364 
LLANOS OF THE ElO HE LA PLATA. 
V. — Plains of the Pio de la Plata, and of Pata 
OONIA, from the south-western slope of the group of the 
Brazil mountains, to the strait of ^Magellan ; from 20° to 53° 
of latitude. These plains correspond with those of the Mis- 
sissippi and of Canada in the northern hemisphere. If one 
of their extremities approaches less nearly to the polar 
regions, the other enters much further into the region of 
palm-trees. That part of tins vast basin extending from the 
eastern coast towards the Eio Paraguay, does not present a 
.surface so perfectly smooth as the part situated on the west 
and the south-east of the Itio ds la Plata, and which has been 
known for ages by the name of Pampas, derived from th - 
Peruvian or Quichua language.* Geognostically speaking, 
these two regions of east and west form only one basin, 
bounded on the east by the Sierra de Villarica or do Es- 
pinhafo, which loses itself in the Capitania of San Paul, 
near the parallel of 24° ; issuing on the north-east by little 
hills, from the Serra da Cauastra and the Campos I*arecis 
towards the province of Paragu.ay ; on the west, by the 
Andes of Tipper Peru and Chile ; and on the north-west, by 
the ridge of the partition of the waters which runs from the 
spur of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, across the plains of the 
Chiquitos, towards the Serras of Albuquerque (lat. 19° 2') 
and San Pernando. That part only of this basin lying on 
the west of the Bio Paraguay, and which is entirely ’co\°'red 
with gramina, is 70,000 square leagues. This surface of the 
Pampas or Llanos of Jlanse, Tucuinau, Buenos Ayres, and 
eastern Patagonia, is consequently four times greater than 
the surface of the whole of Prance. The Andes of Chile 
narrow the Pampas by the two spurs of Salta and Cordova ; 
the latter promontory forms so projecting a point, that there 
remains (lat. 31°-32°') a ])lain only 45 leagues broad between 
the eastern extremity of the Sierra de Cordova and the right 
bank of the river Paraguay, stretching in the direction of a 
meridian, from the town of Xueva Coimbra to Bosario, below 
Santa Fe. Far beyond the southern frontiers of the old vice- 
royalty of Buenos Ayres, between the Bio Colorado and the 
* Hatan Pampa sipifies in that language, ‘a great plain.’ We find 
the word Pampa also in Riobamba and Guallabamba ; the Spaniards, in 
o;de( to soften the geographical names, changing the p into b. 
