Chapter IX: Part 9

Among such phenomena must certainly be classed the vast forest region which, in the tropical portion of South America, fills the great connected basins of the Orinoco and the Amazons. If the name of primeval forest, or “Urwald,” which has of late years been so prodigally bestowed, is to be given to any forests on the face of the earth, none can claim it perhaps so strictly as the region of which we are speaking. The term “Urwald,” primitive or primeval forest, as well as Urseit and Urvolk,--primitive age, primitive nation,--are words of rather indefinite meaning, and, for the most part, only relative import. If this name is to be given to every wild forest full of a thick growth of trees on which Man has never laid a destroying hand, then the phenomenon is one which belongs to many parts of the temperate and cold zones. But if the character of the “Urwald” is that of a forest so truly impenetrable, that it is impossible to clear with an axe any passage between trees of eight or twelve feet diameter for more than a few paces, then such forests belong exclusively to the tropical regions. Nor is it by any means, as is often supposed in Europe, only the interlacing “lianes” or climbers which make it impossible to penetrate the forest; the “lianes” often form only a very small portion of the underwood. The chief obstacle is presented by an undergrowth of plants filling up every interval in a zone where all vegetation has a tendency to become ligneous. An impatient desire for the fulfilment of a long cherished wish may sometimes have led travellers who have only just landed in a tropical country, or perhaps island, to imagine that although still in the immediate vicinity of the sea-shore they had entered the precincts of a primeval forest, or “Urwald,” such as I have described as impenetrable. In this they deceived themselves; it is not every tropical forest which is entitled to an appellation which I have scarcely ever used in the narrative of my travels; although I believe that of all investigators of nature now living, Bonpland, Martius, Poppig, Robert and Richard Schomburgk, and myself, are those who have spent the longest period of time in primeval forests in the interior of a great continent.

Rich as is the Spanish language, (as I have already remarked), in appellations of distinct and definite meaning in the description of nature, yet the same word “Monte” is employed for mountain and forest, for cerro, (montaña) and for selva. In an inquiry into the true breadth and greatest easterly extension of the chain of the Andes, I have shewed how this two-fold signification of the word “monte” led to the introduction, in a fine and extensively circulated English map of South America, of high mountain ranges, where, in reality, only plains exist. When the Spanish map of La Cruz Olmedilla, which has served as the foundation of so many other maps, shewed “Montes de Cacao,”[66] “cacao woods,” Cordilleras were made to rise although the cacao seeks only the lowest and hottest localities.

If we comprehend in one general view the wooded region which includes the whole of the interior of South America, from the grassy steppes of Venezuela (los Llanos de Caracas) to the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, or from 8° North to 19° South latitude, we shall perceive that this connected forest of the tropical zone has an extent unequalled in any other portion of the earth’s surface. Its area is about twelve times that of Germany. Traversed in all directions by systems of rivers, in which the minor and tributary streams sometimes exceed our Rhine or our Danube in the abundance of their waters, it owes the wonderful luxuriance of the growth of its trees to the combined influence of great moisture and high temperature. In the temperate zone, and especially in Europe and Northern Asia, forests may be named from particular genera or species, which, growing together as social plants, (plantæ sociales) form separate and distinct woods. In the northern forests of Oaks, Pines, and Birches, and in the eastern forests of Limes or Linden trees, usually only one species of Amentaceæ, Coniferæ, or Tiliaceæ, prevails or is predominant; sometimes a single species of Needle-trees is intermingled with the foliage of trees of other classes. Tropical forests, on the other hand, decked with thousands of flowers, are strangers to such uniformity of association; the exceeding variety of their flora renders it vain to ask of what trees the primeval forest consists. A countless number of families are here crowded together, and even in small spaces individuals of the same species are rarely associated. Each day, and at each change of place, new forms present themselves to the traveller, who, however, often finds that he cannot reach the blossoms of trees whose leaves and ramifications had previously arrested his attention.

The rivers, with their countless lateral arms, afford the only routes by which the country can be traversed. Between the Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, astronomical observations, and where these were wanting, determinations by compass of the direction of the rivers, respectively shewed us that two lonely mission villages might be only a few miles apart, and yet that the monks when they wished to visit each other could only do so by spending a day and a half in following the windings of small streams, in canoes hollowed out of the trunks of trees. A striking evidence of the impenetrability of particular parts of the forest is afforded by a trait related by an Indian of the habits of the large American tiger, or panther-like jaguar. While in the Llanos of Varinas and the Meta, and in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, the introduction of European cattle, horses, and mules has enabled the beasts of prey to find an abundant subsistence,--so that since the first discovery of America their numbers have increased exceedingly in those extended and treeless grassy steppes,--their congeners in the dense forests around the sources of the Orinoco lead a very different and far less easy life. In a bivouac near the junction of the Cassiquiare with the Orinoco we had had the misfortune of losing a large dog, to which we were much attached, as the most faithful and affectionate companion of our wanderings. Being still uncertain whether he had been actually killed by the tigers, a faint hope of recovering him induced us, in returning from the mission of Esmeralda through the swarms of musquitoes by which it is infested, to spend another night at the spot where we had so long sought him in vain. We heard the cries of the jaguar, probably the very individual which we suspected of the deed, extremely near to us; and as the clouded sky made astronomical observations impossible, we passed part of the night in making our interpreter (lenguaraz) repeat to us the accounts given by our native boat’s crew of the tigers of the country.

The “black jaguar” was, they said, not unfrequently found there; it is the largest and most bloodthirsty variety, with black spots scarcely distinguishable on its deep dark-brown skin. It lives at the foot of the mountains of Maraguaca and Unturan. One of the Indians of the Durimund tribe then related to us that jaguars are often led, by their love of wandering and by their rapacity, to lose themselves in such impenetrable parts of the forest that they can no longer hunt along the ground, and live instead in the trees, where they are the terror of the families of monkeys and of the prehensile-tailed viverra, the Cercoleptes. I borrow these notices from journals written at the time in German, and which were not entirely exhausted in the Narrative of my Travels, which I published in the French language. They contain a detailed description of the nocturnal life, or perhaps I might rather say the nocturnal voices, of the wild animals in the forests of the torrid zone; which appears to me particularly suited to form part of a work bearing the title of the present volumes. That which is written down on the spot, either in the immediate presence of the phenomena, or soon after the reception of the impressions which they produce, may at least lay claim to more life and freshness than can be expected in recollections.

