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the Cordilleras of the Andes. Independent of 

 the height and mass of the column of water, the 

 figure of the landscape, and the aspect of the 

 rocks ; it is the luxuriant form of the trees and 

 herbaceous plants, their distribution into groups, 

 or into scattered thickets, the contrast of those 

 craggy precipices and the freshness of vegeta- 

 tion, which stamp a peculiar character on these 

 great scenes of nature. The fall of Niagara, 

 placed beneath a northern sky, in the region of 

 pines and oaks, would be still more beautiful, 

 were its drapery composed of heliconias, palms, 

 and arborescent ferns. The cataract of Tequen- 

 dama forms an assemblage of every thing that is 

 sublimely picturesque in beautiful scenery. 

 This fall is not however, as it is commonly be- 

 lieved to be in the country, and repeated by 

 naturalists in Europe, the loftiest cataract on the 

 Globe: the river does not rush, as Bouguer 

 relates, into a gulf of five or six hundred metres 

 of perpendicular depth ; but there scarcely exists 

 a cataract, which from so lofty a height preci- 

 pitates so voluminous a mass of waters. The 

 Rio de Bogota, after replenishing the marshes 

 between the village of Facatativa and Fontibon, 

 is still forty-four metres broad at Canoas, a little 

 above the fall ; which is half the breadth of the 

 Seine at Paris, between the Louvre and the 

 Palace of the Arts. The river narrows consi- 

 derably near its fall, where the crevice, which 



