202 



MARKS OF INUNDATIONS. 



rock and collected into crusts ; a few succulent plants 

 growing among little portions of quartz-sand ; and 

 tufts of evergreen shrubs springing up in the black 

 mould deposited in the hollows. At the distance 

 of eight or ten miles from the religious house they 

 found a rich and diversified assemblage of plants, 

 among which M. Bonpland obtained numerous new 

 species. Here grew the Dipterix odorata. which fur- 

 nishes excellent timber, and of which the fruit is 

 known in Europe by the name of tonkay or tongo 

 bean. 



In a narrow part of the river the marks of the 

 great inundations were 45 feet above the surface ; 

 but at various places black bands and erosions are 

 seen, 106, or even 138 feet above the present highest 

 increase of the waters. " Is this river, then," says 

 Humboldt, " the Orinoco, which appears to us so im- 

 posing and majestic, merely the feeble remnant 

 of those immense currents of fresh water which, 

 swelled by alpine snows, or by more abundant rains, 

 everywhere shaded by dense forests, and destitute 

 of those beaches which favour evaporation, formerly 

 traversed the regions to the east of the Andes, like 

 arms of inland seas ? What must then have been 

 the state of those low countries of Guiana, which 

 now experience the effects of annual inundations 1 

 What a prodigious number of crocodiles, laman- 

 tines, and boas must have inhabited these vast 

 regions, alternately converted into pools of stagnant 

 water and arid plains ! The more peaceful world in 

 which we live has succeeded to a tumultuous world. 

 Bones of mastodons and real American elephants 

 are found dispersed over the platforms of the Andes. 

 The megatherium inhabited the plains of Uruguay. 

 By digging the earth more deeply in high valleys, 

 which at the present day are unable to nourish palms 

 or tree-ferns, we discover strata of coal containing 

 gigantic remains of monocotyledonous plants. There 

 was therefore a remote period, when the tribes of 



