CHAPTER V. 



THE CORDILLERAS. 



HE voyager sailing from the Atlantic into the 



Pacific Ocean passes a dark granite headland rising 



nearly three thousand feet out of the water, and 



which may be distinctly seen at a distance of sixty miles. 



It is Cape Horn^the southern end, broken off by the Strait 



of Magellan, of that range of mighty mountains which runs , 



in a northerly course along the western coast of South ! 



America, rising into lofty pinnacles — the summits of many ; 



covered with perpetual snow — sinking at length only at the i 



northern extremity, where the narrow Isthmus of Panama j 



unites the two continents. Again it gradually rises in Mexico, | 



and runs on under the name of the Rocky Mountains, at a ; 



less elevation and a greater distance from the sea, till it sinks : 



once more into the snow-covered plains of the Arctic region. ; 



We must, however, confine oureelves to the South American j 



I 



})ortion of the range. For the entire distance its summits are I 



distinctly seen from the ocean, many at a distance of up- 

 wards of a hundred miles. Between their base and the shores \ 

 of the Pacific there is, however, a level tract, in some parts | 

 consisting of arid plains, from fifteen to fifty miles in width. ; 



