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 Former Issue From A Granite With
Large Grains, Very Regularly Stratified; The Latter From A Rock Of
Gneiss.
What especially characterizes the northern chain is a summit
which is not only the loftiest of the system of the mountains of
Venezuela, but of all South America, on the east of the Andes.
The
eastern summit of the Silla of Caracas, according to my barometric
measurement made in 1800, is 1350 toises high,* (* The Silla of
Caracas is only 80 toises lower than the Canigou in the Pyrenees.) and
notwithstanding the commotion which took place on the Silla during the
great earthquake of Caracas, that mountain did not sink 50 or 60
toises, as some North American journals asserted. Four or five leagues
south of the northern chain (that of Mariara, La Silla and Cape
Codera) the mountains of Guiripa, Ocumare and Panaquire form the
southern chain of the coast, which stretches in a parallel direction
from Guigue to the mouth of the Rio Tuy, by the Guesta of Yusma and
the Guacimo. The latitudes of the Villa de Cura and San Juan, so
erroneously marked on our maps, enabled me to ascertain the mean
breadth of the whole Cordillera of Venezuela. Ten or twelve leagues
may be reckoned as the distance from the descent of the northern chain
which bounds the Caribbean Sea, to the descent of the southern chain
bounding the immense basin of the Llanos. This latter chain, which
also bears the name of the Inland Mountains, is much lower than the
northern chain; and I can hardly believe that the Sierra de Guayraima
attains the height of 1200 toises.
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