551 



Buenos Ay res, Bambousacees {Ludolfia, 

 Miega) and Palm-trees grow at one of their 

 extremities, while the other during a great 

 part of the year is covered with ice and 

 snow. 



/3. The basin of the gulph op Mexico, and 

 op the Caribbean Sea. This is a continua- 

 tion of the basin of the Mississipi, Louisiana, 

 and Hudson's Bay. It may be asserted, that 

 all the low lands on the coast of Venezuela 

 which are preserved on the north of the 

 chain of the shore, and of the Sierra Nevada 

 de Merida, belong to the submerged part of 

 this basin. If I treat here separately con- 

 cerning the basin of the Caribbean Sea, it is 

 to avoid confounding what, in the present 

 state of the globe, is above and below the 

 surface of the waters. I have already shewn 

 in another place, how much the recent coin- 

 cidence of the epochs of earthquakes observed 

 at Caraccas, and on the banks of the Mis- 

 sissipi, the Arkansas and the Ohio *, justi- 

 fies the geologic views which regard as one 

 basin the plains bounded on the south, by 

 the Cordillera of the shore of Venezuela; on 

 the east, by the Alleghanies and the series of 

 the volcanoes of the West Indies ; and on the 

 west, by the Rocky Mountains (Mexican 



* Vol. iv, p. 9. 



