596 



tion towards the north -west, becomes one of 

 the most powerful causes of the dryness which 

 prevails on the southern declivity* of the 

 mountains of the coast. Can it be admit- 

 ted that the direction of the eastern Cordillera 

 of New Grenada, which is nearly N. 45° E. f 

 from Santa Fe de Bogota, to beyond the Sierra 

 Nevada de Merida, and of which the chain of 

 the shore is but a continuation, has had an in- 

 fluence on the direction (hor. 3-4) of the strata 

 in Venezuela ? That region presents a very re- 

 markable loxodromism with the strata of mica- 

 slate, grauwacke, and the orthoceratite lime- 

 stone of the Alleghanies, and that immense ex- 

 tent of country (lat. 56°- 68°) lately visited by 

 Captain Franklin^. The direction N. E — 

 S. W. prevails in every part of North America, 

 as in Europe in the Fitchtelgebirge of Fran- 

 conia, in Taunus, Westerwald, and Eifel, in the 

 Ardennes, in the Vosges, Cotentin, in Scotland, 

 and intheTarentaise, at the south-west extremity 

 of the Alps If the strata of rocks in Vene- 

 zuela do not exactly follow the direction of the 

 nearest Cordillera, that of the shore, the paral- 

 lelism between the axis of one chain, and the 



* Vol. iv, p. 62, &c, 249. This southern declivity is 

 however less rapid than the northern. 



f Journey to the Polar Sea, 1824, p. 529, 534. 

 + See my Geognostic Essay, p. 58. 



