Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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They Have
Not, Like The Steppes Of Southern Asia, And The Deserts Of Persia,
Those Lakes Without Issue, Those Small Systems Of Rivers Which Lose
Themselves Either In The Sands, Or By Subterranean Filtrations.
The
Llanos of America incline to the east and south; and their running
waters are branches of the Orinoco.
The course of these rivers once led me to believe, that the plains
formed table-lands, raised at least from one hundred to one hundred
and fifty toises above the level of the ocean. I supposed that the
deserts of interior Africa were also at a considerable height; and
that they rose one above another as in tiers, from the coast to the
interior of the continent. No barometer has yet been carried into the
Sahara. With respect to the Llanos of America, I found by barometric
heights observed at Calabozo, at the Villa del Pao, and at the mouth
of the Meta, that their height is only forty or fifty toises above the
level of the sea. The fall of the rivers is extremely gentle, often
nearly imperceptible; and therefore the least wind, or the swelling of
the Orinoco, causes a reflux in those rivers that flow into it. The
Indians believe themselves to be descending during a whole day, when
navigating from the mouths of these rivers to their sources. The
descending waters are separated from those that flow back by a great
body of stagnant water, in which, the equilibrium being disturbed,
whirlpools are formed very dangerous for boats.
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