Descending from West to East the Rio Apure, the overflowings of whose waters and the inundations produced by them were noticed in the chapter on Steppes and Deserts, we arrived at its junction with the Orinoco. It was the season of low water, and the average breadth of the Apure was only a little more than twelve hundred English feet, yet I found the Orinoco at the confluence of the two rivers, not far from the granite rock of Curiquima, where I was able to measure a base line, still upwards of 11430 French (12180 English) feet wide. Yet this point, _i. e._ the Rock of Curiquima, is four hundred geographical miles in a straight line from the sea and from the Delta of the Orinoco. Part of the plains watered by the Apure and the Pagara are inhabited by tribes of the Yaruros and Achaguas, who, as they persist in maintaining their independence, are called savages in the mission villages established by the monks: their manners, however, are scarcely more rude than those of the Indians of the villages,--who, although baptized and living “under the bell” (baxo la compana), are still almost entirely untaught and uninstructed.

On leaving the Island del Diamante, in which Zambos who speak Spanish cultivate sugar-canes, we entered on scenes of nature characterized by wildness and grandeur. The air was filled with countless flocks of flamingoes (Phœnicopterus) and other water birds, which appeared against the blue sky like a dark cloud with continually varying outlines. The river had here narrowed to between 900 and 1000 feet, and flowing in a perfectly straight line formed a kind of canal enclosed on either side by dense wood. The margin of the forest presents at this part a singular appearance. In front of the almost impenetrable wall of giant trunks of Cæsalpinia, Cedrela, and Desmanthus, there rises from the sandy river beach, with the greatest regularity, a low hedge of Sauso, only four feet high, consisting of a small shrub, Hermesia castaneifolia, which forms a new genus[67] of the family of Euphorbiaceæ. Some slender thorny palms, called by the Spaniards Piritu and Coroso (perhaps species of Martinezia and Bactris), stand next; and the whole resembles a close, well-pruned garden hedge, having only occasional openings at considerable distances from each other, which have doubtless been made by the larger four-footed beasts of the forest to gain easy access to the river. One sees, more especially in the early morning and at sunset, the American tiger or jaguar, the tapir, and the peccary, lead their young through these openings to the river to drink. When startled by the passing canoe, they do not attempt to regain the forest by breaking forcibly through the hedge which has been described, but one has the pleasure of seeing these wild animals stalk leisurely along between the river and the hedge for four or five hundred paces, until they have reached the nearest opening, when they disappear through it. In the course of an almost uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 geographical miles on the Orinoco to near its sources, on the Cassiquiare, and on the Rio Negro,--and during which we were confined for seventy-four days to a small canoe,--we enjoyed the repetition of the same spectacle at several different points, and I may add, always with new delight. There came down together, to drink, to bathe, or to fish, groups consisting of the most different classes of animals, the larger mammalia, being associated with many coloured herons, palamedeas, and proudly-stepping curassow and cashew birds (Crax Alector and C. Pauxi). “Es como en el Paraiso;” it is here as in Paradise, said, with a pious air, our steersman, an old Indian who had been brought up in the house of an ecclesiastic. The peace of the golden age was, however, far from prevailing among the animals of this American paradise, which carefully watched and avoided each other. The Capybara, a Cavy three or four feet long, (a magnified repetition of the Brazilian Cavy, Cavia aguti), is devoured in the river by the crocodiles, and on shore by the tiger. It runs so indifferently that we were several times able to catch individuals from among the numerous herds which presented themselves.

Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed the night as usual, under the open sky, on a sandy flat on the bank of the Rio Apure closely bordered by the impenetrable forest. It was not without difficulty that we succeeded in finding dry wood to kindle the fire with which it is always customary in that country to surround a bivouac, in order to guard against the attacks of the jaguar. The night was humid, mild, and moonlight. Several crocodiles approached the shore; I think I have observed these animals to be attracted by fire, like our cray-fish and many other inhabitants of the water. The oars of our boat were placed upright and carefully driven into the ground, to form poles from which our hammocks could be suspended. Deep stillness prevailed; only from time to time we heard the blowing of the fresh-water dolphins[68] which are peculiar to the Orinoco net-work of rivers (and, according to Colebrooke, to the Ganges as far as Benares), which followed each other in long lines.

Soon after 11 o’clock such a disturbance began to be heard in the adjoining forest, that for the remainder of the night all sleep was impossible. The wild cries of animals appeared to rage throughout the forest. Among the many voices which resounded together, the Indians could only recognise those which, after short pauses in the general uproar, were first heard singly. There was the monotonous howling of the aluates (the howling monkeys); the plaintive, soft, and almost flute-like tones of the small sapajous; the snorting grumblings of the striped nocturnal monkey[69] (the Nyctipithicus trivirgatus, which I was the first to describe); the interrupted cries of the great tiger, the cuguar or maneless American lion, the peccary, the sloth, and a host of parrots, of parraquas, and other pheasant-like birds. When the tigers came near the edge of the forest, our dog, which had before barked incessantly, came howling to seek refuge under our hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the tiger was heard to proceed from amidst the high branches of a tree, and was in such case always accompanied by the plaintive piping of the monkeys, who were seeking to escape from the unwonted pursuit.

