SOUTH AMERICA-WEST INDIA ISLANDS. 



HHHIS great division of the western hemisphere 

 L is a triangular peninsula, joined to North 

 America by the Isthmus of Panama. With its 

 apex projected far into the Southern Ocean, its 

 western shores are washed by the Pacific, its 

 eastern by the Atlantic, and its base by the Atlan- 

 tic and the Caribbean Sea. It extends from 12 

 10' N. lat. to 52 30' S. lat. or, including the 

 archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, to 56 Cape 

 Horn in this parallel being generally reckoned 

 the extreme point of South America. Taken at 

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its widest part from Cape St Roque in Brazil to 

 Cape Blanco in Peru it extends from longitude 

 35 to 82 west. Its area is estimated at 6,429,853 

 square miles, of which about two-thirds lie within 

 the tropics. 



SUPERFICIAL FEATURES GEOLOGY. 



The surface of the continent falls into the 

 following natural divisions : r. The low, narrow 

 belt of country skirting the Pacific, of which the 



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