GEOLOGY OP SOUTH AMEBICA. 285 



CHAPTEB XXXII. 



GEOGNOSTIC DESCRIPTION OP SOUTH AMERICA. 



North of the River Amazon, and East of the Meridian of the Siet ra 

 Nevada de Merida. 



THE object of this memoir is to concentrate the geological 

 observations which I collected during my journeys among 

 the mountains of New Andalusia, and Venezuela, on the 

 banks of the Orinoco, and in the Llanos of Barcelona, 

 Calabozo, and the Apure ; consequently, from the coast of 

 the Caribbean Sea, to the valley of the Amazon, between 

 2 and 10| north latitude. 



The extent of country which I traversed in different direc- 

 tions, was more than 15,400 square leagues. It has already 

 formed the subject of a geological sketch, traced hastily on 

 the spot, after my return from the Orinoco, and published 

 in 1801. At that period, the direction of the Cordillera on 

 the coast of Venezuela, and the existence of the Cordillera 

 of Parime, were unknown in Europe. No measure of alti- 

 tude had been attempted beyond the province of Quito ; no 

 rock of South America had been named ; there existed no 

 description of the superposition of rocks in any region ol 

 the tropics. Under these circumstances, an essay tending 

 to prove the identity of the formations of the two hemi- 

 spheres, could not fail to excite interest. The study of the 

 collections which I brought back with me, and four years of 

 journeying in the Andes, have enabled me to rectify my first 

 views, and to extend an investigation which, by reason of its 

 novelty, had been favourably received. That the most re- 

 markable geological relations may be the more easily seized, 

 I shall treat aphoristically, in different sections, the con- 

 figuration of the soil, the general division of the land, the 

 direction and inclination of the beds, and the nature of the 

 primitive, intermediarv, secondary, and tertiary rocka. 



