294 TIIE ANDES. 





1 shall proceed to notice separately the different systems of 

 mountains and plains, the mutual connection of which has 

 so powerful an influence on the state of industry and com- 

 merce in the nations of the New Continent. I shall give 

 only a general view of the systems situated beyond the 

 limits of the region which forms the special object of this 

 memoir. Geology being essentially founded on the study 

 of the relations of juxtaposition and place, I could not 

 treat of the littoral chain and the chain of the Parime 

 separately, without touching on the other systems south 

 and west of Venezuela. 



A. Systems of Mountains. 



I. COKDILLEKAS OP THE ANDES. This IS the most 



continuous, the longest, the most uniform in its direction 

 from south to north and north-north-west, of any chain of 

 the globe. It approaches the north and south poles at 

 unequal distances of from 22 to 33. Its development 

 is from 2800 to 3000 leagues, (20 to a degree,) a length 

 equal to the distance from Cape Finisterre in Gralicia to the 

 north-east cape (Tschuktschoi-Noss) of Asia. Somewhat 

 less than one half of this chain belongs to South America, 

 and runs along its western shores. North of the isthmus 

 of Cupica and of Panama, after an immense lowering, it 

 assumes the appearance of a nearly central ridge, form- 

 ing a rocky dyke that joins the great continent of 

 North America to the southern continent. The low lands 

 on the east of the Andes of Guatimala and New Spain, 

 appear to have been overwhelmed by the ocean, and now 

 form the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. As the continent 

 beyond the parallel of Florida again widens towards the 

 east, the Cordilleras of Durango and New Mexico, as well 

 as the Rocky Mountains, merely a continuation of those 

 UOrdilleras appear to be thrown still further westward, 

 that is. towards the coast of the Pacific Ocean ; but they 

 still remain eight or ten times more remote from it thau 

 m the southern hemisphere. We may consider as the 

 two extremities of the Andes, the rock or granitic island of 

 Diego Ramirez, south of Cape Horn, and the mountains 

 lying at the mouth of Mackenzie River, (lat 69, long. 

 130), more than twelve degrees west of the greenstone 



