395 



profile which I have given * of the configura- 

 tion of South America, under the parallel of 

 Chimborazo and Grand Para, across the plains 

 of the Amazon, we saw the land low towards 

 the east, in a talus, like an inclined plane, under 

 an angle of less than 25 seconds, on a length of 

 600 marine leagues. If, in the ancient state of 

 our planet, the Atlantic Ocean, by some extra- 

 ordinary cause, ever rose to 1100 feet above its 

 present level (a height one-third less than the 

 interior table-lands of Spain and Bavaria), the 

 waves must have broken in the province of Jaen 

 de Bracamoros, against the rocks that bound 

 the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras of the 

 Andes. The rising of this ridge is so inconsi- 

 derable compared to the whole continent, that 

 its breadth in the parallel of the Cape of Saint- 

 Roch is 1400 times greater than the mean 

 height of the Andes. 



We distinguish in the mountainous part of 

 South America^ a chain and three groups of 



* Map of Columbia, according to the astronomical observa* 

 Hons of M. de Humboldt, by A. H. Brut, 1823, to which are 

 joined the profiles of the Cordilleras and the plains. In 

 tracing an outline by the parallel of 5° south latitude, from 

 Jaen de Bracamoros, as far as Cape Saint-Roch, in the 

 greatest breadth of South America from west to east, we 

 find 880 leagues, or a regular slope of \h feet in the league 

 of 17,130 pieds de rot, or of 5 i 3 0 inch in the mile of 951 toises, 

 (See Vol. iv, p. 454.) 



