328 AUBIfEIiOUS TELSS. 



of the littoral chain with the Andes, like that of the Pyre- 

 nees with the mountains of Asturia and Galicia ; it is not 

 the effect of transversal ridges, like the connection of the 

 Pyrenees with the Swiss Alps, by the Black Mountain and 

 the Cevennes. The points of junction are between Truxillo 

 and the lake of Valencia. 



The eastern chain of New Grenada stretches N.E. by the 

 Sierra Nevada de Merida, as well as by the four Paramos of 

 Timotes, Niquitao, Bocono, and Las Eosas, of which the 

 absolute height cannot be less than from 1400 to 1600 toises. 

 After the Paramo of Las Eosas, which is more elevated than 

 the two preceding, there is a great depression, and we no 

 longer see a distinct chain or ridge, but merely hills, and 

 high table-lands surrounding the towns of Tocuyo and Bar- 

 quisimeto. "We know not the height even of Cerro del 

 Altar, between Tocuyo and Caranacatu ; but we know by 

 recent measures that the most inhabited spots are from 300 

 to 350 toises above sea-level. The limits of the mountain- 

 ous land between Tocuyo and the vallies of Aragua are, the 

 plans of San Carlos on the south, and the Eio Tocuyo on 

 the north ; the Eio Siquisique flows into that river. From 

 the Cerro del Altar on the N.E. towards Guigue and Valen- 

 cia, succeed, as culminant points, the mountains of Santa 

 Maria (between Buria and Nirgua) ; then the Picacho de 

 Nirgua, supposed to be 600 toises high; and finally Las 

 Palomeras and El Torito (between Valencia and Nirgua). 

 The line of water-partition runs from west to east, from 

 Quibor to the lofty savannahs of London, near Santa Eosa. 

 The waters flow on the north, towards the Golfo triste of 

 the Caribbean Sea ; and on the south, towards the basins of 

 the Apure and the Orinoco. The whole of this mountainous 

 country, by which the littoral chain of Caracas is linked to 

 the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca, was celebrated in Europe 

 in the middle of the nineteenth century ; for that part of 

 the territory formed of gneiss-granite, and lying between 

 the Eio Tocuyo and the Eio Yaracui, contains the auriferous 

 veins of Buria, and the copper- mine of Aroa, which is 

 worked at the present day. If, across the knot of the moun- 

 tains of Barquisimeto, we trace the meridians of Aroa, 

 Nirgua, and San Carlos, we find that on the N. W. that knot 

 is linked with the Sierra de Coro, and on the N.E. with tba 



