ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 97 



the south in the 8th degree of latitude, filling the space between the 

 eastern declivity of the high mountains of New Granada, and the 

 Orinoco, the course of which is, in this part, from south to north. 

 This latter portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, the 

 Vichada, the Zama, and the Guaviare, connects the valley of the 

 Amazons with the valley of the Lower Orinoco. The word Paramo, 

 which I often employ in these pages, signifies in Spanish America 

 all those mountainous regions which are elevated from 1800 to 2200 

 toises above the level of the sea (11,500 to 14,000 English feet in 

 round numbers), and in which an ungenial, rough, and misty climate 

 prevails. Hail and snow fall daily for several hours in the upper 

 Paramos, and furnish a beneficial supply of moisture to the alpine 

 plants ; a supply not arising from a large absolute quantity of aque- 

 ous vapor in these high regions, but from the frequency of showers 

 (hail and snow being so termed as well as rain), produced by the 

 rapidly changing currents of air, and the variations of the electric 

 tension. The arborescent vegetation of these regions is low and 

 spreading, consisting chiefly of large flowering laurels and myrtle- 

 leaved alpine shrubs, whose knotty branches are adorned with fresh 

 and evergreen foliage. Escallonia tubar, Escallonia inyrtilloides, 

 Chuquiragua insignis, Aralias, Weinmannias, Frezieras, Gaultherias, 

 and Andromeda reticulata, may be regarded as representatives of 

 the physiognomy of this vegetation. To the south of the town 

 of Santa Fe de Bogota is the Paramo de la Suma Paz; a lonely 

 mountain group, in which, according to Indian tradition, vast trea- 

 sures are buried. The torrent which flows under the remarkable 

 natural bridge of the rocky ravine of Icononzo rises in this Paramo. 

 In my Latin memoir, entitled "De distributione geographica Planta- 

 rum secundem coali temperiem et altitudinem montium, 1817," I 

 have sought to characterize those mountain regions : " Altitudine 

 1700-1900 hexapod. Asperrimse solitudines, quse a colonis hispa- 

 nis uno nomine Paramos appellantur, tempestatum vicissitudinibus 

 mire obnoxise, ad quas solutse et emollitae defluunt nivesj ventorum 

 flatibus ac nimborum grandinisque jactu tumultuosa regio, quse seque 

 per diem et per noctes riget, solis nubila et tristi luce fere nunquam 

 calefacta. Habitantur in hac ipsa altitudine sat magnse civitates, ut 

 Micuiparnpa Peruvianorum, ubi thermometrum centes. meridie inter 

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