fjart Jf earth. 



NORTHERN REGIONS OF SOUTH AMERICA. 



CHAPTER I. 



VENEZUELA. 



EW GRANADA is almost entirely a mountain 

 region, occupied l>y the northern end of the Andes, 

 L^Si except where it slopes down towards the Isthmus 

 of Panama and the Caribbean Sea. Venezuela, however, 

 contains three distinct zones or characters of country — moun- 

 tains, forests, and open plains. The mountain regions, which 

 are also three in number, are separated by wide plains. On 

 the west, the mountains belong to the Andes — being spurs of 

 that range — a large portion consisting of table-lands, called 

 paramos, from 10,000 to 14,000 feet above the sea-level. 

 Among them lies the Lake of Maracaibo, ninety-two miles in 

 length, and eighty-two in width — the largest in South 

 America. On the north-east is the Sierra de Bergantin, and 

 in the south-east the Sierra de Parima. The forests extend 