If one asks the Indians why this incessant noise and disturbance arises on particular nights, they answer, with a smile, that “the animals are rejoicing in the bright moonlight, and keeping the feast of the full moon.” To me it appeared that the scene had probably originated in some accidental combat, and that hence the disturbance had spread to other animals, and thus the noise had increased more and more. The jaguar pursues the peccaries and tapirs, and these, pressing against each other in their flight, break through the interwoven tree-like shrubs which impede their escape; the apes on the tops of the trees, being frightened by the crash, join their cries to those of the larger animals; this arouses the tribes of birds, who build their nests in communities, and thus the whole animal world becomes in a state of commotion. Longer experience taught us that it is by no means always the celebration of the brightness of the moon which disturbs the repose of the woods: we witnessed the same occurrence repeatedly, and found that the voices were loudest during violent falls of rain, or when, with loud peals of thunder, the flashing lightning illuminated the deep recesses of the forest. The good-natured Franciscan monk, who, although he had been suffering for several months from fever, accompanied us through the Cataracts of Atures and Maypures to San Carlos on the Rio Negro, and to the Brazilian boundary, used to say, when fearful on the closing in of night that there might be a thunder-storm, “May Heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts of the forest!”

Scenes, such as those I have just described, were wonderfully contrasted with the stillness which prevails within the tropics during the noontide hours of a day of more than usual heat. I borrow from the same journal the recollections of a day at the Narrows of Baraguan. At this part of its course the Orinoco forces for itself a passage through the western portion of the Parime Mountains. What is called at this remarkable pass a “Narrow” (Angostura del Baraguan), is still a bed or water-basin of 890 toises (5690 English feet) in breadth. On the naked rocks which formed the shores we saw only, besides an old withered stem of Aubletia (Apeiba tiburba), and a new Apocinea (Allamanda salicifolia), a few silvery croton shrubs. A thermometer observed in the shade, but brought within a few inches of the towering mass of granite rock, rose to above 40° Reaumur (122° Fah.) All distant objects had wave-like undulating outlines, the effect of mirage; not a breath of air stirred the fine dust-like sand. The sun was in the zenith, and the flood of light which he poured down upon the river, and which, from a slight rippling movement of the waters, flashed sparkling back, rendered still more sensible the red haze which veiled the distance. All the naked rocks and boulders around were covered with a countless number of large thick-scaled iguanas, gecko-lizards, and variously spotted salamanders. Motionless, with uplifted heads and open mouths, they appeared to inhale the burning air with ecstacy. At such times the larger animals seek shelter in the recesses of the forest, and the birds hide themselves under the thick foliage of the trees, or in the clefts of the rocks; but if, in this apparent entire stillness of nature, one listens for the faintest tones which an attentive ear can seize, there is perceived an all-pervading rustling sound, a humming and fluttering of insects close to the ground, and in the lower strata of the atmosphere. Every thing announces a world of organic activity and life. In every bush, in the cracked bark of the trees, in the earth undermined by hymenopterous insects, life stirs audibly. It is, as it were, one of the many voices of Nature, heard only by the sensitive and reverent ear of her true votaries.

ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS.

[64] p. 260.--“_Characteristic names in Arabic and Persian._”

More than twenty different terms might be cited as used by Arabs in speaking of steppes, (tanufah), to denote deserts without water, entirely bare, covered with siliceous sand, or interspersed with spots affording some pasture: (sahara, kafr, mikfar, tih, and mehme.) Sahl, is a low plain; dakkah, a desolate elevated plain. In Persian, “beyaban” signifies the arid sandy desert,--as do the Mogul “gobi,” and the Chinese “han-hai,” and “scha-mo.” “Yaila” is a steppe covered rather with grasses or herbage than with herbaceous plants; so are also the Mogul “küdah,” and the Turkish “tala,” or “tschol,” and the Chinese “huang.” “Deshti-reft” is an elevated plain devoid of vegetation. (Humboldt, Relation hist. T. ii. p. 158.)

[65] p. 260.--“_In the old Castilian idiom._”

Pico, picacho, mogote, cucurucho, espigon, loma tendida, mesa, panecillo, farallon, tablon, peña, peñon, peñasco, peñoleria, roca partida, laxa, cerro, sierra, serrania, cordillera, monte, montaña, montañuela, cadena de montes, los altos, malpais, reventazon, bufa, &c.

[66] p. 263.--“_Where the map had exhibited Montes de Cacao._”

On the range of hills which had been converted into the lofty Andes de Cuchao, see my Rel. hist. T. iii. p. 238.

[67] p. 268.--“_Hermesia._”

The genus Hermesia, the Sauso, has been described by Bonpland, and figured in our Plantes equinoxiales, T. i. p. 162, tab. xlvi.

[68] p. 269.--“_The fresh-water dolphin._”

These are not sea-dolphins, ascending the rivers for a great distance, as is done by some species of Pleuronectes (flat fish, which always have both eyes on one side of the body); for example, the Limande (Pleuronectes Limanda), which comes up the Loire to Orleans. Some sea forms of fish, as dolphins and skates, are repeated in the great rivers of both continents. The fresh-water dolphin of the Apure and the Orinoco differs specifically from the Delphinus gangeticus, as well as from all sea-dolphins. See my Rel. hist. T. ii. pp. 223, 239, 406-413.

[69] p. 270.--“_The striped nocturnal monkey._”

This is the Douroucouli, or Cusi-cusi of the Cassiquiare, described by me as Simia trivirgata in my Recueil d’Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie comparée, T. i. p. 306-311, tab. xxviii., the plate being taken from a drawing made by myself from the living animal. We subsequently saw this nocturnal monkey living in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris. (See the work above cited, T. ii. p. 340.) Spix also found this remarkable little animal on the Amazons river, and called it Nyctipithecus vociferans.

Potsdam, June 1849.

HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.

