486 



the former of these rivers as far as the Raudal 

 of Tabaje, situate in the latitude of 1° 4', he 

 never saw a river flow in or out, that could be 

 taken for the Rio Negro. He adds farther, 

 that "a great Cordillera*, which stretches from 

 east to west, prevents the mingling of the wa- 

 ters, and renders all discussion on the pretended 

 communication of the two rivers useless." The 

 errors of father Gumilla arise from his firm 

 persuasion, that he had reached the parallel of 

 1° 4' on the Oroonoko. He deceived himself <*f* 

 by more than 5° 10' of latitude ; for I found by 

 observation at the mission of Atures, thirteen 

 leagues south of the rapids of Tabaje, the lati- 

 tude to be 5° 37' 34". Gumilla having gone 

 but little above the confluence of the Meta, it is 

 not surprising, that he had no knowledge of the 

 bifurcation of the Oroonoko, which is found by 

 the sinuosities of the river to be one hundred and 



* Father Caulin, who wrote in 1759, although his accurate 

 and very useful book (Historia corografica de la Nueva Anda- 

 lusia y vertientes del Rio Orinoco) appeared only in 1779, has 

 combated with great discernment the idea of a chain of moun- 

 tains, that prevents all communication between the basins of 

 the Oroonoko and the Amazon. "The error of father 

 Gumilla," says he, (libro i, cap. 10, p. 79), "consists in the 

 supposition of a Cordillera, which, uninterrupted, and like an 

 immense wall, stretches from the frontiers of New Granada 

 to the coasts of Cayenne. He forgets that chains of moun- 

 tains are often divided by deep (transversal) vallies, when, 

 seen from afar, they appear contiguas b indivisas." 



+ See vol. iv, p. 569. 



