230 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



about to abandon the project in despair of obtaining water, when Admiral Wrangel per 

 suaded him to continue his operations till he had perforated the whole stratum of ice. This 

 was done, and at the depth of 382 feet the soil was found very loose, and the temperature 

 of the earth was 31 Fahrenheit. The external appearance of these cold districts is 

 admirably depicted by a writer quoted by Berghaus. With painful feelings, he states, 

 the traveller observes the trees diminishing in height the nearer he approaches the icy sea. 

 At ninety German miles from the sea, erect and lofty larch trees afford a veil to expiring 

 nature, but from this point their number diminishes, and they become small and crippled. 

 The coating of moss that covers the tree is thicker than the stem itself ; but nothing can 

 save it from the destroying breath of the north. Some thin birches endeavour to contend 

 against this fearful foe, but they perish when scarcely sprung from the bosom of the earth, 

 and 70 latitude may be assigned as the limit of the growth of trees. It is only the moss, 

 the true child of the north, which thrives and blooms even in the midst of winter, and 

 scantily covers a soil which has been barren for thousands of years. From the last 

 tree to the frozen ocean extends an enormous desert covered with lakes and lagunes. 

 Some of the lakes are large and deep, and rich in fish, their lofty banks consisting of 

 level beds of earth and ice, the ice covering the earth. Throughout this region a death 

 like silence reigns, seldom interrupted except by the summer birds of passage. 



We now proceed to notice the flat lands of the New Continent. A large portion of 

 South America is only slightly raised above the level of the ocean. Supposing, as the 

 effect of some particular attraction, the waters of the Atlantic to be raised fifty fathoms at 

 the mouth of the Orinoco, and two hundred fathoms at that of the Amazon, the flood would 

 cover over more than one-half of that part of the New World, and the billows of the sea 

 would dash against the eastern slope or foot of the Andes, which is now nearly 2000 miles 

 from the coast of Brazil. Comparatively low transverse ridges, running east and west, 

 divide South America into three great districts. Through the northern district the 

 Orinoco flows ; through the central, the Amazon ; and through the southern, the La 

 Plata. The country on each side of these rivers consists of enormous levels, to which 

 the terms Llanos, Selvas, and Pampas, are applied, distinguishing the regions bordering 

 on these mighty streams, in the order in which they have been named. 



The Llanos border on the Orinoco, and are plains, including the vast area of 260,000 

 square miles, at the mean height of 200 feet above the level of the sea, sluggishly there 

 fore bearing tributary streams to the great watercourse. The name is an abbreviation 

 of loca plana, and was applied to them by the first Spanish conquerors, on account of 

 their singular flatness. Humboldt has described the Llanos with great felicity, and 

 presents us with the following graphic picture : "The sun," he thus commences, "on 

 our entrance into the basin of Llanos, stood almost in the zenith ; the ground, wherever it 

 was naked and destitute of plants, was of a temperature which attained 48 or 50 degrees. 

 No breeze was perceptible at the height on which we were sitting on our mules, yet there 

 arose, in the midst of this apparent repose, an incessant cloud of dust driven by light 

 breaths of wind which swept only the surface of the ground, and produced differences of 

 temperature, which were imparted to the naked sand and the spots of grass. These sand- 

 winds increase the suffocating heat of the air. Every grain of sand, hotter than the atmo 

 sphere which surrounds it, beams on all sides, and it becomes difficult to measure the 

 temperature without the grains of sand beating against the ball of the thermometer. 

 All around us, the plains seemed to rise to heaven, and this vast and silent desert appeared 

 to our eyes like a gea which is covered with sea-weed, or the alga? of the deep sea. Accord 

 ing to the inequality of the mass of vapour floating in the atmosphere, and the alternating 

 temperature of the breezes contending against each other, was the appearance of the 

 horizon ; ia some places clear and sharply defined, in others wavy, crooked, and, as it 



