298 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



dation at 45 feet above the ordinary level ; but above the greatest height to which its 

 waters are now elevated, he traced its ancient action at 106 or even 138 feet. " Is this 

 river, then," inquires he, " the Orinoco, which appears to us so imposing and majestic, 

 merely the feeble remnant of those immense currents of fresh water which, swelled by 

 Alpine snows or by more abundant rains, every where shaded by dense forests, and 

 destitute of those beaches that favour evaporation, formerly traversed the regions to the 

 east of the Andes, like arms of inland seas ? What must then have been the state of 

 those low countries of Guiana, which now experience the effects of annual inundations ! 

 What a prodigious number of crocodiles, lamartines, and boas must have inhabited these 

 vast regions, alternately converted into pools of stagnant water and arid plains ! The more 

 peaceful world in which we live has succeeded to a tumultuous world. Bones of masta- 

 dons and real American elephants are found dispersed over the platforms of the Andes. 

 The megatherium inhabited the plains of Uruguay. By digging the earth more deeply 

 in high valleys, which at the present day are unable to nourish palms or tree-ferns, we 

 discover strata of coal, containing gigantic remains of monocotyledonous plants. There 

 was therefore a remote period when the tribes of vegetables were differently distributed, 

 when the animals were larger, the rivers wider and deeper. There stop the monuments 

 of nature which we can consult." 



This grand stream, when more than five hundred miles inland, has a breadth measuring 

 upwards of three miles. In its regular rise and fall, with the delta at its mouth, the 

 numerous crocodiles, the cataracts or rapids in the upper part of its course, and the level 

 plains of the lower, it bears a close resemblance to the Nile. It is remarkable also for 

 the varying direction of its course, setting out from east to west, then turning north, and 

 finally running from west to east, so as to bring its estuary and source into nearly the 

 same longitude. The disturbance caused by the collision of the powerful current of the 

 river with the Atlantic, led the inexpert early navigators to denominate that part of the 

 ocean the Bay of Sadness, Golfo Triste; and the channel between the continent and the 

 island of Trinidad, they similarly styled the Dragon's Mouth, Boca del Drago. The 

 Orinoco is historically memorable as having been entered by Columbus, who sagaciously 

 inferred from its volume the continental character of the adjoining region. It is 

 physically remarkable for its basin so running into that of the Amazon, that water 

 communication subsists naturally between the two primary streams. This fact has already 

 been mentioned ; but as a rare feature in the physics of the earth, and as illustrating the 

 energy of Humboldt, the great traveller of modern times, by whom it was decisively 

 determined, we may recur to it. 



He and Bonpland left Caraccas in the year 1800, crossed the valleys of Aragua, and 

 the Llanos of Calabozo excellent pastures, which separate the cultivated part of 

 Venezuela from the region of the forests and missions and embarked at San Fernando, 

 on the Rio Apure, to follow its course downwards to its discharge into the principal branch 

 of the Orinoco. They then ascended the Orinoco, passing its two great cataracts of 

 Apures and Maypures, and reached the village of San Fernando de Atabapo, situated at 

 the junction of the Guaviare and Atabapo, and near lat. 4 N. Here they left the river, 

 and sailed up the Atabapo to the mouth of the Rio Temi; which latter they followed as 

 far as its confluence with the Tuanimi, and arrived at the village of San Antonio de 

 Javita> formerly mentioned as remarkable for its amount of rain. From this point the 

 Indians carried their boat across the isthmus which separates the Tuamini from the Rio 

 Pimichin, the travellers following on foot, passing through dense forests, often in danger 

 from the number of snakes that infested the marshes. Embarking on the Pimichin, they 

 came in four hours and a half into the Rio Negro. " The morning," says Humboldt, " was 

 cool and beautiful. We had been confined thirty-six days in a narrow canoe, BO unsteady 