I am indebted to Mr. Pentland (whose scientific labours have thrown so much light on the geology and geography of Bolivia) for the following determinations, which he communicated to me in a letter written from Paris, in October 1848, after the publication of his great map:--

Nevado of Sorata, or Long. from Height in
Ancohuma. S. lat. Greenwich. English Feet.
South Peak 15° 51′ 33″ 68° 33′ 55″ 21286
North Peak 15° 49′ 18″ 68° 33′ 52″ 21043

Illimani.
South Peak 16° 38′ 52″ 67° 49′ 18″ 21145
Middle Peak 16° 38′ 26″ 67° 49′ 17″ 21094
North Peak 16° 37′ 50″ 67° 49′ 39″ 21060

The heights (with the exception of the unimportant difference of a few feet in the South Peak of Illimani) are the same as those given in the map of the Lake of Titicaca. A sketch of the last-named mountain (Illimani), as it shews itself in all its majesty from La Paz, has been given by Mr. Pentland in the Journal of the Royal Geographical Society, Vol. V. (1835), p. 77. This was five years after the publication of the first measurements in the Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes for 1830, p. 323, which results I myself hastened to make known in Germany. (Hertha, Zeitschrift für Erd und Völkerkunde, von Berghaus, Bd. xiii. 1829, S. 3-29.) The Nevado de Sorata is to the east of the village Sorata, or Esquibel: it is called in the Ymarra language, according to Pentland, Ancomani, Itampu, and Illhampu. We recognise in “Illimani,” the Ymarra word “illi,” snow.

If, however, in the _eastern_ chain of Bolivia the Sorata was long assumed 3718 French, or 3952 English feet, and the Illimani 2675 French, or 2851 English, feet too high, there are in the _western_ chain of the same country, according to Pentland’s map of Titicaca (1848), four peaks to the east of Arica and between lat. 18° 7′ and 18° 25′, all of which are higher than Chimborazo, which is 21422 English or 20100 French feet. These four peaks are--

Pomarape 21700 English feet, or 20360 French feet.
Gualateiri 21960 „ „ 20604 „ „
Parinacota 22030 „ „ 20670 „ „
Sahama 22350 „ „ 20971 „ „

Berghaus has applied to the eastern and western chains of the Andes of Bolivia the investigation published by me in the Annales des Sciences Naturelles, T. iv. 1825, p. 225-253, of the proportion (very different in different mountain chains), which the general height of the ridge, the crest, or kamm (the mean height of the passes), bears to the highest summits or culminating points. He finds, following Pentland’s map, the mean height of the passes in the eastern chain 12672 French, or 13502 English feet; and in the western chain 13602 French, or 14896 English feet. The culminating points are 19972 and 20971 French, 21286 and 22350 English feet; consequently the ratio of the height of the ridge to that of the culminating point is, in the eastern chain, as 1 : 1.57, and in the western chain as 1 : 1.54. (Berghaus, Zeitschrift für Erdkunde, Band. ix. S. 322-326). This ratio, which is, as it were, the measure of the subterranean elevating force, is very similar to that which exists in the Pyrenees, but very different from the Alps, where the mean height of the passes is less as compared with Mont Blanc. The ratios are, in the Pyrenees, = 1 : 1.43, and in the Alps, = 1 : 2.09.

But, according to Fitz Roy and Darwin, the height of the Sahama is still surpassed by 796 French, or 850 English feet, by that of the volcano of Aconcagua, on the north east of Valparaiso, in Chili, in S. lat. 32° 39′. The officers of the Adventure and Beagle, in Fitz Roy’s Expedition, found, in August 1835, the summit of Acongagua between 23000 and 23400 English feet. If we take it at 23200 (equal to 21767 Paris feet), this volcano would be 1667 French, or 1777 English, feet higher than the Chimborazo. (Fitz Roy, Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle, 1839, Vol. ii. p. 481; Darwin, Journal of Researches, 1845, pp. 223 and 291.) According to more recent calculations, the height of Acongagua is given as 22431 French, or 23907 English feet. (Mary Somerville, Physical Geogr. 1849, Vol. ii. p. 425.)

Our knowledge of the systems of mountains which, north of the parallels of 30° and 31° N. lat., are called the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California, has received most important additions, geologically, botanically, hypsometrically, and geographically by astronomical determinations of position, from the excellent works of Charles Frémont (Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, an illustration of his Map of Oregon and California, 1848); of Dr. Wislizenus (Memoir of a Tour to Northern Mexico, connected with Col. Doniphan’s Expedition, 1848); and of Lieutenants Abert and Peck (Expedition on the Upper Arkansas, 1845; and Examination of New Mexico in 1846 and 1847.) There prevails throughout these different North American works a true scientific spirit, which is deserving of the greatest commendation. The remarkable elevated plain, which rises to an uninterrupted height of four or five thousand French (4260 and 5330 English) feet, between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California, of which I have spoken in p. 44, and which is called the Great Basin, forms an inland closed river basin, and has hot springs and salt lakes. None of its rivers,--Bear River, Carson River, and Humboldt River,--find their way to the sea. The Lake, which I was led by combinations and inferences to represent, in the great Map of Mexico drawn by me in 1804, under the name of Lake Timpanogos, is the great Salt Lake of Frémont’s Map: it is sixty geographical miles long from north to south, and ten broad; and it communicates with the fresh water lake of Utah, which is situated at a higher level, and receives the Timpanogos or Timpanaozu River, which enters it from the eastward, in lat. 40° 13′. The circumstance of the Timpanogos Lake of my map not having been placed by me sufficiently far to the north and west, is to be attributed to the entire want, at that time, of any astronomical determinations of the position of Santa Fé, in New Mexico. The error amounts, for the western margin of the lake, to almost 50 minutes of arc; a difference of absolute longitude which will appear less surprising, if it is remembered that my itinerary map of Guanaxuato could only be based for 15 degrees of latitude on compass surveys, or compass directions, for which I was indebted to Don Pedro de Rivera. (Humboldt, Essai polit. sur la Nouvelle Espagne, T. i. pp. 127-136.) These directions being differently combined by my early deceased fellow-labourer, Herr Friesen, and myself, gave him as the result of his combinations 107° 58′ from Paris as the longitude of Santa Fé, and to me as the result of mine, 107° 13′. According to actual astronomical determinations since obtained, the true longitude appears to be 108° 22′ W. of Paris, or 106° 00′ W. of Greenwich. The relative position of the beds of fossil salt--found in “thick strata of red clay,” on the south east of the island-studded Great Salt Lake (my Laguna de Timpanogos), and not far from the present Fort Mormon and the Utah Lake--was given with perfect correctness in my large map of Mexico. I may refer on this point to the latest evidence of the traveller who made the first well-assured determinations of geographical position in that district:--“The mineral or rock salt, of which a specimen is placed in Congress Library, was found in the place marked by Humboldt in his map of New Spain (northern half), as derived from the journal of the missionary Father Escalante, who attempted (1777) to penetrate the unknown country from Santa Fé of New Mexico to Monterey of the Pacific Ocean. South-east of the Lake Timpanogos is the chain of the Wha-satch Mountains; and in this, at the place where Humboldt has written _Montagnes de sel gemme_, this mineral is found.” (Frémont, Geogr. Mem. of Upper California, 1848, pp. 8 and 67; compare Humboldt, Essai politique, T. ii. p. 261.)

