455 



one thousand three hundred and fifty miles (at 

 nine hundred and fifty toises), is found only 

 three hundred miles distant from it's sources. 

 The mouth of this river is situate nearly in two 

 degrees, the meridian of it's springs. 



The course of the Oroonoko, of which we 

 have rapidly traced the sketch, displays three 

 peculiarities well worthy of attention. 1st. The 

 constancy with which it remains near the group 

 of mountains, round which it turns at the south, 

 the west, and the north ; 2dly, the situation of 

 it's sources on ground, which would seem to 

 belong to the basins of the Rio Negro and the 

 Amazon ; 3dly, it's bifurcation, sending a branch 

 to another system of rivers. According to ideas 

 purely theoretic, we should be tempted to admit, 

 that rivers, having once issued from Alpine 

 vallies, at the tops of which they take birth, 

 must rapidly leave the mountains on a plane 

 more or less inclined, the greatest declivity of 

 which would be perpendicular to the axis of the 

 chain, or the principal line of ridges. Such a 

 supposition, however, would be contrary to what 

 we observe in the most majestic rivers of India 

 and China. A characteristic feature * of these 



* Ritter Erdkunde, vol. i, p. 248. We must not confound 

 those rivers, which during some time stretch along a chain of 

 mountains, after having reached the plains, with those rivers 

 that flow in valleys which are longitudinal, and consequently 

 parallel also to the great axis of the chain. 



