*4
[Footnote 2: According to Malte-Brun, it is under the equator
that we meet with the loftiest summits of this chain. (Universal
Geography, Eng. trans., book 86.) But more recent measurements
have shown this to be between fifteen and seventeen degrees
south, where the Nevado de Sorata rises to the enormous height of
25,250 feet, and the Illimani to 24,300.]
[Footnote 3: At least, the word anta, which has been thought to
furnish the etymology of Andes, in the Peruvian tongue, signified
"copper." Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 15.]
[Footnote 4: Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres et Monumens des
Peuples Indigenes de l'Amerique, (Paris, 1810,) p. 106. -
Malte-Brun, book 88.
The few brief sketches which M. de Humboldt has given of the
scenery of the Cordilleras, showing the hand of a great painter,
as well as of a philosopher, make us regret the more, that he has
not given the results of his observations in this interesting
region as minutely as he has done in respect to Mexico.]
The face of the country would appear to be peculiarly unfavorable
to the purposes both of agriculture and of internal
communication. The sandy strip along the coast, where rain
rarely falls, is fed only by a few scanty streams, that furnish a
remarkable contrast to the vast volumes of water which roll down
the eastern sides of the Cordilleras into the Atlantic. The
precipitous steeps of the sierra, with its splintered sides of
porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows
that never melt under the fierce sun of the equator, unless it be
from the desolating action of its own volcanic fires, might seem
equally unpropitious to the labors of the husbandman.
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