DimCTJLXIES or THE THEOEY. 
425 
andromedas, of gualtherias, of myrtdli, of uvas camaronas* 
of nerteras, and of aralias with hoary leaves f which charac- 
terize the vegetation of the paramos on the high Cordilleras 
of Santa Fe. We found the same Thihaudia glandulosa 
at the entrance of the table-land of Bogota, and m the 
Peiual of the Silla. The coast-chain of Caracas is unques- 
tionably connected (by the Torito, the Palomera, locuyo, 
and the paramos of Rosas, of Bocono, and. of Niqmtao) 
with the high Cordilleras of Merida, Pamplona, and banta 
Fe • but from the Silla to Tocuyo, along a distance of seventy 
leagues, the mountains of Caracas are so low, that the shrubs 
of the family of the ericineous plants, just cited, do not find 
the cold climate which is necessary lor their development. 
Supposing, as is probable, that the thihaudias and the 
rhododendron of the Andes, or befana, exist in the paramo 
of Niquitao and in the Sierra de Menda, covered path 
eternal snow, these plants would nevertheless want a ridge 
sufficiently lofty and long for their migration towards the 
Silla of Caracas. . . 
The more we study the distribution of organized beings 
on the globe, the more we are inclined, if not to abandon 
ohe ideas of migration, at least to consider them^ as liypo- 
theses not entirely satisfactory. The chain of the Andes 
divides the whole of South America into two unequal longi- 
tudinal parts. At the foot of this chain, on the east and 
west we found a great number of plants specifically the 
same The various passages of the Cordilleras nowhere 
permit the vegetable productions of the warm regions to 
proceed from the coats of the Pacific to the banks of the 
Amazon. When a peak attains a great elevation, either in 
the middle of very low mountains and plains, or in the 
centre of an archipelago heaved up by volcanic fires, its 
summit is covered with alpine plants, many of which are 
again found, at immense distances, on other mountains 
* The names vine-tree, and mas camaronas, are given in the Andes to 
plants of the genus Thibaudia, on account of their large succulent fruits. 
Thus the ancient botanists gave the name of bear’s vine, uvauru, and 
vine of Mount Ida (Vitis idiea), to an arbutus and a myrtillus, wlneli 
belong, like the thibaudia, to the family of the Ericinese. 
*t Nertera deprcssa, Alalia reticulata, Hedyotis blwrioldes. 
