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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In The Group Of The Parime, As Well As In The Group Of The
Mountains Of Central Asia, Between The
Himalaya and the Altai, the
partial chains are often interrupted and have no uniform parallelism.
Towards the south-west, however
(Between the strait of Baraguan, the
mouth of the Rio Zama and the Esmeralda), the line of the mountains is
generally in the direction of north 70 degrees west. Such is also the
position of a distant coast, that of Portuguese, French, Dutch and
English Guiana, from Cape North to the mouth of the Orinoco; such is
the mean direction of the course of the Rio Negro and Yupura. It is
desirable to fix our attention on the angles formed by the partial
chains, in different regions of America, with the meridians; because
on less extended surfaces, for instance in Germany, we find also this
singular co-existence of groups of neighbouring mountains following
laws of direction altogether different, though every separate group
exhibits the greatest uniformity in the line of chains.
The soil on which the mountains of Parime rise, is slightly convex. By
barometric measures I found that, between 3 and 4 degrees north
latitude, the plains are elevated from 160 to 180 toises above
sea-level. This height will appear considerable if we reflect that at
the foot of the Andes of Peru, at Tomependa, 900 leagues from the
coast of the Atlantic Ocean, the Llanos or plains of the Amazon rise
only to the height of 194 toises.
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