284 REVOLUTIONARY EVENTS. mation, and general refinement of manners. Within the interval embraced by the span of one life, we have seen the reign of terror in France, the expedition to St. Domingo,* the political re-action in Naples and Spain, I may also add, the massacres of Chio, Ipsara, and Missolonghi, the work of the barbarians of Eastern Europe, which the civilized nations of the north and west did not deem it their duty to prevent. In slave countries, where the effect of long habit tends to legitimize institutions the most adverse to justice, it is vain to count on the influence of information, of intellectual culture, or refinement of manners, except in as much as all those benefits accelerate the impulse given by governments, and facilitate the execution of measures once adopted. Without the directive action of governments and legislatures, a peaceful revolution is a thing not to be hoped for. The danger becomes the more imminent when a general inquietude vades the public mind; when amidst the political dissensions of neighbouring countries, the faults and the duties of governments have been revealed: in such cases tranquillity can be restored only by a ruling authority, which in the noble consciousness of its power and right, sways events by entering itself on the career of improvement. per The North American Review for 1821, No. 30, contains the following passage:-" Conflicts with slaves fighting for their freedom, are not only dreadful on account of the atrocities to which they give rise on both sides; but even after freedom has been gained, they help to confound every sentiment of justice and injustice. Some planters are condemning to death all the male negro population above six years of age. They affirm that those who have not borne arms will be contaminated by the example of those who have been fighting. This merciless act is the consequence of the result of the continued misfortunes of the colonies. "Charault, Reflexions sur Saint Domingue. GEOLOGY OF SOUTH AMERICA. 285 CHAPTER XXXII. GEOGNOSTIC DESCRIPTION OF SOUTH AMERICA. North of the River Amazon, and East of the Meridian of the Sierra Nevada de Merida. THE object of this memoir is to concentrate the geological observations which I collected during my journeys among the mountains of New Andalusia, and Venezuela, on the banks of the Orinoco, and in the Llanos of Barcelona, Calabozo, and the Apure; consequently, from the coast of the Caribbean Sea, to the valley of the Amazon, between 2° and 101° north latitude. The extent of country which I traversed in different directions, was more than 15,400 square leagues. It has already formed the subject of a geological sketch, traced hastily on the spot, after my return from the Orinoco, and published in 1801. At that period, the direction of the Cordillera on the coast of Venezuela, and the existence of the Cordillera of Parime, were unknown in Europe. No measure of altitude had been attempted beyond the province of Quito; no rock of South America had been named; there existed no description of the superposition of rocks in any region of the tropics. Under these circumstances, an essay tending to prove the identity of the formations of the two hemispheres, could not fail to excite interest. The study of the collections which I brought back with me, and four years of journeying in the Andes, have enabled me to rectify my first views, and to extend an investigation which, by reason of its novelty, had been favourably received. That the most remarkable geological relations may be the more easily seized, I shall treat aphoristically, in different sections, the configuration of the soil, the general division of the land, the direction and inclination of the beds, and the nature of the primitive, intermediary, secondary, and tertiary rocks. 286 CONFIGURATION OF THE CONTINENT. SECTION I. Configuration of the Country--Inequalities of the Soil-Chains and Groups of Mountains-Divisionary Ridges-Plains or Llanos. SOUTH AMERICA is one of those great triangular masses which form the three continental parts of the southern hemisphere of the globe. In its exterior configuration it resembles Africa more than Australia. The southern extremities of the three continents are so placed, that in sailing from the Cape of Good Hope (lat. 33° 55') to Cape Horn (lat. 55° 58'), and doubling the southern point of Van Diemen's Land (lat. 43° 38'), we see those lands stretching out towards the south pole in proportion as we advance eastward. A fourth part of the 571,000 square sea leagues* which South America comprises, is covered with mountains distributed in chains, or gathered together in groups. The other parts are plains forming long uninterrupted bands covered with forests or gramina, flatter than in Europe, and rising progressively, at the distance of 300 leagues from the coast, between 30 and 170 toises above the level of the sea. The inost considerable mountainous chain in South America extends from south to north, according to the greatest dimension of the continent; it is not central like the European chains, nor far removed from the sea-shore, like the Himalaya and the Hindoo-Koosh; but it is thrown towards the western extremity of the continent, almost on the coast of the Pacific Ocean. Referring to the profile which I have givent of the configuration of South America, in the latitude of Chimborazo and Grand Para, across the plains of the Amazon, we find the land low towards the east, in an inclined plane, at an angle of less than 25 seconds on a length of 600 leagues; and if, in the ancient state of our planet, the Atlantic Ocean, by some extraordinary cause, ever rose to 1100 feet above its present level (a height one-third less than the table-lands of Spain and Bavaria), the waves must, in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, have broken upon the rocks that bound the eastern *Almost double the extent of Europe. Map of Columbia, according to the astronomical observations of Humboldt, by A. H. Brué, 1823. LINES OF MOUNTAIN RIDGES. 287 declivity of the Cordilleras of the Andes. 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 Ocaña 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. The littoral chain of Venezuela, of which the different ranges form the Montaña de Paria, the isthmus of Araya, the Silla of Caracas, and the gneissgranite mountains north and south of the lake of Valencia, is joined between Porto Cabello, San Felipe, and Tocuyo, to the Paramos de las Rosas and Niquitao, which form the north-east extremity of the Sierra de Merida, and the eastern Cordillera of the Andes of New Grenada. It is sufficient here to mention this connexion, so important in a geological point of view; for the denominations of Andes and Cor 288 LINES OF MOUNTAIN RIDGES. dilleras being altogether in disuse as applied to the chains of mountains extending from the eastern gulf of Maracaibo to the promontory of Paria, we shall continue to designate those chains (stretching from west to east) by the names of "littoral chain," or "coast-chain of Venezuela." Of the three insulated groups of mountains, that is to say, those which are not branches of the Cordillera of the Andes and its continuation towards the shore of Venezuela, one is on the north, and the other two on the west of the Andes: that on the north is the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta; the two others are the Sierra de la Parime, between 4° and 8° of north latitude, and the mountains of Brazil, between 15° and 28° south latitude. This singular distribution of great inequalities of soil produces three plains or basins, comprising a surface of 420,600 square leagues, or four-fifths of all South America, east of the Andes. Between the coast-chain of Venezuela and the group of the Parime, the plains of the Apure and the Lower Orinoco extend; between the group of Parime and the Brazil mountains are the plains of the Amazon, of the Rio Negro, and the Madeira, and between the groups of Brazil and the southern extremity of the continent are the plains of Rio de la Plata, and of Patagonia. As the group of the Parime in Spanish Guiana, and of the Brazil mountains (or of Minas Geraes and Goyaz), do not join the Cordillera of the Andes of New Grenada and Upper Peru towards the west, the three plains of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata, are connected by land-straits of considerable breadth. These straits are also plains stretching from north to south, and traversed by ridges imperceptible to the eye, but forming "divortia aquarum." These ridges (and this remarkable phenomenon has hitherto escaped the attention of geologists) are situated between 2° and 3° north latitude, and 16° and 18° south latitude. The first ridge forms the partition of the waters which fall into the Lower Orinoco on the north-east, and into the Rio Negro and the Amazon on the south and south-east; the second ridge divides the tributary streams of the right bank of the Amazon and the Rio de la Plata. These ridges, of which the existence is only manifested, as in Volhynia, by the course of the waters, are parallel with the coast-chain of Venezuela; they present, as it were, two |