286 CONFIGURATION OE THE CONTINENT. 



SECTION I. 



Configuration of the Country Inequalities of the Soil Chains and 

 Groups of Mountains Divisionary Ridges Plains or Llanos. 



SOUTH AMERICA is one of those great triangular masses 

 which form the three continental parts of the southern 

 hemisphere of the globe. In its exterior configuration it 

 resembles Africa more than Australia. The southern ex- 

 tremities of the three continents are so placed, that in sailing 

 from the Cape of Good Hope (lat. 33 55') to Cape Horn 

 (lat. 55 58'), and doubling the southern point of Van 

 Diemen's Land (lat. 43 38'), we see those lands stretching 

 out towards the south pole in proportion as we advance 

 eastward. A fourth part of the 571,000 square sea leagues* 

 which South America comprises, is covered with mountains 

 distributed in chains, or gathered together in groups. The 

 other parts are plains forming long uninterrupted bands 

 covered with forests or gramina, natter than in Europe, and 

 rising progressively, at the distance of 300 leagues from the 

 coast, between 30 and 170 toises above the level of the sea. 

 The most considerable mountainous chain in South America 

 extends from south to north, according to the greatest di- 

 mension of the continent ; it is not central like the European 

 chains, nor far removed from the sea-shore, like the Himalaya 

 and the Hindoo-Koosh ; but it is thrown towards the western 

 extremity of the continent, almost on the coast of the Pacific 

 Ocean. Referring to the profile which I have givenf of the 

 configuration of South America, in the latitude of Chimborazo 

 and Grand Para, across the plains of the Amazon, we find 

 the land low towards the east, in an inclined plane, at an 

 angle of less than 25 seconds on a length of 600 leagues ; 

 and if, in the ancient state of our planet, the Atlantic Ocean, by 

 some extraordinary cause, ever rose to 1100 feet above its pre- 

 sent level (a height one-third less than the table-lands of Spain 

 and Bavaria), the waves must, in the province of Jaen de Bra- 

 camoros, have broken upon the rocks that bound the eastern 



* Almost double the extent of Europe. 



f* Map of Columbia, according to the astronomical observations of 

 Humboldt, by A. H. Drug, 1823. 



