OCR Text |
Show ANNOTATJON il ANO ADDITIONS. 51 There is no immediate connection between the eastern and western chains-the Brazilian mountains, and the Cordilleras of Peru-for the low province of Chiquitos, which is a longitudinal valley running from north to south, and opening into the plains both of the Amazons and of the ri>er Plate, separates Brazil on the east from the Alto Peru on the west. Here, as in Poland and Russia, an often almo t imperceptible rise of ground (called, in Sclavonian, U waly) forms the separating water-line between the Pilcomayo and the ladeira, between the Aguapehi and the Guapore, and between the Paraguay and the Rio Topayos. The swell of the ground runs to the south-east from Cha.yanta and Pomabamba (lat. 19°-20°)1 traverses th~ province of Chiquitos, which, since the expulsion of the Jesuits, bas again become almost a terra incognita and forms, to the north-east, where there are only detached mountains, the "divortia aquarum" at the sources of the Baures and near Villabella, lat. 15°-17°. This line of separation of the waters is important in relation to facilities of intercourse, and to the increase of cultivation and civilization: more to the north (2°-3° N. lat.), a similar line divides the basin of the Orinoco from that of the Amazons and the Rio Negro. These risings or swellings in the plains (called, by Frontin, terrre tumores) might be regarded as undeveloped systems of mountains, which would have connected two a.pparently isolated groups (the Sierra Parime and the Brazilian mountains) with the Andes of Timana and Cochabamba. These relations, which have been hitherto but little attended to, are the ground of the division which I have made of South America into three basins: viz., those of the Lower Orinoco, of the Amazons, and of the Rio de la Plata. The first and last of these are Steppes or prairies; the middle basin, that of the Amazons, between the Sierra Parime and the Brazilian group of mountains, is a forest-covered plain or Hylrea. If we wish to trace, in equally few lines, a sketch of the natural features of North America, let us cast our eyes first on the mountain chain which, running from south-east to north-west, at first low and narrow, and increasing both in breadth and height from Panama to V eragua, Guatimala, and Mexico (where it was the seat of a civilization which preceded the arrival of Europeans), arrests the gene- |