| OCR Text |
Show A~NOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 97 the south in the 8th degree of latitude, filling the space between tho eastern declivity of the high mountains of New Gmnada, and the Orinoco, the course of which is, in this part, from south to north. This latter portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, the Vichada, the Zama, and the Guaviare, connects the valley of the Amazons with the valley of the Lower Orinoco. The word Paramo, which I often employ in these pages, signifies in Spanish Arierica all those mountainous regions which are elevated from 1800 to 2200 toises above the level of the sea (11,500 to 14,000 English feet in round numbers), and in which an ungenial, rough, and misty climate prevails. Hail and snow fall daily for several hours in the upper Paramos, and furnish a beneficial supply of moisture to the alpine plants; a supply not arising from a large absolute quantity of aqueous vapor in these high regions, but from the frequency of showers (hail and snow being so termed as well as IJtin), produced by the rapidly changing currents of air, and the variations of the electric tension. The arborescent vegetation of these regions is low and spreading, consisting chiefly of large flowering laurels and myrtleleaved alpine shrubs, whose knotty branches are adorned with fresh and evergreen foliage. Escallonia tubar, Escallonia myrtilloides, Chuquiragua insignis, Aralias, Weinmannias, Frezieras, Gaultherias, and Andromeda reticulata, may be regarded as representatives of the physiognomy of this vegetation. To the south of the town of Santa Fe de Bogota is the Paramo de la Suma Paz; a lonely mountain group, in which, according to Indian tradition, vast treasures are buried. The torrent which flows under th.e remarkable natural bridge of the rocky ravine of Icononzo rises in this Paramo. In my Latin memoir, entitled "De distributione geographica Plantarum secundem creli temperiem et altitudinem montium, 1817," I have sought to characterize those mountain regions : "Altitudinc 1700-1900 hexapod. Asperrimre solitudines, qure a colonis hispanis uno nomine Paramos appellantur, tempestatum vicissitudinibus mire obnoxire, ad quas solutre et emollitre defl.uunt nivcs; ventorum flatibus ac nimborum grandinisque jactu tumultuosa regie, qure requc per diem et per noctes riget, solis nubila et tristi luce fere nunquam calefacta. Habitantur in hac ipsa altitudine sat magnre civitates, ut Micuipampa Peruvianorum, ubi thermometrum centes. meridic inter 9 |
