POINTS OF RESEMBLANCE. 



91 



of the transverse chains which divide America front oast to 

 west, it will be sufficient to notice the general struct-.ro of a 

 continent, the extremities of which, though situated in cli- 

 mates little analogous, nevertheless present several features 

 of resemblance. In order to have an exact idea of the plains, 

 their configuration, and their limits, we must know the chains 

 *f mountains that form their boundaries. We have already 

 described the Cordillera of the coast, of which the highest 

 summit is the Silla de Caraccas, and which is linked by the 

 Paramo de las Rosas to the Nevada de Merida, and the 

 Andes of New Grenada. We have seen that, in the tenth 

 degree of north latitude, it stretches from Quibor and Bar- 

 quesimeto as far as the point of Paria. A second chain of 

 mountains, or rather a less elevated but much larger group, 

 extends between the parallels of 3 and 7 from the mouths 

 of the Guaviare and the Meta to the sources of the Orinoco, 

 the Marony, and the Essequibo, towards French and Dutch 

 Guiana. I call this chain the Cordillera of Parime, or of 

 the great cataracts of the Orinoco. It may be followed for 

 a length of two hundred and fifty leagues ; but it is less a 

 chain, than a collection of granitic mountains, separated by 

 small plains, without being everywhere disposed in lines. 

 The group of the mountains of Parime narrows considerably 

 between the sources of the Orinoco and the mountains of 

 Demerara, in the Sierras of Quimiropaca and Pacaraimo, 

 which divide the waters between the Carony and the Rio 

 ""arime, or Eio de Aguas Blancas. This is the scene of the 

 tpeditions which were undertaken in search of El Dorado, 

 id the great city of Manoa, the Timbuctoo of the New Con- 

 aent. The Cordillera of Parime does not join the Andes of 

 Tew Grenada, but is separated from them by a space eighty 

 agues broad. If we suppose it to have been destroyed in 

 lis space by some great revolution of the globe (which is 

 scarcely probable) we must admit that it anciently branched 

 off from the Andes between Santa Fe de Bogota and Pam- 

 plona. This remark serves to fix more easily in the memory 

 of the reader the geographical position of a Cordillera till 

 now very imperfectly known. A third chain of mountains 

 unites in 16 and 18 south latitude (by Santa Cruz de 

 Sierra, the Serranias of Aguapehy, and the famoui 



