THE CHIEIVA PALM-TBEE. 409 



mountains?* or have these walls of rock, these turrets of 

 granite, been upheaved by the elastic forces that still act in 

 the interior of our planet ? We may be permitted to medi- 

 tate a little on the origin of mountains, after having seen 

 the position of the Mexican volcanos, and of trachyte 

 summits on an elongated crevice; having found in the 

 Andes of South America primitive and volcanic rocks in a 

 straight line in the same cnain ; and when we recollect the 

 island, three miles in circumference, and of a great height, 

 which in modern times issued from the depths of the ocean 

 near Oonalaska. 



The banks of the Cassiquiare are adorned with the chiriva 

 palm-tree with pinnate leaves, silvery on the under part. The 

 rest of the forest furnishes only trees with large, coriaceous, 

 glossy leaves, that have plain edges. This peculiar phvsiog- 

 nomy f of the vegetation of the Guainia, the Tuamini, and 

 the Cassiquiare, is owing to the preponderance of the families 

 of the guttiferae, the sapotae, and the laurinese, in the equa- 

 torial regions. The serenity of the sky promising us a fine 

 night, we resolved, at five ui the evening, to rest near the 

 Piedra de Culiwacari, a solitary granite rock, like all those 

 which I have described between the Atabapo and the Cassi- 

 <l inure. We found by the bearings of the sinuosities of the 

 river, that this rock is nearly in the latitude of the mission 

 of San Francisco Solano. In those desert countries, where 

 man has hitherto left only fugitive traces of his existence, I 

 constantly endeavoured to make my observations near the 

 mouth of a river, or at the foot of a rock distinguishable by 

 its form. Such points only as are immutable by their 

 nature can serve for the basis of geographical maps. I 

 'blamed, in the night of the 10th of May, a good observa- 

 tion of latitude by a of the Southern Cross ; the longitude 

 was determined, but with less precision, by the chronometer, 



* The Sierra de la Parime, or of the Upper Orinoco, and the Sierra 

 (or Cainpos) dos Parecis, are part of the mountains of Matto Grosso, 

 and form the northern back of the Sierra de Chiquitos. I here name 

 the two chains of mountains running from east to west, and bordering the 

 plains or basins of the Cassiquiare, the Rio Negro, and the Amazon, 

 between 5 30' north, and 14 south latitude. 



f This physiognomy struck us forcibly, in the vast forests of Spanish 

 Guiana, only between the second and third degrees of north latitcde*. 



