SOUTH AMEKICA. 159 



years in the country, the business was left unfinished. 

 Although the line was therefore never formally es- 

 tablished; yet the natural boundaries are in general, 

 of so bold and permanent a chaarcter, as to leave lit- 

 tle room for dispute. The Portuguese geographers, 

 however^ still continue to claim the same extent as if 

 no treaties had been entered into. 



Some writers in describing the Brazil, speak of it 

 as an immense triangle, each of its sides two thousand 

 miles in length. The Corografia Braziiica, calls it a 

 peninsula formed by the Atlantic ocean on the east, 

 on the west by the Madeira, and on the south by the 

 Paraguay, which interlocks with this river. The 

 isthmus of no great width, and formed by the dividing 

 ridge between the waters of the two greatest rivers in 

 the Avorld. Lying within the tropics, or immediate- 

 ly on their borders, the diversity of climate, is of 

 course not striking as respects the variations of the 

 seasons, or the productions of the earth. Although 

 generally a hilly and mountainous country, it has no 

 mountains that approach the elevation of those of Peru, 

 where under the torrid zone there may be found the 

 temperature of the mildest climates. Their height is 

 j fiuflBcient, however, in many parts to influence the 

 I temperature considerably, although elevated plains, 

 I similar to those described by Humboldt, are probably 

 I not to be met with. There are powerful causes how- 

 I ever, which cannot but have great influence on the 

 temperature of Brazil. The piercing south-west 

 I winds sweeping over the pampass of Buenos Ayres, 

 pass over a great part of it, and the cool air from the 

 immense snowy ridges of the east, must no doubt have 

 a great effect in tempering the heat to which the im- 



