485 



7 . Chain of the Shore of Venezuela. This 

 is the system of mountains of which the confi- 

 guration and direction have excited so powerful 

 an influence on the state of cultivation and 

 commerce of the ancient Capitania general of 

 Venezuela. It bears different names (moun- 

 tains of Coro, of Caraccas, of Bergantin, of 

 Barcelona, of Cumana, and of Paria) ; but all 

 these names belong to the same chain, of which 

 the northern part runs constantly along the 

 coast of the Caribbean Sea. It would be su- 

 perfluous to repeat here that this system of 

 mountains, which is 160 leagues long *, is a pro- 

 longation of the eastern Cordillera of the Andes 

 of Cundinamarca. There is an immediate con- 

 nection of the chain of the shore with the Andes, 

 like that of the Pyrenees with the mountains of 

 Asturia and Galicia; it is not the effect of trans- 

 versal ridges, like the connection of the Py- 

 renees with the Swiss Alps, by the Black 

 Mountain and the Cevennes. The points of 

 junction, hitherto so ill indicated by the maps, 

 are found between Truxillo, and the lake of 

 Valencia. The following are the details of that 

 junction. 



We have observed above that this eastern chain 

 of New Grenada stretches on the N. E. by the 



* It is more thaw double the length of the Pyrenees from 

 Cape Creuz to the point of Figuera. 



