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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This Arm Crosses,
Between 7 And 3 Degrees South Latitude, The Basin Of The Forests Of
The Amazon; And The
Absence of trees on so great an extent of
territory, together with the preponderance which the small
monocotyledonous plants have
Acquired, is a phenomenon of the
geography of plants which belongs perhaps to the action of ancient
pelagic currents or other partial revolutions of our planet.
5. PLAINS OF THE RIO DE LA PLATA, AND OF PATAGONIA, FROM THE
SOUTH-WESTERN SLOPE OF THE GROUP OF THE BRAZIL MOUNTAINS TO THE STRAIT
OF MAGELLAN; FROM 20 TO 53 DEGREES OF LATITUDE.
These plains correspond with those of the Mississippi and of Canada in
the northern hemisphere. If one of their extremities approaches less
nearly to the polar regions, the other enters much further into the
region of palm-trees. That part of this vast basin extending from the
eastern coast towards the Rio Paraguay does not present a surface so
perfectly smooth as the part situated on the west and the south-east
of the Rio de la Plata, and which has been known for ages by the name
of Pampas, derived from the Peruvian or Quichua language.* (* Hatan
Pampa signifies in that language, a great plain. We find the word
Pampa also in Riobamba and Guallabamba; the Spaniards, in order to
soften the geographical names, changing the p into b.) Geognostically
speaking these two regions of east and west form only one basin,
bounded on the east by the Sierra de Villarica or do Espinhaco, which
loses itself in the Capitania of San Paul, near the parallel of 24
degrees; issuing on the north-east by little hills, from the Serra da
Canastra and the Campos Parecis towards the province of Paraguay; on
the west by the Andes of Upper Peru and Chile; and on the north-west
by the ridge of the partition of the waters which runs from the spur
of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, across the plains of the Chiquitos,
towards the Serras of Albuquerque (latitude 19 degrees 2 minutes) and
San Fernando.
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