A great historical interest attaches to this part of the highland, and more particularly to the country round the Lake of Timpanogos, which is perhaps the same with the Lake of Teguayo, the ancestral seat of the Aztecs. In their migration from Aztlan to Tula, and to the Valley of Tenochtitlan (Mexico), this people made three halting places or stations, at which the ruins of the Casas grandes are still to be seen. The first sojourn of the Aztecs was at the Lake of Teguayo, the second on the Rio Gila, and the third not far from the Presidio de Llanos. Lieutenant Abert found on the banks of the Gila the same immense number of fragments of pottery ornamented with painting, and scattered over a considerable tract of ground, which had astonished the missionaries Francisco Garces and Pedro Fonte in that locality. These remains of the products of human skill are supposed to indicate the existence of a former higher civilisation in these now solitary regions. Remains of buildings in the singular style of architecture of the Aztecs, and of their houses of seven stories, are also found far to the eastward of the Rio Grande del Norte; for example, in Taos. (Compare Abert’s Examination of New Mexico, in the Documents of Congress, No. 41, pp. 489 and 581-605, with my Essai pol. T. ii. pp. 241-244.) The Sierra Nevada of California is parallel to the Coast of the Pacific; but between the latitudes of 34° and 41°, between San Buenaventura and the Bay of Trinidad, there runs, on the West of the Sierra Nevada, another (smaller) coast chain, of which Monte del Diablo, 3448 French, 3674 English feet high, is the culminating point. In the narrow valley, between this coast chain and the great Sierra Nevada, flow from the south the Rio de San Joaquin, and from the north the Rio del Sacramento, on the banks of which, in rich alluvial soil, are the rich gold-washings now so much resorted to.

I have already referred, p. 43, to a hypsometric levelling, and to barometric measurements made from the junction of the Kanzas River with the Missouri to the Pacific, or throughout the immense extent of 28 degrees of longitude. Dr. Wislizenus has now successfully continued the levelling began by me from the city of Mexico, in the Equinoctial Zone, to the North as far as Santa Fé del Nuevo Mexico, in lat. 35° 38′. It will be seen, perhaps, with surprise, that the elevated plain which forms the broad crest of the Mexican Andes is far from sinking down, as had long been supposed, to an inconsiderable height. I give here for the first time, according to the measurements which we at present possess, the elevations of several points, forming a line of levelling from the city of Mexico to Santa Fé, which latter town is less than four German (sixteen English) geographical miles from the Rio del Norte.

French Feet. Eng. Feet. Observer.
Mexico 7008 7490 Ht.
Tula 6318 6733 Ht.
San Juan del Rio 6090 6490 Ht.
Queretaro 5970 6363 Ht.
Celaya 5646 6017 Ht.
Salamanca 5406 5761 Ht.
Guanaxuato 6414 6836 Ht.
Silao 5546 5910 Br.
Villa de Leon 5755 6133 Br.
Lagos 5983 6376 Br.
Aguas Calientes 5875 6261 Br.
San Luis Potosi 5714 6090 Br.
Zacatecas 7544 8040 Br.
Fresnillo 6797 7244 Br.
Durango 6426 6848 (Oteiza)
Parras 4678 4985 Ws.
Saltillo 4917 5240 Ws.
El Bolson de Mapimi {3600 to 3837 to} Ws.
{ 4200 4476 }
Chihuahua 4352 4638 Ws.
Cosiquiariachi 5886 6273 Ws.
Passo del Norte, on the}
Rio Grande del Norte } 3557 3812 Ws.
Santa Fé del Nuevo Mexico 6612 7047 Ws.

The letters Ws., Br., and Ht., are placed to distinguish the barometric measurements of Dr. Wislizenus, Oberbergrath Burkart, and my own. Wislizenus has appended to his valuable memoir three vertical sections of the surface of the ground: one from Santa Fé to Chihuahua by Passo del Norte; one from Chihuahua to Reynosa by Parras; and one from Fort Independence (a little to the east of the Confluence of the Missouri and the Kanzas River) to Santa Fé. The calculation is founded on daily corresponding observations of the barometer, made by Engelmann at St. Louis, and by Lilly at New Orleans. If we consider that the difference of latitude between Santa Fé and Mexico is 16° and that thus (apart from deviations from a straight line) the distance in the north and south direction is above 960 geographical miles, we are led to inquire whether there be in any other part of the whole globe a similar conformation of the Earth, equal in extent and elevation (between 5000 and 7000 French, or 5330 and 7460 English feet above the level of the sea) to the highland of which I have just given the levelling, and yet over which four-wheeled waggons can travel as they do from Mexico to Santa Fé. It is formed by the broad, undulating, flattened crest of the chain of the Mexican Andes, and is not the swelling of a valley between two mountain chains, as is the case in some other remarkable elevations of plain or undulating surface--in the Northern Hemisphere, in the “Great Basin” between the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California,--in the Southern Hemisphere, in the high plain of the lake of Titicaca, between the eastern and western chains of the Andes of Bolivia,--and in Asia, in the highlands of Thibet, between the Himalaya and the Kuen-lün.

GENERAL SUMMARY

OF THE

CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.

_Preface to the First Edition_--p. vii. to p. ix.

_Preface to the Second and Third Editions_--p. xi. to p. xv.

