362 TlMEHRI. 



" Encamarada! How can we infer the absolute sterility 

 " of the primitive rocks of Guiana from testimony merely 

 " negative ; from the circumstance, that during a journey 

 " of three months we saw no auriferous vein appearing 

 " above the soil ? In order to bring together whatever 

 " may enlighten the government of this country on a 

 " subje6l so long disputed; I will enter upon a few more 

 " geological considerations. The mountains of Brazil, 

 " notwithstanding the numerous traces of imbedded ore 

 " which they display between Saint Paul and Villa Rica 

 '• have furnished only stream works of gold. More than 

 '* six-sevenths of the seventy-eight thousand marks 

 ** (;C52)OOo) of this metal, with which at the beginning 

 " of the 19th century, America annually supplied the 

 " commerce of Europe, have come, not from the lofty 

 *' Cordilleras of the Andes ; but from the alluvial lands 

 " in the east and west of the Cordilleras. These lands 

 " are raised but little above the level of the sea, like 

 " those of Sonora in Mexico ; and of Choco and Barbacoas 

 " in New Granada; or they stretch along in table lands 

 " as in the interior of Brazil. Is it not probable that 

 " some other depositions of auriferous earth extend 

 " towards the northern hemisphere, as far as the banks of 

 *' the Upper Orinoco and the Rio Negro, two rivers 

 " which form but one basin with that of the Amazon ? I 

 " observed, when speaking of El Dorado de Canelas, the 

 " Omaguas and the Iquiare, that almost all the rivers 

 " which flow from the wjsf., wash down gold in abun- 

 ^^ dance very jar from the Cordilleras, * * * * The 

 •' plains of Ramora * * * in fine all the country com- 

 •' prised between Juan de Bracamoros and the Guaviare 

 •' preserve their ancient celebrity for metallic wealth. 



