CHAIN OF VEXEZUELA. 327 



meridians of the capes of San Diego and San Augustin. 

 The culminant points, called El Picacho and Horqueta, are 

 near the western border of the group; they are entirely 

 separated from the peak of San Lorenzo, also covered with 

 eternal snow, but only four leagues distant from the port of 

 Santa Marta, towards the S.E. I saw this latter peak from 

 the heights that surrounded the village of Turbaco, south 

 of Carthagena. No precise measurement has hitherto 

 given us the height of the Sierra Nevada, which Dampier 

 affirms to be one of the highest mountains of the northern 

 hemisphere. Calculations founded on the maximum of dis- 

 tance at which the group is discerned at sea, give a height 

 of more than 3004 toises. That the group of the mountains 

 of Santa Marta is insulated is proved by the hot climate of 

 the lands (tierras calientes) that surround it. Low ridges 

 and a succession of hills indicate, perhaps, an ancient connec- 

 tion between the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta on one 

 side, by the Alto de las Minas, with the phonolitic and 

 granitic rocks of the Pen on and Banca,and on the other, by 

 the Sierra de Perija, with the mountains of Chiliguana and 

 Ocana, which are the spurs of the eastern chain of the 

 Andes of New Grenada. In this latter chain, the febrifuge 

 species of cinchona (corollis hirsutis, staminibus inclusis) 

 are found in the Sierra Nevada de Merida ; but the real 

 cinchona, the most northern of South America, is found in 

 the temperate region of the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta. 



III. LITTORAL CHAIN OP VENEZUELA. This is the 

 system of mountains the configuration and direction of 

 which have excited so powerful an influence on the cultiva- 

 tion and commerce of the ancient Capitania General of Ve- 

 nezuela. It bears different names, as the mountains of Coro, 

 of Caracas, of the Bergantin, of Barcelona, of Cumana, and 

 of Paria ; but all these names belong to the same chain, of 

 which the northern part runs along the coast of the Carib- 

 bean Sea. This system of mountains, which is 160 leagues 

 long,* is a prolongation of the eastern Cordillera of the 

 Andes of Cundinamarca. There is an immediate connection 



It is more than double the length of the Pyrenees, from Cape Creux 

 to the point of Figuera. 



