Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 52 of 635 - First - Home
La
Cruz, Who Has Been Copied By All The Modern Geographers, Has Preserved
The Oblong Form Of The Lake Cassipa
For his lake Parima, although this
form is entirely different from that of the ancient lake Parima, or
Rupunuwini, of
Which the great axis was directed from east to west.
The ancient lake (that of Hondius, Sanson, and Coronelli) was also
surrounded by mountains, and gave birth to no river; while the lake
Parima of La Cruz and the modern geographers communicates with the
Upper Orinoco, as the Cassipa with the Lower Orinoco.
I have stated the origin of the fable of the lake Cassipa, and the
influence it has had on the opinion that the lake Parima is the source
of the Orinoco. Let us now examine what relates to this latter basin,
this pretended interior sea, called Rupunuwini by the geographers of
the sixteenth century. In the latitude of four degrees or four degrees
and a half (in which direction unfortunately, south of Santo Thome del
Angostura to the extent of eight degrees, no astronomical observation
has been made) is a long and narrow Cordillera, that of Pacaraimo,
Quimiropaca, and Ucucuamo; which, stretching from east to south-west,
unites the group of mountains of Parima to the mountains of Dutch and
French Guiana. It divides its waters between the Carony, the Rupunury
or Rupunuwini, and the Rio Branco, and consequently between the
valleys of the Lower Orinoco, the Essequibo, and the Rio Negro. On the
north-west of the Cordillera de Pacaraimo, which has been traversed
but by a small number of Europeans (by the German surgeon, Nicolas
Hortsmann, in 1739; by a Spanish officer, Don Antonio Santos, in 1775;
by the Portuguese colonel, Barata, in 1791; and by several English
settlers, in 1811), descend the Noeapra, the Paraguamusi, and the
Paragua, which fall into the Rio Carony; on the north-east, the
Rupunuwini, a tributary stream of the Rio Essequibo.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 52 of 635
Words from 13916 to 14238
of 174507