84 



SOUTH AMEEICA— THE ANDES EEGIONS. 



height of 6,730 feet, while Mount Berg-antin, towards the western extremity of 

 the Cordillera, rises 5,480 feet above the surrounding plain. 



Consisting of metamorphie rocks, schists, limestones, and sandstones, overlaid 

 round their periphery by cretaceous deposits, the Cumana mountains have become 

 famous for their vast caverns, tenanted by myriads of birds which have acquired 

 the habits of bats. The entrance to these galleries is half concealed by festoons of 

 lianas and dense foliage. 



Easitwards the system is abruptly arrested by the alluvial lands of the Orinoco, 

 while the roots of the mountains disappear towards the south and west beneath 

 the almost horizontal strata of the llanos. Here, therefore, the ranare is com- 

 plet^ly interrupted, nor does any eminence appear above the level surface west of 

 the Rio Aragua, as far as the more copious Rio Unare, whose delta encloses the 



Fig. 28. — Gulf of Cariaco. 

 Scnle 1 : sno.fino. 



64° 20- 



West or breenwich 



63° 50' 



Depths. 



0to25 

 Fathoms. 



25 Fathoms 

 and upwards. 



12 Miles. 



isolated Morro Unare, some 3,400 feet high. But farther on the mountains 

 reappear, developing, as in the east, two parallel Cordilleras, a coast and an inland 

 range disposed in the normal direction from east to west. But here the coast 

 chain is the higher of the two ; it often takes the name of the Cordillera de la Silla, 

 from one of its conspicuous peaks. 



This range, which begins abruptly at Cape Codera, evidently forms a continua- 

 tion of the Paria and Cariaco mountains, and consists of gneiss, mica schists, and 

 metamorphie rocks. It runs close to the shore with scarcely any intervening 

 beach, so that its precipitous seaward escarpments can only be ascended by zigzag 

 and devious tracks. Between Guaira, at its northern base, and Caracas, on the 

 southern slope, the crest maintains a mean altitude of 5,250 feet, culminating in 

 the Naiguata peak (9,130 feet), a gneiss crag veined with quartz, supposed to 

 be inaccessible until ascended for the first time by Spence and Ernst in 1876. 



