601 



(lat. 3° 50' ; long. 62° 32'). I do not assert, 

 that these figures prove the knowledge of the 

 use of iron, or that they denote a very advanced 

 degree of culture ; but even on the supposition, 

 that, instead of being symbolical, they are the 

 fruits of the idleness of hunting nations, we 

 must still admit an anterior race of men, very 

 different from those who now inhabit the banks 

 of the Oroonoko and the Rupunuri. The more 

 a country is destitute of remembrances of gene- 

 rations that are extinct, the more important it 

 becomes to follow the least traces of what 

 appears to be monumental. The eastern plains of 

 North America display only those extraordinary 

 circumvallations, that remind us of the fortified 

 camps (the pretended cities of an immense ex- 

 tent) of the ancient and modern nomade tribes of 

 Asia. In the oriental plains of South America, 

 the force of vegetation, the heat of the climate, 

 and the too lavish gifts of nature, have opposed 

 obstacles still more powerful to the progress 

 of human civilization. Between the Oroonoko 

 and the Amazon I heard no mention of one wall 

 of earth, one vestige of a dike, one sepuchral 



of the confluence of the'JPirara with the Rio Mahu, one of 

 the upper branches of the Rio Branco. I found this situa- 

 tion on the difference of longitude which M. de la Condamine 

 has given between the Para and the fort of Rio Negro, 

 determining the mouth of the Rio Branco (long. 64° 38') 

 from the longitude of the fort. 



