Page:A narrative of travels on the Amazon and Rio Negro.djvu/324

 292 GEOLOGY OF

Negro, were lost, and I have therefore very few materials to go upon.

GrnmV ipems to-bf^ in South America, more extensively developed than in any other part of the world. Darwin and Gardner found it in every part of the interior of Brazil, in La Plata, and Chile. Up the Xingu" Prince Adalbert met with it. Over the whole of Venezuela and New Granada, it was found by Humboldt. It seems to form all the mountains in the interior of Guiana, and it was met with by myself over the whole of the upper part of the Rio Negro, and far up the Uaupes towards the Andes.

From what I could see of the granitic formation of the Upper Rio Negro, it appeared to be spread out in immense undulating areas, the hollows of which, being filled up with alluvial deposits, form those beds of earth and clay which occur, of various dimensions, everywhere in the midst of the granite formation. In these places grow the lofty virgin forests, while on the scantily covered granite rocks, and where beds of sand occur, are the more open catinga forests, so different in their aspect and peculiar in their vegetation. What strikes one most in this great formation, is its almost perfect flatness. There are no ranges of mountains, or even slightly elevated plateaus ; all is level, except the abrupt peaks that rise suddenly from the plain, to a height of from one hundred to three thou- sand feet. In the Upper Rio Negro these peaks are very numerous. The first is the Serra de Jacami, a little above vSt. Isabel ; it rises immediately from the bank of the river, on the south side, to a height of about six hundred feet. Several others are scattered about, but the Serras de Curicuriarf are the most lofty. They consist of a group of three or four moun- tains, rising abruptly to the height of near three thousand feet ; towards their summits are immense precipices and jagged peaks. Higher up, on the same river, is another group of rather less height. On the Uaupes are numerous hills, some conical, others dome-shaped, but all keeping the same character of abrupt elevations, quite independent of the general profile of the country. About the falls of the river Uaupes there are small hills of granite, broken about in the greatest confusion. Great chasms or bowls occur, and slender pillars of rock rise above the surrounding forest like dead trunks of giant trees. Up the river Isanna, the Tunuhy mountains are a similar isolated