450 



throw some light on analogous facts, which 

 are thought to have been observed in the interior 

 of Africa. I shall terminate this chapter by some 

 general reflexions on the hydraulic system of Spa- 

 nish Guyana • and shall prove, by examples 

 drawn from the ancient continent, that this 

 bifurcation, which has so long confounded the 

 geographers who have constructed maps of Ame- 

 rica, is the effect of a concurrence of circum- 

 stances, which, though rare, are to be found 

 alike in both hemispheres. 



Accustomed to consider the rivers of Europe 

 only in that part of their course where they are 

 contained between two lines of ridges [lignes de 

 faites\ consequently enclosed in vallies ; and 

 forgetting, that the obstacles which inflect both 

 the tributary streams and principal recipients 

 are less frequently chains of mountains, than 

 small risings of counter-slopes ; we find a diffi- 

 culty in conceiving the simultaneous existence 

 of these wiridings, these bifurcations, these com- 

 munications of rivers in the New World. That 

 vast continent is still more remarkable for the 

 extent and uniformity of it's plains, than for the 

 gigantic elevation of it's Cordilleras. The 

 phenomena which we observe in our hemisphere 

 only on the coast of the ocean, or round the 

 1 inland seas in the steppes of Bactriana, the 

 Aral, and the Caspian, are found in America 

 three or four hundred leagues distant from the 



