523 



cal observations, (as was projected in 1817,) 

 this undertaking would lead geographical en- 

 gineers to that unknown region which, at 3h° 

 west of Cayenne, divides the waters between 

 the coast of Guyana and the Amazon. Till 

 that period, which the political state of Brazil 

 seems to retard, the geognostic table of the 

 groupe of Parime can only be completed by 

 scattered notions collected in the Portugueze 

 and Dutch colonies. In going from the Uassa- 

 ri mountains (lat. 2° 25', long. 61° 50') which 

 form a part of the eastern branch of the Cordil- 

 lera of Pacaraina, we find towards the east, a 

 chain of mountains called by the missionaries 

 Acaray and Tumucuraque % Those two names 

 wander on our maps between 01° and 3° of 



* The Sierra Tumucuraque (Tumumucuraque of Caulin, 

 Tumucucuraque of Arrowsmith) appeared for the first time 

 on the map of La Cruz j and, as the name is there twice 

 placed with a difference of 3° of latitude, this double nomi- 

 nation has been religiously repeated on the maps of Surville, 

 Buache, &c. The geographer Sanson, who, in his Course of 

 the river of tlie Amazons, traced from tfie narrative of father 

 Acuna (1680), had the merit, in suppressing the lake Parime 

 and the Sierra Wacarima (Pacarahina) which had till then 

 been figured in the direction of a meridian, to have first 

 traced with some precision, a chain of mountains stretching 

 parallel to the equator, between the northern sources of the 

 Essequibo, Maroni, and Viapoco (Oyapock), and the south- 

 ern sources of the Urixamina (R. de Trombetas), of Curu- 

 patuba, and of the Ginipape or Rio Paru. 



