311 



municate with the basin of the Amazon and the 

 Rio Negro, bounded on one side by the Cor- 

 dillera of Chiquitos, and on the other by the 

 mountains of Parime. The opening, which re- 

 mains between these last and the Andes of New 

 Grenada, occasions this communication. The 

 aspect of the land here reminds us, but on a 

 much larger scale, of the plains of Lombardy, 

 which also are raised only fifty or sixty toises 

 above the level of the ocean * ; and are directed 

 first, from La Brenta to Turin, East and West ; 

 and then, from Turin to Coni, North and South. 

 If we were authorized from other geological 

 facts, to regard the three great plains of the 

 Lower Oronooko, the Amazon, and the Rio de 

 la Plata, as the basins of ancient lakes -f, we 

 should imagine we perceived in the plains of 



* Mr. Oriani found the surface of the botanical garden of 

 the college of Brera, at Milan, only 65*7 toises, and that of 

 the great square of Pavia only 43*5 above the coasts. But 

 the level of lake Maggiore, on the northern side of the plain, 

 is 106 toises high ; and Turin (at the hall of the Academy), 

 at the western extremity of the plain, is, according to Mr. 

 Ducros, 125 toises above the level of the Adriatic. 



t In Siberia the great steppes between the Irtisch and 

 the Oby, especially that of Baraba, full of salt lakes 

 (Tchabakly, Tchany, Karasouk, and Topolnoy), appear to 

 have been, according to the Chinese traditions, even within 

 historical times, an inland sea. See the learned researches 

 of Mr. Julius von Klaprotk, Mag. Encydopediquc, Seplembrc 

 1817, p. 134. 



