526 



are better known towards the south than the 

 north, where a mountainous country appears to 

 advance in Dutch and French Guyana, as far 

 as from 20 to 25 leagues of the coast. The 

 numerous cataracts of the rivers of Surinam, 

 Maroni, and Oyapock, prove the extent and 

 the prolongation of rocky ridges ; but nothing 

 hitherto indicates that there exists in those re- 

 gions (as sometimes has been hastily an- 

 nounced), continued plains, or table-lands some 

 hundred toises high, fitted for the cultivation 

 of the plants of the temperate zone. 



I have just collected into one geognostic table 

 all the materials I possess on the system of the 

 mountains of Parime. Its extent surpasses 

 nineteen times that of the whole of Switzer- 

 land ; and even considering the mountain- 

 ous groupe of the sources of the Rio Negro and 

 the Xie as independent or insulated amidst the 

 plains, we still find the Sierra Parime (between 

 Maypures and the sources of the Oyapock) to 

 be 340 leagues in length, and its greatest 

 breadth (the rocks of Imataca, near the delta 

 of the Oroonoko, at the sources of the Rio Paru) 

 140 leagues. In the groupe of the Parime, as 

 well as in the groupe of the mountains of cen- 

 tral Asia, between the Himalaya and the Altai, 

 the partial chains are often interrupted, and 

 present no constant parallelism. Towards the 

 south-west however, (between the strait of 



