aEOLOGT OE SOUTH AMEBICA. 
285 
Chapteb xxxrr. 
GEOGNOSTIC DESCRIPTION OP SOUTH AMERICA. 
North of the Mioer Amazon, and Nasi of the Meridian of the Sieira 
Nevada de Merida. 
The object of this memoir is to concentrate the geological 
observations ■which I collected during my journeys among 
the mountains of Xcw Andalusia, and V enezuela, on the 
banks of the Orinoco, and in the Llanos of Barcelona, 
Calabozo, and the Apure ; consequently, from the coast of 
the Caribbean Sea, to the valley of the Amazon, between 
2° and 104 -“ north latitude. 
The extent of country which I traversed in different direc- 
tions, was more than 15,400 square leagues. It has already 
formed the subject of a geological sketeh, traced hastily on 
the spot, after my return from the Orinoco, and published 
in 1801. At that period, the direction of the Cordillera on 
the coast of Venezuela, and the existence oi the Cordillera 
of Parime, were unknown in Europe. No measure of alti- 
tude had been attempted beyond the province of Quito; no 
rock of South America had been named ; there existed no 
description of tlie superposition of rocks in any region oi 
the tropics. Under these circumstances, an essay tending 
to prove the identity of the formations of the two hemi- 
spheres, could not fail to excite interest. The study oi the 
collections which 1 brought back with me, and foGT years ot 
journeying in the Andes, have enabled me to rectify iiiy hrst 
views, and to extend an investigation which, by reason of its 
novelty, had been favourably received. That the most re- 
markable geological relations may be the more easily seized, 
I shall treat aphoristically, in different sections, the con- 
figuration of the soil, the general division ot the land, the 
direction and inclination of the beds, and the nature of the 
primitive, intermediary, secondary, and tertiary rocks. 