_Note by the Translator_--p. xvii.

_Steppes and Deserts_--p. 1 to p. 26.

Coast chain and mountain valleys of Caraccas. Lake of Tacarigua.
Contrast in respect to the luxuriance of vegetation between
those districts and the treeless plains. The steppe regarded as
the bottom of a Mediterranean Sea; broken strata a little higher
than the rest of the plain called “banks.” General phenomena of
extensive plains; the Heaths of Europe, the Pampas and Llanos of
South America, the African Deserts, and the Steppes of Northern
Asia. Different characters of the vegetable covering of the
surface. Animal life. Pastoral nations, and their invasive
migrations 1-6

Description of the South American plains and prairies--their
extent and climate; the latter dependent on the outline of
the coasts, and on the hypsometric conformation of the New
Continent. Comparison with the plains and deserts of Africa 7-13

Original absence of pastoral life in America. Food furnished by
the Mauritia palm; the Guaranis’ huts raised on trees 13-17

Since the discovery of America the Llanos have become more
habitable. Extraordinary increase in the number of wild cattle,
horses, asses, and mules. Description of the season of extreme
dryness, and of the rainy season. Appearance of the surface
of the ground and of the sky. Life of the animals--their
sufferings, their conflicts; power of adaptation with which
certain animals and plants are endowed. Jaguars, crocodiles, and
electric fishes. Unequal conflict between Gymnoti and horses
17-23

Retrospective glance at the countries surrounding the Steppes
and Deserts. Forest wildernesses of the Orinoco and the Amazons.
Indian tribes separated by the wonderful diversity of their
languages and differences of their habits; their hardships, and
frequent variance between the different tribes. Figures graven
on the rocks show that these solitudes were once the seat of a
degree of civilisation which has now disappeared 23-26

_Scientific Elucidations and Additions_--p. 27 to p. 204.

The island-studded lake of Tacarigua; its relations to the
neighbouring mountain chains. Geological description. Progress
of cultivation and of European civilisation. Varieties of
the sugar-cane. Cacao plantations. Great fertility of soil
associated within the tropics with insalubrity of atmosphere
27-33

“Banks” or broken strata. General horizontality of the surface.
Subsidences of the surface 33-35

Resemblance of the distant steppe to the ocean. Naked stony
crust. Tabular masses of syenite; whether prejudicial to health
36-37

General views respecting the mountain systems of North and South
America, embracing the most recent information. Chains running
in a south-west and north-east direction in Brazil and in the
Atlantic portion of the United States of North America. The low
province of Chiquitos; small swellings of the ground constitute
the division between the waters of the Guaporé and Aguapehi in
15° and 17° S. lat., and between the river basins of the Orinoco
and the Rio Negro in 2° and 3° N. lat. 37-39

Continuation of the chain of the Andes north of the isthmus of
Panama (through the Aztec country, where Popocatepetl, 16626
French, or 17720 English feet high, has very recently been again
ascended by Captain Stone) in the Sierra de las Grullas and the
Rocky Mountains. Excellent scientific investigations of Captain
Frémont. The longest barometric levelling ever made, showing a
profile or vertical section of the earth’s surface through a
space of 28° of longitude. Culminating point of the route from
the coast of the Atlantic to the Pacific. “South Pass,” south of
the Wind River Mountains. Swelling of the ground in the Great
Basin. Long contested existence of the Timpanogos Lake. Coast
Chain, Maritime Alps, or Sierra Nevada of California. Volcanic
eruptions. Falls of the Columbia 39-50

General considerations on the contrasts shown by the spaces
included between the central chain (the Rocky Mountains) and
the diverging chains on the east and west (the Alleghanies and
the Sierra Nevada of California); hypsometric characters of the
low eastern space, which is only from 400 to 600 French, or
426 to 639 English feet above the level of the sea, and of the
arid uninhabited plain 5000 or 6000 (5330 to 6400 English) feet
above the same level, called the Great Basin. Sources of the
Mississipi in the Lake of Istaca according to Nicollet’s highly
meritorious researches. Buffalo country; Gomara’s assertion of
buffaloes having been formerly tamed in the northern part of
Mexico 50-55

Retrospective view of the chain of the Andes from the Rocks
of Diego Ramirez to Behring’s Strait. Long circulated errors
respecting the heights of mountains in the eastern chain of
the Andes of Bolivia, especially the Sorata and the Illimani.
Four summits of the western chain of Bolivia, which, according
to Pentland’s latest determinations, are higher than the
Chimborazo, but are not equal in height to the still active
volcano of Acongagua measured by Fitz-Roy 55-58

The African mountains of Harudsch-el-Abiad. Oases 58-60

West winds on the coast of the Sahara. Accumulation of sea-weed;
position of the great bank of Fucus from the time of Scylax of
Caryanda to that of Columbus, and to the present day 60-67

Tibbos and Tuaricks. The camel and its distribution 67-71

Mountain systems of the interior of Asia between Northern
Siberia and India. Erroneous belief in the existence of a single
great elevated plain called “Plateau de la Tartarie” 71-75

Chinese literature a rich source of orographic knowledge. Series
of elevations of different highlands. Desert of Gobi. Probable
mean height of Thibet 75-85

