204 Surface Configuration of Guiana. 
distance one takes for basalt rather than for sandstone. With Eoraima 
there stood before me the watershed of the three large river areas of 
Guiana, that of the Amazon, the Orinoco, and the Essequibo. My 
brother had already once touched upon and examined the mountain- 
range, and hence I propose including here an abstract of his experiences 
"The Parima Eange divides the plains of the lower Orinoco from those 
of the Eio ivegro and the miglity Amazon, and extends, according to 
Alexander von HiinibdUlt, the first to make us acquainted with this 
surface contiguration of CUiiana, between and 8" lat. X. and 00° to 67° 
long. W. The system extends from 85° N. to West up to the banks of 
the Rio Xegro and Kio r>ranro over an area of 2:i."),()OÜ square miles. If 
the sliape and disixtsition of its parts is regaiMlcd strictly from a 
geographical point of view, the term Cordillera cannot by any means be 
applied to it, because it is formed not so much of one continuous 
chain, liut far ratliei- of a regular group of isolated mountains, divided 
from one another by ])lains and savannahs, a granitic cluster the 
like of wliich, conijiared with its extent, indeed only a few are known 
in either hemisphere. The copious beds of gneiss and masses of metamor- 
phic rocks indicate clearly and undoubtedly that the whole mountain- 
range owes its origin to fire. As has already been noted in many another 
large range, tlie liigliest points of elevation are likewise to be found, not 
at its centre, but at its spurs, in fact in the most southerly and northerly 
of its mountains: over there it is !Marawaca and Duida in the neigh- 
bourhood of the Orinoco, here it is Roraima. Marawaca rises 8,219 ft.,* 
Rornima 8.000 ft. above sea-level. Closely associated with the 
Parima mountain-chain is the isolated broken-away Pacaraima or Paca- 
liulia Ranue of our mor( recent maps. I have travelled this wildly- 
romantic mountain-system throughout its entire length from the banks 
of the Corentyn to those of the Orinoco, over more than nine degrees of 
loiiG;itude. and although it is in very large measure broken up l)y a num- 
ber of plains and valleys, it nevertheless forms an uninterrupted masf! of 
granite extending from 59° long, as far as the latter river's remarkable 
bifurcation. Whereas its eastern portion, the Parima Range ( collectively 
tnken) is broken through by the Corentvn and Essequibo, the Pacaraima 
system forms towards the westwai'd the water-shed of the three large 
basins of the northern portion of South America, the Amazon,' Orinoco 
and Esii-enuibo. 
459. The most characteristic things about this mountain chain are 
without doubt those sandstone walls which were first of all met with on 
the banks of the Cuyuniin 6° 45' lat. X. and 61'' long. W., again appeared 
on the Mazaruni, and reached their culminating point at Roraima in 5° 
lat. N. and 61° long. W^. While crossing the Pacaraima Range on my 
* My brother in his travels did not get into the immediate neighbourhood of Marawaca 
and could not therefore give any exact measurement. In his account to the (ieographical 
Society of London he says :. " The mean of 7 observations- gave me the situation of mv 
stopping-place as 3'^ 47' lat.N. and accordingly Mt. Marawaca, the highest of the group, is 
m 3*^40', and the lonely Kurianiheri with its pyramidal top 3";3S'. The mountainous 
surroundings and the thick forests preveaited my determining its height from a base line. 
The mountain, however, must be certainly from 1Ö.000 to 11,000 feet above sea level." As 
my brother's statement is not based upon actual measurement 1 have taken the height 
as given by Codazzi. 
