ILLUSTRATIONS (6). SOURCES OF THE ORIONCO. 179 



Duida), it appears to me probable that the Orinoco in its 

 upper part does not extend, at the utmost, beyond the meri- 

 dian of 64 8' west long. This point is, according to my 

 .combinations, 4 12' west of the little lake of Amucu, which 

 was reached by Sir Robert Schomburgk. 



I will now detail the conjectures of that traveller, after 

 having first given my own earlier ones. According to him 

 the course of the Upper Orinoco, to the east of Esme- 

 ralda, is directed from south-east to north-west ; my estima- 

 tions of latitude for the mouths of the Padamo and the 

 Gehette appear to be respectively 19' and 36' too small. 

 Schomburgk conjectures that the sources of the Orinoco 

 are situated in lat. '2 30', and the fine " Map of Guayana, 

 to illustrate the route of R. H. Schomburgk," which accom- 

 panies the splendid English \vork entitled Views in the Inte- 

 rior of Guiana, places its geographical sources in 64 56' 

 west long., i.e., 1 6' west of Esmeralda, and only 48' of 

 longitude nearer to the Atlantic than I had determined the 

 position of this point. Astronomical combinations led Schom- 

 burgk to place the mountain of Maravaca, which is about ten. 

 thousand feet high, in 3 41' lat. and 65 48' west long. The 

 Orinoco was scarcely three hundred yards wide near the 

 mouth of the Padamo or Paramu, and more to the west, where 

 it expands to a width of from four to six hundred yards, it 

 was so shallow, and so full of sandbanks, that the expedition 

 was obliged to dig channels, as the river bed was only fifteen 

 inches deep. Fresh- water dolphins were still to be seen 

 in great numbers everywhere a phenomenon which the 

 zoologists of the eighteenth century would not have expected 

 to find in the Orinoco and the Ganges. 



(7) p. 158 " The most luxurious product of a tropical 

 climate" 



The Bertholletia excelsa (Juvia), of the family of Myrtacete 

 (and placed in Richard Schomburgk' s proposed division of 

 Lecythideae), was first described in Plantes Equinoxiales, 

 t. i. 1808, p. 122, tab. 36. This colossal and magnificent 

 tree offers, in the perfect development of its cocoa-like, round, 

 close-grained, woody fruit, inclosing the three-cornered and 

 also woody seed-vessels, the most remarkable example of 

 luxuriant organic development. The Bertholletia grows in 



K 2 



