294 
THE ANDES. 
I shall proceed to notice separately the different systems of 
mountams and plains, the mutual connection of which has 
so powerful an influence on the state of industry and com- 
merce in the nations of the New Continent. I shall give 
only a general view of the systems situated beyond the 
Jnnits of the region which forms the special object of this 
memom. Geology being essentially founded on the study 
ot the relations of juxtaposition and place, I could not 
treat ol the littoral chain and the chain of the Parime 
separately, mthout touching on the other systems south 
and west of Venezuela. 
A. Systems of Mountains, 
I. COEDIILEEAS OE THE Andes. This is the most 
contmuous, the longest, the most uniform in its direction 
Irom south to north and north-north-west, of any chain of 
the globe. It approaches the north and south poles at 
unequal distances of from 22° to 33°. Its development 
IS from 2800 to 3000 leagues, (20 to a degree,) a fength 
equ£d to the distance from Capo Pinisterre in Galicia to the 
north-east cape (Tschuktschoi-Noss) of Asia. Somewhat 
less than one half of this chain belongs to South America, 
and runs along its western shores. North of the isthmus 
ot Cupica and of Panama, after an immense lowering it 
assumes the appearance of a nearly central ridge, fonn- 
rocky dyke that joins the great continent of 
JNorth America to the southern continent. The low lands 
on the east of the Andes of Guatimala and New Spain 
appear to have been overwhelmed by the ocean, and now 
torm the bottom of the Caribbean Sea. As the continent 
beyond the parallel of Florida again widens towards the 
east, the Cordilleras of Durango and New Mexico, as well 
as the Eocky Mountains, merely a continuation of those 
LordiUeras appear to be thrown still further westward, 
that IS, tv/wards the coast of the Pacific Ocean ; but they 
still remam eight or ten times more remote from it than 
m the southern hemisphere. We may consider as the 
Wo extremities of the Andes, the rock or granitic island of 
Diego ^mirez, south of Cape Horn, and the mountains 
mouth of Mackenzie Eiver, Oat 69®, long. 
ioOj ), more than twelve degrees west of the greenstone 
