504 



ject so much toward the river, that I measured 

 with difficulty a base of eighty toises. I found 

 the river eight hundred and eighty-nine toises 

 broad. In order to conceive how this passage 

 bears the name of a strait, we must recollect, 

 that the breadth of the river from Uruana to the 

 junction of the Meta is in general from 1500 to 

 2500 toises. In this place, extremely hot and 

 barren, I measured two granitic summits, much 

 rounded, one of which was only a hundred and 

 ten, and the other eighty-five toises. There are 

 higher summits in the interior of the group, but 

 in general these mountains, of so wild an aspect, 

 have not the elevation that is assigned to them 

 by the missionaries. 



We looked in vain for plants in the clefts of 

 the rocks, which are as steep as walls, and fur- 

 nish some traces of stratification*. We found 

 only an old trunk of aubletia^, with large po- 

 niform fruit, and a new species of the family of 

 the apocynesej. All the stones were covered 

 with an innumerable quantity of iguanas and 



* In one single place we saw the granite of Baraguan 

 stratified and divided into beds of three inches thick. The 

 direction of these beds was N. 20° W.; and their dip 85° 

 North-East. It was coarse-grained granite, stratified like 

 that of Las Trincheras, and not gneiss. (See above, chap, 

 xvi, p. 198.) 



f Aubletia tiburba. 



% Allamanda salicifolia. 