Review of the mountain systems of the interior of Asia. Chains
running in the direction of the meridian; the Ural, which
separates the low part of Europe from the low part of Asia, or
divides into two portions the Scythian Europe of Pherecydes of
Syros and of Herodotus; Bolor; Khingan and the Chinese chains,
which, near the great bend in the direction of the Thibetian and
Assamo-Burmese river Dzangbo-tschu, run north and south. The
elevations which, between 66° and 77° E. long. from Greenwich,
follow the direction of meridians from Cape Comorin to the
Icy Sea, alternate like veins or dikes in which there are
faults or displacements; thus the Ghauts, the Soliman Chain,
the Paralasa, the Bolor, and the Ural, succeed each other from
south to north: the Bolor gave occasion among the ancients
to the idea of the Imaus, which Agathodæmon supposed to be
prolonged to the north into the low basin of the lower Irtysch.
Parallel chains running east and west; the Altai; Thian-schan,
with its active volcanoes at a distance of 1528 geographical
miles from the Icy Sea at the mouth of the Obi, and of 1512
geographical miles from the Indian Sea at the mouth of the
Ganges; the Kuen-lün, recognised by Eratosthenes, Marinus of
Tyre, Ptolemy, and Cosmas Indicopleustes, as the longest axis
of elevation in the Old World, runs between 35-1/2° and 36°
of latitude in the direction of the diaphragm of Dicearchus.
Himalaya. The Kuen-lün, considered as an axis of elevation, may
be traced from the wall of China near Lung-tscheu through the
somewhat more northerly chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan,
through the mountain knot near the Lake called the “Starry Sea,”
through the Hindu-Coosh (the Parapanisus and Indian Caucasus
of the ancients), and through the chain of Demawend and the
Persian Elbourz, to Taurus in Lycia. Near the intersection of
the Kuen-lün and the Bolor the correspondence of the direction
of the axes of elevation (east and west in the Kuen-lün and the
Hindu-Coosh, whereas that of the Himalaya is south-east and
north-west) shows that the Hindu-Coosh is a continuation of the
Kuen-lün, and not of the Himalaya. The point where the direction
of the Himalaya changes to south-east and north-west from having
been east and west, is about the 79th degree of east longitude
from Paris (81° 22′ Greenwich). Next to the Dhawalagiri, it is
not, as has been hitherto supposed, the Jawahir which is the
highest summit of the Himalaya; that rank belonging, according
to the most recent intelligence received from Dr. Joseph
Hooker, to a mountain situated between Boutan and Nepaul in the
meridian of Sikkim, the Kinchinjinga: the western summit of this
mountain, which has been measured by Colonel Waugh, director
of the trigonometrical survey of India, is 28178 feet, and its
eastern summit 27826 feet high, according to the Journal of the
Asiatic Society of Bengal, Nov. 1848:--The mountain which is now
supposed to be higher than the Dhawalagiri is figured on the
frontispiece of the magnificent work of Joseph Hooker entitled
“The Rhododendrons of Sikkim-Himalaya, 1849.”--Determination of
the lower limits of the snow-line on the northern and southern
declivities of the Himalaya; its height being on an average
3400 to 4600 French, or 3620 to 4900 English feet higher on the
northern face. New data on the subject from Hodgson. Without
this remarkable distribution of temperature in the upper strata
of the atmosphere, the mountain plains of Western Thibet would
be uninhabitable to the millions of human beings who now dwell
there 85-101

The Hiong-nu, regarded by Deguignes and Johannes Müller
as a tribe of Huns, appear rather to have been one of the
widely scattered tribes of the Turks of the Altai and Tang-nu
mountains. The Huns, whose name was known to Dionysius
Perigetes, and who are noticed by Ptolemy as Chuns (whence the
later appellation of Chunigard given to a country!), are a
Finnish race of the Ural mountains 101-102

Figures of the sun and of animals, and other signs carved on
rocks in the Sierra Parime, as well as in North America, have
often been supposed to be writing 102-104

Description of the cold mountain elevations between 11000 and
13000 (or 11720 and 13850 English) feet, which are distinguished
by the appellation of Paramos; character of their vegetation
104-106

Notices of the two groups of mountains (Pacaraima Mountains,
and the Sierra de Chiquitos) which separate the three plains of
the Lower Orinoco, the Amazons, and the Rio de la Plata 106-107

On the dogs of South America; both the aboriginal race and the
descendants of European dogs which have become wild. Sufferings
of cats when taken to elevations exceeding 13000 (13850 Eng.)
feet 107-112

The low tract of the Sahara, and its relations to the Atlas
Mountains, according to the latest information given by Daumas,
Carette, and Renou. The barometric measurements of Fournel make
it appear very probable that part of the North African desert
is lower than the level of the sea. Oasis of Biscara; abundance
of fossil salt in zones or bands running from south-west to
north-east. Causes of the nocturnal cold in the desert according
to Melloni 112-118

Notices of the River Wady Dra (1/6th longer than the Rhine,
and dry a large portion of the year), and of the country of
Sheikh Beirouk, a chief independent of the Emperor of Morocco,
from manuscript communications of the Naval Captain Count
Bouet-Villaumez. The mountains north of Cape Noun (a name used
by Edresi, in which, since the 15th century, an allusion to the
negative particle has been erroneously sought) attain 8600 (9166
English) feet of elevation 118-120

The vegetation of the tropical American Llanos consisting of
grasses, compared with the vegetation of the North Asiatic
Steppes consisting of herbaceous plants. In the last-named
Steppes, and especially the more fertile among them, a
pleasing effect is produced in spring by small snow-white
and red-flowering Rosaceæ, Amygdaleæ, species of Astragalus,
Crown Imperials, Cypripedias, and Tulips. Contrast with the
desolate salt Steppes full of Chenopodiaceæ, species of Salsola
and Atriplex. Considerations on the relative numbers of the
prevailing families of plants. The plains adjoining the Icy Sea,
north of the limit determined by Admiral Wrangel as that of the
growth of Coniferæ and Amentaceæ, are the domain of cryptogamous
plants. Aspect and physiognomy of the Tundras, where the soil,
which is perpetually frozen, is covered either with a thick
coating of Sphagnum and other mosses, or with the snow-white
Cenomyce and Stereocaulon paschale 120-123

Principal causes of the very different distribution of
temperature in the European and American Continents. Direction
and curvature of the isothermal lines, or lines of equal
temperature, for the entire year, for the winter, and for the
summer 123-136

Are there any grounds for believing that America emerged later
than the Old Continent from the chaotic watery covering? 136-139

Thermic comparison of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres in
high latitudes 139-143

Apparent connection of the African sea of sand with those
of Persia, Kerman, Beloochistan, and the interior of Asia.
On the western part of Mount Atlas, and the connection of
purely mythical ideas with geographical traditions. Indistinct
allusions to igneous eruptions. Triton Lake. Crater-like forms
of a locality south of Hanno’s “Bay of the Gorilla Apes.”
Singular description of the “hollow Atlas” from the Dialexes of
Marinus Tyrius 143-149

