422 



clivity # is xery rapid, and their loftiest sum- 

 mits are placed not at the centre, but in the 

 northern part of the group. 



The principal Cordillera of Chili and Upper 

 Peru, after having thrown towards the east the 

 three counter-forts of Cordova, Salta, and Co- 

 chabamba or Santa Cruz, is, for the first time, 

 ramified very distinctly into two branches, in 

 the knot of Porco, and Potosi, between 19° and 

 20° of latitude. These two branches comprehend 

 the table-land extending from Carangas to 

 Lampa (lat. 19|° — 15°) and which contains the 

 small alpine lake of Paria, the Desaguadero, 

 and the great Laguna of Titicaca or Chucuito, 

 of which the western part bears the name of 

 Vinamarca. To give a just idea of the colossal 

 dimensions of the Andes, I shall here observe 

 that the surface of the lake of Titicaca only 

 (448 square marine leagues) exceeds twenty 

 times that of the lake of Geneva, and twice the 

 mean extent of a department of France. It is 



* I owe a more perfect knowledge of the Sierra de Co- 

 chabamba, to the manuscripts of my countryman the cele>? 

 brated botanist, Taddeus Haenke, which a monk of the con- 

 gregation of the Escurial, father Cisneros, kindly commu- 

 nicated to me at Lima. Mr. Haenke, after having followed 

 the expedition of Alexander Malaspina, settled at Cocha- 

 bamba, in 1798, where he received great proofs of the friendr 

 ship of the intendant, Don Francisco de Viedma. A -part 

 pf the immense herbal of this botanist is now at Prague. 



