I next subjoin the conjectures of that gentleman, having given the earlier ones formed by myself. According to his view, the course of the upper Orinoco to the east of Esmeralda is dedicated from South-east to North-west; my estimations of latitude for the mouths of the Padamo and the Gehette appearing to be respectively 19 and 36′ too small. Robert Schomburgk supposes the sources of the Orinoco to be in lat. 2°.30′ (S. 460); and the fine “Map of Guayana, to illustrate the route of R. H. Schomburgk,” which accompanies the splendid English work entitled “Views in the Interior of Guiana,” places the sources of the Orinoco in 67°.18′ (W. from Paris), _i. e._ 1°.6′ west of Esmeralda, and only 48′ of longitude nearer to the Atlantic than I had thought admissible. From astronomical combinations Schomburgk has placed the mountain of Maravaca, which is upwards of nine thousand feet high, in lat. 3°.41′ and long. 65°.38′. Near the mouth of the Padamo or Paramú the Orinoco was scarcely three hundred yards wide; and more to the west, where it spreads to a breadth of from four to six hundred yards, it was so shallow and so full of sand-banks that the Expedition were obliged to dig channels, the river bed being only fifteen inches deep. Fresh water Dolphins were still to be seen everywhere in large numbers; a phenomenon which the zoologists of the 18th century would not have been prepared to expect in the Orinoco and the Ganges. [59] p. 213.--“_The most vigorous of the productions of the tropical world._” The Bertholletia excelsa (Juvia), of the family of Myrtaceæ (and placed in Richard Schomburgk’s proposed division of Lecythideæ), was first described by Bonpland and myself in the “Plantes équinoxiales,” T. i. 1808, p. 122, tab. 36. This gigantic and magnificent tree offers, in the perfect formation of its cocoa-like, round, thick, woody fruit enclosing the three-cornered and also woody seed-vessels, the most remarkable example of high organic development. The Bertholletia grows in the forests of the Upper Orinoco between the Padamo and the Ocamu, near the mountain of Mapaya, and also between the rivers Amaguaca and Gehette. (Rélation historique, T. ii. p. 474, 496, 558-562.) [60] p. 213.--“_Grass stalks having joints above eighteen feet long from knot to knot._”