i 



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country ; the maritime country is intersected by 

 three chains of mountains, running parallel to the 

 Andes, between which are numerous vallies watered 

 by delightful rivers. The midland country is almost 

 fiat ; a few isolated hills only are to be seen, that 

 diversify and render the appearance of it more 

 pleasing. 



The Andes, which are considered as the loftiest 

 mountains in the world, cross the whole continent of 

 America, in a direction from south to north, for I 

 consider the mountains in North America, as only 

 a continuation of the Cordilleras. The part that 

 appertains to Chili may be 120 miles in breadth ; it 

 consists of a great number of mountains, all of them 

 of a prodigious height, which appear to be chained 

 to each other ; and where nature displays all the 

 beauties and all the horrors of the most picturesque 

 situations. Although it abounds with frightful pre- 

 cipices, many agreeable vallies and fertile pastures 

 are to be found there ; and the rivers that derive 

 their sources from the mountains,^- often exhibit the 



* The highest mountains of the Cordilleras of Chili are the 

 Manfios, in 28 deg. 45 min. the Tupungato, in 33. 24. the Desca- 

 bezado in 35 deg. the Blanquillo in 35.4. the Longavi in 35. 30. the 

 Chilian in 36. and the Corcobado in 43. I had no opportunity, 

 v/hile in the country, to measure the height of those mountains, 

 which naturalists assert are more than 20,000 feet above the level 

 of the sea. Buffon asserts, that the highest mountains of the earth 

 are to be found under the equator ; but having seen and particu- 

 larly noticed both those of Peru and of Chili, I doubt much the 

 correctness of this axiom, and am more inclined to adopt the 

 opinion of M. Bertrand, who, in his Memoirs upon the Struc- 

 ture of the Earth, says, " it is not true that the highest moun- 



