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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Saint Hilaire
Felt Piercing Cold In The Month Of November (Therefore In Summer) In
The Whole Cordillera Of Lapa, From The Villa Do Principe To The Morro
De Gaspar Suares.
We have just noticed two chains of mountains nearly parallel but of
which the most extensive (the littoral chain) is the least lofty.
The
capital of Brazil is situated at the point where the two chains draw
nearest together and are linked together on the east of the Serra de
Mantiqueira, if not by a transversal ridge, at least by a mountainous
territory. Old systematic ideas respecting the rising of mountains in
proportion as we advance into a country, would have warranted the
belief that there existed, in the Capitania of Mato Grosso, a central
Cordillera much loftier than that of Villarica or do Espinhaco; but we
now know (and this is confirmed by climateric circumstances) that
there exists no continued chain, properly speaking, westward of Rio
San Francisco, on the frontiers of Minas Geraes and Goyaz. We find
only a group of mountains, of which the culminant points are the
Serras da Canastra (south-west of Paracatu) and da Marcella (latitude
18 1/2 and 19.10 degrees), and, further north, the Pyrenees stretching
from east to west (latitude 16 degrees 10 minutes) between Villaboa
and Mejaponte). M. Eschwege has named the group of mountains of Goyaz
the Serra dos Vertentes, because it divides the waters between the
southern tributary streams of the Rio Grande or Parana, and the
northern tributary streams of Rio Tucantines.
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