Notices respecting the Mountains of the Moon (Djebel al-Komr)
in the interior of Africa by Reinaud, Beke, and Ayrton. Werne’s
instructive notice of the second expedition undertaken by the
orders of Mehemet Ali. The Abyssinian mountains, which rise,
according to Rüppell, almost to the height of Mont Blanc. The
most ancient notice of snow between the tropics contained in
the Inscription of Adulis, which is somewhat more modern than
Juba. High mountains which, between 6° and 4° of north latitude,
and still more to the south, approach the Bahr el-Abiad. A
considerable swelling of the ground divides the White Nile from
the basin of the Goschop. Line of separation between the waters
which flow to the Mediterranean and those which flow to the
Indian Ocean according to Carl Zimmermann’s map. Lupata Chain
according to the instructive researches of Wilhelm Peters 149-158

Oceanic currents. In the northern part of the Atlantic Ocean the
waters are impelled in a true revolving current. That the first
impulse which causes the Gulf Stream is to be sought at the
southern extremity of Africa, was already known to Sir Humphry
Gilbert in 1560. Influence of the Gulf Stream on the climate of
Scandinavia. How it contributed to the discovery of America.
Instances of Esquimaux who, aided by the returning eastward
flowing portion of the warm Gulf Stream, and by north-west
winds, arrived on the coasts of Europe. Such a case related
by Cornelius Nepos and Pomponius Mela (of Indians given by a
king of the Boii to Quintus Metellus Celer, Proconsul of Gaul);
others in the time of the Othos and of Frederic Barbarossa, of
Columbus and of Cardinal Bembo. Again, in the years 1682 and
1684 natives of Greenland appeared in the Orkneys 159-165

Operation of lichens and other Cryptogamia in the cold and
temperate zones in preparing the way for the more rapid
establishment of larger phænogamous plants. Within the tropics
lichens are often replaced in this respect by succulent plants.
Milk-yielding animals of the New Continent; the Lama, the
Alpaca, the Guanaco 165-169

Cultivation of farinaceous grasses 169-173

On the earliest population of America 173-174

The coast nation of the Guaranis (Warraus), and the Mauritia
palm of the coasts, according to the accounts given by Bembo in
the Historiæ Venetæ, and those of Raleigh, Hillhouse, and Robert
and Richard Schomburgk 174-182

Phenomena which long-continued drought produces in the Steppe;
sand-spouts, hot winds (Mirage); awakening of crocodiles and
tortoises from long summer sleep 182-190

Otomacs. General considerations on the practice of earth-eating
among particular nations or tribes. Clays and earths containing
Infusoria 190-196

Figures graven on rocks throughout a zone running from east
to west, and extending from the Rupunuri, Essequibo, and the
Pacaraima Mountains, to Caycara and the wildernesses of the
Cassiquiare. Earliest notice (April 1749) of these traces of
former civilization in the manuscript account of the travels
of the surgeon Nicolas Hortsmann of Hildesheim, found among
D’Anville’s papers 196-203

The vegetable poison Curare or Ourari 203-204

_Cataracts of the Orinoco_--p. 207 to p. 231.

The Orinoco; general view of its course. Ideas excited in
Columbus on seeing its embouchure. Its unknown sources are east
of the Mountain of Duida and the groves of Bertholletia. Causes
of the principal bends of the river 207-219

The falls or rapids; Raudal of Maypures enclosed by four
streams. Former state of the district. Island-like form of the
rocks Keri and Oco. Grandeur of the view obtained on descending
the hill of Manimi, where a foaming river-surface of four
miles in extent presents itself at once to the eye. Iron-black
masses of rock rise like castles from the bed of the river;
the summits of the lofty palm trees pierce through the cloud of
spray and vapour 219-226

Raudal of Atures; numerous islands; rocky dikes connecting one
island with another, and the resort of pugnacious golden Pipras.
Parts of the bed of the river at the cataracts are dry, from
the waters having found a passage by subterranean channels. We
visited the rocks at the closing in of night and during storm
and heavy rain. Unsuspected proximity of crocodiles 226-227

Celebrated cave of Ataruipe, the sepulchral vault of an extinct
nation 227-231

_Scientific Elucidations and Additions_--p. 233 to p. 255.

The river-cow (Trichecus manati) lives in the sea at the place
where, in the Gulf of Xagua, on the south coast of the Island of
Cuba, springs of fresh water break forth 233-234

Geographical discussion on the sources of the Orinoco 236-241

The Bertholletia, a Lecythidea, a remarkable example of highly
developed organization. Stem of an Arundinarea sixteen to
seventeen feet long from knot to knot 241-243

On the myth or fable of the Lake of Parime 243-254

_The Nocturnal Life of Animals in the Primeval Forest_--p. 259
to p. 272.

Difference between languages in respect to their richness in
well-defined expressions for characterising natural phenomena,
such as the state of vegetation, the forms of plants, the
outlines and grouping of clouds, the appearance of the surface
of the ground, and the forms of rocks and mountains. Loss
which languages suffer by the disuse of such words, or by
their signification becoming impaired. The misinterpretation
of a Spanish word, “Monte,” has caused the undue extension or
introduction of mountains in maps. Primeval Forest; frequent
abuse of the term. Absence of the uniformity which is produced
by the association of the same kinds of trees, characteristic
of tropical forests. Causes of the impenetrability of forests
between the tropics; the twining plants, Lianes, often form only
a small portion of the Underwood 259-266

Appearance of the Rio Apure in the lower part of its course.
Margin of the forest fenced like a garden by a low hedge of
Sauso (Hermesia). The wild animals of the forest lead their
young to the river through small openings in this hedge. Flocks
of large water-hogs or Cavies (Capybara). Fresh-water dolphins
266-269

Wild cries of animals resound throughout the forest. Cause of
the nocturnal uproar 269-271