NOTES. Cill 



The Western Cordillera runs east of RioDagua, west of Cazeres Roldanilla, Toro 

 and Anserma near Cartago, S.S.W. N.N.E. to the Salto de San Antonio in the 

 Kio Cauca (lat. 5 14'), which is south-west of the Vega de Supia. From thence 

 and up to the Alto del Viento, 9600 feet high (Cordillera de Abibe, or' Avidi, 

 lat. 7 12'), the chain increases considerably in height and extent, and in the Pro- 

 vince of Antioquia unites with the middle or central cordillera. Farther to the 

 north, towards the sources of the Rios Lucio and Guacuba, the chain sinks and 

 subdivides into ranges of hills. The Cordillera Occidental, which, at the mouth 

 cf the Dagua in the Bahia de San Buenaventura, is only about thirty miles from 

 the coast line (lat. 3 50'), is twice as far from it in the parallel of Quibdo in 

 the Choco (lat. 5 48 ). This remark has some importance, because we must 

 not confound with the western chain of the Andes the high hilly land and the chain 

 of hills which in this province, rich in gold-washings, runs from Novita and 

 Tado along the right bank of the Rio San Juan, and the left bank of the Rio 

 Atrato, from south to north. It is this inconsiderable range of hills which, in 

 the Quebrada de la Raspadura, is traversed by the Canal of the Monk, which con- 

 nects two rivers (the Rio San Juan, or Noanama, and the Rio Quibdo, an affluent 

 of the Atrato), and thereby brings the two oceans into connection (Humboldt, 

 Essai Pol. t. i. p. 235) ; and it is also this range which was seen in Captain 

 Kellet's instructive expedition, between the Bahia de Cupica, in lat. 6 42', so 

 long fruitlessly extolled by me, and the sources of the Napipi, which falls into the 

 Atrato. (Compare Essai Pol. t. i. p. 231 ; and Robert Fitz-Roy's Considerations 

 on the great Isthmus of Central America, in the Journal of the Royal Geogr. 

 Soc. vol. xx. 1851, p. 178, 180, and 186.) 



The middle chain of the Andes (Cordillera Central), persistently the highest, 

 entering the region of perpetual snow, and running throughout its whole extent, 

 like the western chain, almost north and south, begins about thirty-four miles 

 north-east of Popayan with the Paramos of Quanacos, Huila, Iraca, and Chinche. 

 Further on towards the north rise, between Buga and Chaparral, the long 

 extended ridges of the Nevadode Baraguan (lat. 4 11'), la Montana de Quindio, 

 the snow-covered truncated cone of Tolima, the Volcano and Paramo deRuiz, and 

 the Mesa de Herveo. These high and rude mountain solitudes, designated in the 

 Spanish language by the name of Paramos, are distinguished by temperature and 

 by a peculiar character of vegetation, and in the part of the tropics which I am 

 now describing, occupy elevations which, by many measurements, may be stated to 

 average from 9500 to 11,000 French feet (10,124 to 11,723 Engl.). In the 

 parallel of Mariquita. the Herveo, and the Salto de San Antonio, begins the mas- 

 sive junction, or coalition, of the western and central chain which has been al- 

 ready alluded to. This coalition is most striking between the Salto de San 



