Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of the New Continent During the Years 1799-1804, Volume 6Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, and Brown, 1826 - Natural history |
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Common terms and phrases
according Amazon ancient Araya banks Barcelona barometer barometric heights basin Boussingault branch Brazil Buenos Ayres canal Cape Caraccas Caribbean Sea Caribbees Caripe Carony Cerro Choco coast contains Cordillera counter-forts Cumana Cumanacoa east eastern chain epochas Europe extent extremity geognostic gneiss granite Grenada groupe gulph Guyana horary variations Indians inhabitants island isthmus isthmus of Panama knot La Guayra lake land latitude limestone Llanos longitude maps mean height Merida meridian Mexico micaslate millimeters Mississipi morning moun mountains mouth northern observations Ocean Oroonoko oscillations Paraguay parallel Paramo Parime peak Peru piastres plains population province Quito ridge Rio Branco Rio Negro Rio San Juan river rocks Rocky San Juan sandstone Santa savannahs shore of Venezuela Sierra Sierra Nevada soil South America southern Spanish square leagues summits table-land tains temperature territory tion toises toises high tributary stream tropics tween valley Venezuela waters western
Popular passages
Page 163 - Kyk-over-al, (look every where around), at the confluence of the Cuyuni, Masaruni, and Essequebo, have not been re-established. Persons, who had been on the spot, assured me, during my stay at Angostura, that the country west of Pomaroun, of which the possession will one day be contested by England and the republic of Columbia) is marshy, but exceedingly fertile.
Page 317 - The cosmogonic fables, the pyramidal constructions, the system of the calendar, the animals of the tropics found in the catasterim of days, the convents and congregations of priests, the taste for statistic enumerations, the annals of the empire held in the most scrupulous order, lead us toward...
Page 404 - Florida again widens towards the east, the Cordilleras, of Durango and New Mexico as well as the Rocky Mountains, which are a continuation of those Cordilleras, appear to be thrown anew towards the West, that is, towards the coast of the Pacific Ocean ; but they still remain eight or ten times more remote from it than in the southern hemisphere. We may consider as the two extremities of the Andes, the rock or granitic isle of Diego Ramirez, south of Cape Horn, and the mountains that reach the mouth...
Page 249 - ... has caused it to be generally believed that the junction of the, seas is an undertaking of greater difficulty than there has been hitherto reason to suppose. " It appears that there are no chains of mountains, not even a ridge of partition, or any...
Page 317 - Anahuac, that officina gentium, which, during five centuries, sends nations toward the south, who understand each other without difficulty, and recognize each other for relations? Asia, north of Amour, where it is nearest America, is a barbarous country; and, in supposing (which is geographically possible) a migration of southern Asiatics by Japan, Tarakay (Tchoka), the Kurile and the Aleutian isles, from southwest toward the northeast (from 40 to 55 deg.
Page 291 - Asia, at present insulated and secure from attack, will inevitably enter into more intimate connections with the nations of European race which inhabit the shores of the Atlantic. It may be said, that that neck of land against which the equinoxial current breaks, has been for ages the bulwark of the independence of China and Japan. In penetrating farther into futurity, imagination dwells upon the conflict between powerful nations, eager to obtain exclusive advantages from the way opened to the commerce...
Page 674 - ... in the afternoon, and then returns to its first height. It has nearly the same variations at the same hours of the night ; the variation is about J of a line or i of a line, at the utmost a whole line.
Page 317 - Anahunc were those of the towns they had abandoned in their ancient country. The civilization on the Mexican table-land was regarded by the inhabitants themselves as the copy of something which had existed elsewhere, as the reflection of the primitive civilization of Aztlan. Where, it may be asked, must be placed that parent land of the colonies of Anahuac, that...
Page 749 - The preceding tables prove that these doubts are altogether unfounded with regard to the table-lands situated between the tropics. The observations of M. Ramond, made at the height of 210 toiscs, at Clermont-Ferrand, give us a right to suppose from analogy, that in the elevated plains of La Mancha, in Spain, at 320 toises, we should see the barometer ascend at the same hours as at Valencia or Cadiz.
Page 163 - English Guyana, merits the greatest attention on account of the political importance of the mouths of the Oroonoko, which I have discussed in the twenty-fourth chapter of this work. The sugar and cotton plantations had already reached beyond the Rio...