236 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 



( 6 ) p. 213. " The Sources of the Orinoco have never 

 been visited by any European'' 



Thus I wrote respecting these sources iii the year 1807, in 

 the first edition of the "Ansichten der Natur," and I have to 

 repeat the same statement after an interval of 41 years. The 

 travels of the brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk, so 

 important for all departments of natural knowledge and 

 geography, have afforded us thorough investigations of other 

 and more interesting facts ; but the problem of the situation 

 of the sources of the Orinoco has been only approximately 

 solved by Sir Robert Schomburgk. It was from the West that 

 M. Bonpland and myself advanced as far as Esmeralda, 

 or the confluence of the Orinoco and the Guapo ; and I was 

 able to describe with certainty, by the aid of well-assured in- 

 formation, the upper course of the Orinoco to above the 

 mouth of the Gehette, and to the small Waterfall (Raudal) de 

 los Guaharibos. It was from the East that Robert Schom- 

 burgk, advancing from the mountains of the Majonkong In- 

 dians, (the altitude of the inhabited portions of which he 

 estimated by the boiling point of water at 3300 F., or 3517 E. 

 feet), came to the Orinoco by the Padamo River, which the 

 Majonkongs and Guinaus (Guaynas ?) call Paramu (Reisen 

 in Guiana, ] 841, S. 448). In my Atlas I had estimated the 

 position of the confluence of the Padamo with the Orinoco at 

 N. lat. 3 12', and W. long. 65 46' : Robert Schomburgk 

 found it by direct observation, lat. 2 53', long. 65 48'. The 

 leading object of this traveller's arduous journey was not the 

 pursuit of natural history, but the solution of the prize ques- 



