8 Annals of the Carnegie Museum. 



buttress of the Sierra Nevada by a ridge having a minimum altitude 

 of 5,000 feet, while its connection with the Horqueta is higher still. 

 A second spur of the main range, which extends southward from the 

 Snow Peaks, maintains an even greater mean elevation, there being 

 several peaks near its southern end 10,000 feet or more in height. Be- 

 yond these again, and separated by a valley having an elevation of only 

 3,000 feet, is another, isolated ridge, rising to 10,000 feet. Towards 

 the east the altitude of the Sierra Nevada gradually diminishes, until 

 it is lost in the low foothills of the Goajira Peninsula. 



Rivers. — " As may be easily imagined, from a range capped with 

 eternal snow, the Sierra Nevada gives birth to innumerable rivers. 

 Few States in the world can boast such a natural or more easily ap- 

 plied irrigation, and few tropical countries have such a supply of ice- 

 cold water laid on to their very doors, as the seething hot valley of 

 Dupar and the towns along the Cienaga [Grande] to Santa Marta. 



" The Rio Cesar is, after the Cauca and Sogamozo, the largest 

 tributary of the Rio Magdalena. It rises in a comparatively low por- 

 tion of the Nevada, the fountain-head being scarcely 3,000 feet above 

 the sea. . . . The three principal tributaries of the Rio Cesar, viz., 

 the Badillo, the Guatapuri, and the Ariguani, each almost as large as 

 the parent river, are from the [south slopes of] the Nevada, whereas 

 the watershed from the Andes is exceedingly scant, consisting only 

 in small rivulets, dangerous enough perhaps when swollen by continu- 

 ous and excessive rains, but usually all dried up the better part of 

 summer. 



" Rio Badillo, the first important affluent of the Rio Cesar, springs 

 somewhere from the snowy regions, east of the Guatapuri, although 

 I have never been able to find out exactly where. It is a much larger 

 river than its neighbour and brings down an enormous mass of water, 

 being in the driest summer two to three feet in depth. . . . 



" Rio Guatapuri, although not so large as the preceding, makes up 

 by its impetuosity for any want of water, and is the most dangerous 

 river in the whole State, rising in a few hours as many feet. It 

 springs from several lakes in the eternal snow region and passes among 

 the highest peaks of the Nevada, thus its waters are at a very low 

 temperature, even at its junction with the Rio Cesar" (Simons). Be- 

 yond this point the Rio Cesar becomes a river of respectable size, 



