396 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES. 



water would contain less salt. His observations 

 were made with Baume's areometer. In lat. 

 27 N., lat. 74 10' west from Greenwich, the 

 water showed 3 95' in the salometer. In lat. 

 31 17' Ion. 66 21 W., or between 30 and 40 

 miles from the Bermudas, the salometer regis- 

 tered only 3 50'. In lat. 51 10' N., Ion. 14 

 47 W., the saltness was 4 10'. In lat. 51 15' 

 N., Ion. 8 3 55' W., about eight miles from the 

 lighthouse at Cork, it was 3 30', and when 

 near the first floating light of Liverpool, at high 

 tide, 3 20'. These are but examples of thirty 

 observations made in a voyage from Nassau to 

 Liverpool. 



The projects for an inter-oceanic canal to 

 connect the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean, are 

 still multiplying, and though some have been 

 relinquished, others are taking their places. 

 In all there have been eighteen distinct routes 

 proposed for such a canal. Of these, eight have 

 taken the river San Juan as their port of de- 

 parture on the Atlantic side ; the Pacific ter- 

 minus being respectively th bay of Fonseca, 

 the port of Realejo, the river Tamaruedo, Port 

 Brito, San Juan del Sur, the bay of Salinas, the 

 river Tampisque, and the Gulf of Nicoyo, and 

 the river San Carlos and the Gulf of Nicoya. 

 The well-known Tehuantepec route proposed 

 to cross higher up on the continent, west of the 

 Peninsula of Yucatan, and the proposed route 

 by the Gulf of Dulce and the river Cuyabon, 

 coincided almost exactly with the boundary 

 between Costa Rica and New Granada. Four 

 routes have been surveyed across the Isthmus 

 of Panama, two nearly parallel with the railroad, 

 one taking advantage of the Chagres River, 

 the other extending from Navy Bay to Panama 

 Bay ; one by the Trinidad and Cuymeto Rivers, 

 and another near the 79th meridian west from 

 Greenwich, from Port San Bias by the river 

 Chepo. Three routes have been proposed, be- 

 ginning in the Gulf of Darien ; one by the 

 Arquia and Tuyta Rivers, terminating in the 

 Gulf of San Miguel ; another by the Atrato 

 and Truando Rivers, terminating in Humboldt 

 Bay ; and a third by the rivers Atrato and 

 Tapipi, terminating in the bay of Cupica. Still 

 another route in this vicinity, originally sur- 

 veyed by Mr. Gisborne in 1852, has, during 

 the year, been resurveyed by an eminent 

 French engineer, M. Bourdiol, who reports 

 very favorably upon it. This route, starting 

 from the Pacific side in the Gulf of San Miguel, 

 ascends the Savannah River to its confluence 

 with the Lara, and thence crosses the Cordillera 

 to the bay of Caledonia. The length of the 

 canal would be about three miles, and the 

 height to be surmounted about 500 feet. 



In SOUTH AMERICA, the greater share of in- 

 terest, as connected with geographical explora- 

 tion, centres in the more southern States of the 

 continent. An effort is making by an American 

 company, under the sanction of the U. S. Gov- 

 ernment, to establish navigation on the Orinoco, 

 and to explore the higher waters of that river ; 

 and a prominent citizen of Venezuela, Don J. 



M. Torres Caicedo, has attempted to interest 

 the French Government in the enterprise. In 

 his memorial, he states that the basin of the 

 Orinoco has an extent of 300,000 square miles, 

 that it has 400 navigable affluents, and that by 

 way of its tributary the Meta, it not only con- 

 nects with the entire river system of New Gran 

 ada, east of the Andes, but also, through tho 

 Cassiquiare and Negro, with the Amazons and 

 its navigable branches, and that a steamer can 

 sail from the mouth of the Orinoco by its connec- 

 tions to southern Brazil or the centre of Bolivia. 

 In the valley of the Orinoco, or its immediate 

 vicinity, are found gold both in placers and 

 veins, mines of copper, tin, coal, uranium, and 

 quicksilver, petroleum springs, deposits of sul- 

 phur, sulphate of lime (plaster of paris), chalk, 

 asphaltum, and jade, rock crystal, and garnets. 

 The forests of this region abound in mahogany, 

 ebony, rosewood, Brazil wood, guaiacum, fus- 

 tic, vanilla, sarsaparilla, and all kinds of resins, 

 balsams, and gums. The cotton of the country 

 is of good quality, and the soil is admirably 

 adapted to its cultivation. This region, as well 

 as the upper tributaries of the Amazons, have 

 been very Mly explored by Mr. Richard Spence, 

 an English geographer, who has spent fifteen 

 years in investigating the commercial possibili- 

 ties of the country. 



Don Antonio de Raimondi, the Peruvian 

 geographer, has communicated to the Royal 

 Geographical Society some further memoirs 

 relative to Loreto. The eastern slope of this 

 province is drained by the Marauon, the Hual- 

 taga. and the Ucayali and their affluents, most 

 of them navigable. The mineral products of 

 the region are rock salt, sulphate of lime, alum, 

 sulphur, iron ore, lignite, and some gold. The 

 production of beeswax, and of straw goods 

 from the Panama grass, are the principal indus- 

 tries carried on by the very sparse and scattered 

 population which, with the exception of Moy- 

 abamba, the capital of the province, which has 

 a population of about 8,000 souls, does not ex- 

 ceed one person to every four square miles. 



Height of the principal Peaks of the Boliv- 

 ian Andes. On this question, Petermann's 

 Mittheilungen for January, 1864, gives "the fol- 

 lowing corrected table, which may be accepted 

 as the latest and most accurate statement on the 

 subject. Sir 'David Forbes, the English geolo- 

 gist, is its authority, though Ondarza's chart of 

 the Andes has also been compared. The heights 

 are given in English feet : 



Feet. 



Illampu or Sorata 24,812 



Illimani 24,155 



Sajama (volcano) 23,014 



Chololo (in Apolobamba) 22,374 



Hnajna Potpsi 21,882 



Cachaeomani (volcano) 21,583 



Quenuata I (volcanoes) 21,252 



Chepicani j wood mountains of Tacora 22,687 



Mururata 20,418 



Callinsani 20,530 



Potosi 15,724 



Tunari de Coehabamba 15,603 



Hermoso de Aullagas 15,747 



Portugaleti 14,720 



Espejos 9,337 



Misti (a volcano of Arequipa, Peru). 20 160 



