Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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The Rising Of This Ridge Is So Inconsiderable Compared To The
Whole Continent That Its Breadth In The Parallel Of Cape Saint Roche
Is 1400 Times Greater Than The Average Height Of The Andes.
We distinguish in the mountainous part of South America a chain and
three groups of mountains, namely, the Cordillera
Of the Andes, which
the geologist may trace without interruption from Cape Pilares, in the
western part of the Straits of Magellan, to the promontory of Paria
opposite the island of Trinidad; the insulated group of the Sierra
Nevada de Santa Marta; the group of the mountains of the Orinoco, or
of La Parime; and that of the mountains of Brazil. The Sierra de Santa
Marta being nearly in the meridian of the Cordilleras of Peru and New
Grenada, the snowy summits descried by navigators in passing the mouth
of the Rio Magdalena are commonly mistaken for the northern extremity
of the Andes. I shall soon prove that the colossal group of the Sierra
de Santa Marta is almost entirely separate from the mountains of Ocana
and Pamplona which belong to the eastern Cordillera of New Grenada.
The hot plains through which runs the Rio Cesar, and which extend
towards the valley of Upar, separate the Sierra Nevada from the Paramo
de Cacota, south of Pamplona. The ridge which divides the waters
between the gulf of Maracaibo and the Rio Magdalena is in the plain on
the east of the Laguna Zapatoza. If, on the one hand, the Sierra de
Santa Marta has been erroneously considered (on account of its eternal
snow, and its longitude) to be a continuation of the Cordillera of the
Andes, on the other hand, the connexion of that same Cordillera with
the coast mountains of the provinces of Cumana and Caracas has not
been recognized.
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