*98 
PASSAGE or BAEAGUAS. 
nearly to the confluence of the Rio Suapure. From thes? 
granite mountains the natives heretofore gave the name 
Baraguan to that part of the Orinoco comprised between 
the mouths of the Arauea and the Atabapo. Among 
savage nations great rivers bear different denominations 
in the different portions of their course. The Passag 0 
of Baraguan presents a picturesque scene. The grani te 
rocks are perpendicular. They form a range of mountain* 
lying north-west and south-east ; and the river cutting tin* 
dyke nearly at a right angle, the summits of the mountain 3 
appear like separate peaks. Their elevation in general do? 5 
not surpass one hundred and twenty toises ; but their situ®' 
tion in the midst of a small plain, their steep declivities, an y 
their flanks destitute of vegetation, give them a majesty 
character. They are composed of enormous masses 
granite of a parallelopipedal figure, but rounded at tb® 
edges, and heaped one upon another. The blocks arc oft®-? 
eighty feet long, and twenty or thirty broad. They worn® 
seem to have been piled up by some external force, if ^ 
proximity of a rock identical in its composition, not sep 8 ' 
rated into blocks but filled with veins, did not prove tn® ■ 
the parallelopipedal form is owing solely to the action ® 
the atmosphere. These veins, two or three inches thic« 
are distinguished by a fine-grained quartz-granite crossing, 1 * 
coarse-grained granite almost porphyritic, and abounding 11 
fine crystals of red feldspar. I sought in vain, in jj! 
Cordillera of Baraguan, for hornblende, and those steafot' 
masses that characterise several granites of the Higher AT" 
in Switzerland. 
We landed in the middle of the strait of Baraguan ' 
measure its breadth. The rocks project so much towafyj 
the river that I measured with difficulty a base of eign’v 
toises. I found the river eight hundred and eighty-n 1,J 
n .1 rt I . i I <4- . — > A A— A A* * A 1. 1 * _ _ ..A hPH- - 
toises broad. In order to conceive how this passage b eill j 
the name of a strait, we must recollect that the breadth ? 
the river from TJruana to the junction of the Meta j s 
general from 1500 to 2500 toises. In this place, whicP ' 
extremely hot and barren, I measured two granite suflitni > 
much rounded: one v.«s only a hundred and ten, and * 
other eighty-five, toisu*. There are higher summits in * 
