533 



ent extent to furnish lands for cultivation 

 where temperate climates prevail by degrees, 

 that may be compared with the delicious cli- 

 mates of Xalapa, Guaduas, Caraccas, and Ca- 

 ripe. This advantage, which depends at once 

 on the widening of the mass of the chain, and 

 of its counterforts, is no where found in the 

 same degree, on the east of the Andes, not even 

 in chains of a more considerable absolute 

 height, for instance in those of Venezuela and 

 the Oroonoko. The culminant points of the 

 Serra do Espinhago, in the Capitania of Minas 

 Geraes, are the Itambe (932 t.), the Serra da 

 Piedade, near Sahara (910 t.), the Itacolumi, 

 properly Itacunumi (900 t.), the Pico of Itabira 

 (816 t.), the Serras of Caraca, Ibitipoca, and 

 Papagayo. M. Auguste de Saint Hilaire felt a 

 piercing cold in the month of November, there- 

 fore in summer, in the whole Cordillera of 

 Lapa, from the Villa do Principe to the Morro 

 of Gaspar Suares *. 



We have just recognized two chains of moun- 

 tains nearly parallel, but of which the most ex- 

 tensive (that of the shore) is the least lofty. 

 The capital of Brazil is situated at the point 

 where the two chains draw nearest, arid are 

 linked together on the east of the Serra de 



* Sketch of a voyage to Brazil, p. 5. Eschwege, p. 5, 

 29-30, and above, Vol. v, p. 858 j Vol. vi, p. 402, . V 



