Page:The Present State of Peru.djvu/44

22 hemisphere, it spreads precisely over the whole of the space which the sun declines from the centre of the sphere, to animate it by its benign influence. Its breadth, which we shall place between two hundred and ninety-seven and three hundred and ten degrees of longitude, the first meridian being taken at the Peak of Teneriffe, varies according as the coasts are at a greater or smaller distance from the Cordillera, or chain of mountains. From the Line to the eighth degree, there is a separation of about one hundred and twenty leagues; but hence, insensibly as it were, gaining ground, its greatest distance, at the eighteenth degree, is reduced to seventy leagues only. By choosing a middle term between these two extremes, and allowing twenty leagues to the degree, the result gives to Peru a plane superficies of 44,650 square leagues.

The whole of this vast superficies serves as a basis to the great Cordillera of the Andes, which, separating majestically beneath the Equator, and forming two branches, the eastern and the western, parallel to each other, and, for the greater part, to the southern coasts, proceeds on to the Tropic of Capricorn. In its way, the eastern branch takes a bend towards the south-east, and terminates in the plains. The western branch penetrates into the kingdom of Chile. The highest