ANDES.
of about 9000 miles which loses itself near the
mouth of the Mackenzie, towards the shores of
the Arctic Ocean. In this respect, the old continent
can bring nothing into comparison.
Position.—The A., besides being generally in a
direction nearly parallel with the Pacific, verge
closely on that ocean. From the rocks, indeed,
of Diego Ramirez to about lat. 40° 8., the
mountains, whether they are found on islands or
on the mainland, are almost literally washed by
the surf ; while northward from that parallel, there
spreads out, between the chain itself and the sea,
a belt of land. not exceeding, in average breadth,
70 or 80 miles. Within the limits of Peru, the belt
in question is narrowest, while above and below it is,
in general, somewhat more extensive. The position
of the A. with respect to the Atlantic Ocean presents
a striking contrast. To illustrate this, a passage
is subjoined from Herndon, the explorer of the
‘Amazon on behalf of the United States. Crossing
from Lima to the head-waters of the Amazon,
by the Pass of Antarangra, he writes thus : ¢ Yana-
coto, on the western slope of the A., at the height of
2337 feet above the sea-level, is only 28 miles from
the ocean that washes the base of the slope on which
it is situated ; while Fort San Ramon, at nearly the
same elevation on the opposite side, cannot be much
less than 4000 miles from its ocean by the windings
of the river, and in the river’s direct course is at
least 2500 miles.” Further, to compare the two areas
respectively to the west and east of the dividing
ridge, the former has been estimated at 180,000
square miles, and the latter at twenty times as
much.
Hydrography.—This interesting feature of the A.
has been already anticipated, to a considerable
extent, under the heads of the Amazoxn and
AMERICA. It only remains to observe that from
one end of the continent to the other, the true
and only water-shed, wherever there are two ranges,
is the range nearer to the Pacificc Not only is
the water-shed in question obviously far closer to
the west than to the east, but, beyond this, it is,
apparently without a single exception, pushed as far
to the westward as possible; it thus affords the
most conspicuous and most decisive example of an
almost universal law in the hydrography of the
earth. Throughout both continents, almost every
leading water-shed presents a longer descent towards
the east than towards the west, or, in other
words, sends off larger streams in the former direc-
tion than in the latter. To cite a few instances:
compare, in North America, the Missouri with the
Columbia ; in Europe, the Volga with the Neva ; in
Asia, the Hoang-ho of China with the Oxus of the
Sea of Aral ; and even in Africa, where, as also in
Arabia, hydrographical trates have been largely
overlaid by deserts of sand, the plateau of the
Sahara and the chain of the Atlas gradually incline,
both of them, towards the east. But, if the water-
shed be invariably found as far as possible to the
westward, it necessarily follows, that, wherever
there are two ranges, the more easterly range cannot
also be a continuous water-shed—unless, indeed, it
may be regarded as such with respect to the land-
locked basin of the connected lakes, Titicaca and
Uroz, already mentioned under the head of AMERICA.
‘With this exception, all the gatherings between the
two ranges, whether the intermediate space be
plateau or sierra, have found or formed channels of
escape—narrow, deep, and dark as they often are—
only to that sea which is thirty or forty times more
distant than the one at their back.
Breadth and Area—The area, on an estimate,
necessarily rough and vague, has been computed to
be triple that of the belt of comparatively level land
238
that borders on the Pacific. In other words, the
average breadth of the chain is reckoned to be thrice
that of the belt in question. In a rough way, the
breadth may be estimated from the very shore of
the Pacific, whence the west slope commences, to
the lowest pongos, or cataracts, on the eastward
streams. But it is more correct to measure it
from the foot of the mountains, properly so called,
on the one side to that on the other. The phrase-
ology of the country, which, on such a subject, ought
to be conclusive, appears to support the latter mode
of computation. In Lima and its neighbourhood,
where Herndon crossed the A., that officer speaks
of “coast’ and ¢sierra,” as distinguished from each
other even to the westward of the dividing ridge.
The entire distance of the Pass of Antarangra, as
measured on the actual road, was 87 miles—the first
50 being coast, and the remaining 37 being sierra.
Nor does the distinction seem to have been an arbi-
trary one. From Callao to Cocachera—a line of 44
miles—the rise above the sea-level, tolerably uniform
the whole way, amounted to 4452 feet, or rather
more than 101 feet to the mile ; but the next 15 miles,
of which about a half still belonged to what was called
coast, yielded an increase of 2850 feet, an average
probably of 200 feet for that part of the stage that
fell under the definition of sierra. To give instances
of extreme breadths of the A.—an average breadth
being unattainable—the least breadth, and that in
Patagonia, is believed to be 60 or 70 miles; the
greatest breadth, again, pretty nearly on the parallel
of Lake Titicaca, and right through the grand
plateau of Bolivia, is said to be 400 miles; and
to give an intermediate case, the breadth from
Mendoza, in the basin of La Plata, to Santiago, in
Chili, is given at 140 miles—the former city being
4486 feet above the Atlantic, and the latter 2614
above the Pacific.
In order, then, to havea definite idea of the breadth
of the A., the chain must be viewed from one end to
the other. In doing this, there will be adopted the
ordinary nomenclature, referring each division of
the A. to the particular country through which it
may pass.
Patagonian Andes.—Including, the A. of the
Fuegian Archipelago, this part of the chain, ex-
tending from lat. 56° S. to lat. 42° 8., a distance of
more than 960 miles, is the narrowest of all, or is,
at all events, too irregular to have its breadth
accurately estimated. The Patagonian shore, strictly
so called, is breasted, very much like the northe
west coast between Fuca’s Strait and Mount St
Elias, by a number of islands. On these, as already
mentioned, the true A. are to be found, or rather,
of these the true A. consist—the continent itself
affording no footing to the“chain till fully 300 miles
to the northward of Cape Horn. Even after the
chain has laid hold of the mainland, it by no means
can be said to abandon the islands; so that here,
as further to the north, the chain may be regarded
as made up of parallel ranges—the main difference
being that the intervening valleys, which, to the
north, are basins of fresh-water rivers, here present
salt-water channels.
Chilian Andes, stretching from lat. 42° 8. to lat.
24° 8., a distance of nearly 1250 miles. Throughout
nearly the whole of this line, the A. consist of only
one range, for the parallel ridges, which run along
between the great water-shed and the Pacific,
cannot claim to be any exception to this remark,
inasmuch as their highest points do not exceed an
elevation of 2500 feet above the level of the sea.
This part of the chain, however, presents several
lateral ranges, if it does not present any parallel
ones of importance. These spurs are to be seen on
both sides, though of very different magnitudes. To
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