc) to be 340
leagues in length; its greatest breadth (the rocks of Imataca, near
the delta of the Orinoco, at the sources of the Rio Paru) is 140
leagues.
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