NATURAL AREAS AND REGIONS 



623 



B. Northern South America 



1. COLOMBIA* 

 BY FRANCIS W. PENNELL 



The Republic of Colombia, situated 

 in the northwestern corner of the South 

 American continent and adjoining the 

 isthmus of Panama, occupies a geogra- 

 phic position of extreme interest. Alone 

 among South American countries it 

 touches both the Atlantic and the 

 Pacific oceans, while its mountain- 

 systems and river-systems are the most 

 diversified within the American tropics. 

 The republic lies between latitudes 12 

 24' N. and 4 17' S. and between longi- 

 tudes 66 7' and 79 W., occupying an 

 area of about 460,000 sq. mi. 



I. TOPOGRAPHY 



A. Mountains 



The Andean uplands dominate the 

 western half of Colombia. Entering 

 from Ecuador to the south as a single 

 highland, the system soon divides into 

 three chains or "cordilleras" which 

 trend independently northward and 

 northeastward toward the Caribbean 

 Sea. (a) The Central Cordillera is 

 the highest and maintains without a 



1 In this account much topographical and clima- 

 tological data have been drawn from the compre- 

 hensive and detailed "Geografia de Colombia" by 

 Felipe Perez (Bogota, 1862) and "Nueva Geografia 

 de Colombia" by F. J. Vergara y Velasco (Bogota, 

 1901), with the latter's maps in the "Atlas Complete 

 de Geografia Colombiana" (Bogota, 1906). The 

 biological outline of Dr. F. M. Chapman in "The 

 Distribution of Bird-life in Colombia" (Bull. Amer. 

 Mus. Nat. Hist., XXXVI, 1917) is adopted, and 

 from this work is taken special data concerning 

 birds. The information about mammals is quoted 

 from memoranda kindly supplied by Dr. W. H. 

 Osgood of the Field Museum of Natural History. 

 For the Santa Marta region the study of "The Birds 

 of the Santa Marta Region of Colombia" (Ann. 

 Carnegie Mus., XIV, 1922) by Dr. W. E. C. Todd 

 and Mr. M. A. Carriker, and for the Goajira Penin- 

 sula a paper entitled "An Account of a Journey 

 through .... the peninsula of Goajira" by 

 Dr. M. T. Dawe (Bogota, 1917) have been of assist- 

 ance. Mr. P. J. Eder's "Colombia" (New York, 

 1913) and P. J. Bell's "Colombia" (issued as a hand- 

 book of the U. S. Dept. Commerce, Spec. Agent Ser. 

 205, Washington, 1921), give much practical infor- 

 mation. The writer has personally spent thirteen 

 months in botanical field-work in Colombia, and has 

 climbed from the warm lowland to the paramo on 

 each of the three cordilleras of the Andes; he has 

 collected plants in the departments of Antioquia, 

 Atlantico, Bolivar, Caldas, El Cauca, Cundina- 

 marca, Huila, Magdalena, Santander, Tolima, and 

 El Valle, and in the intendency of El Meta. 



break an axis of high peaks from the 

 Ecuador boundary to the Alto de Pereira 

 in Antioquia about 6 N. These peaks 

 repeatedly rise to snow, from south to 

 north the most important being the 

 group of the Tuquerres in Narino, of 

 the Coconucos (including Purace) in 

 El Cauca, the mountains Huila and 

 Barragan in El Valle, and the group of 

 the Quindio (including Tolima) in 

 Caldas. Colombia's only active vol- 

 canoes are in the southern part of this 

 chain. North of 6 N. the system is 

 lower and branches widely to form the 

 hilly country of central Antioquia, 

 the axis rising but once again to above 

 timber-line in the Paramo de Santa 

 In6s north of Medellin. (6) The West- 

 ern Cordillera, leaving the common 

 Andean highland-mass of the Tuquerres 

 and containing some of the highest 

 peaks of that mountain-knot, extends 

 north-northeastward parallel to the 

 Central Cordillera and nearly parallel 

 to the Pacific coast. Averaging much 

 the lowest of the three cordilleras, its 

 long axis mostly a range of forested hills, 

 which, however, rises in remote high- 

 lands to above timber-line, although 

 never to snow. North of the Rio Patia 

 the most considerable uplands are to the 

 north, where occur the more or less iso- 

 lated "paramos" of Cerro Torra, Cerro 

 Tatama, Farallones de Citara, the moun- 

 tains near Frontino, and the Paramillo. 

 (c) The Eastern Cordillera, leaving the 

 Central Andes at the Coconucos about 

 2 N., soon drop into a range of hills 

 trending southeastward, then turning 

 northeastward they form a narrow chain 

 with only occasional higher peaks until 

 3 48' N. is reached. Beyond this point 

 the Cordillera widens into a broad 

 upland, with a main axis and a con- 

 siderable diversity of side chains, 

 so as to form the table-land or plateau 

 of Bogotd. Here was developed the 

 ancient civilization of the Chibcha 

 Indians, many of whose towns as Bogota, 

 Chiquinquira and Tunja survive as 

 important Spanish American cities. 



