The coast chain of Venezuela, geographically considered, is a part of the chain of the Andes of Peru. The chain of the Andes divides itself, at the great mountain junction at the sources of the Magdalena, south of Popayan, (between 1° 55′ and 2° 20′ latitude), into three chains, the easternmost of which terminates in the snow-covered mountains of Merida. These mountains sink down towards the Paramo de las Rosas into the hilly land of Quibor and Tocuyo, which connects the coast chain of Venezuela with the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca. The coast chain forms an unbroken rampart from Porto Cabello to the promontory of Paria. Its mean height hardly equals 750 toises or 4795 English feet; yet single summits, like the Silla de Caracas (also called Cerro de Avila), decked with the purple-flowering Befaria the American Rose of the Alps, rise 1350 toises or 8630 English feet above the level of the sea. The coast of Terra Firma bears traces of devastation. We recognise everywhere the action of the great current which, sweeping from east to west, formed by disruption the West Indian Islands, and hollowed out the Caribbean gulf. The projecting tongues of land of Araja and Chuparipari, and especially the coast of Cumana and New Barcelona, offer a remarkable spectacle to the geologist. The precipitous Islands of Boracha, Caracas, and Chimanas, rise like towers from the sea, and bear witness to the terrible pressure of the waters against the mountain chain when it was broken by their irruption. Perhaps, like the Mediterranean, the Antillean gulf was once an inland sea, which became suddenly connected with the ocean. The islands of Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica, still contain the remnants of the lofty mountains of mica slate which bounded this sea to the north. It is remarkable that where these three islands approach each other most nearly the highest summits are found; and we may conjecture that the highest part of this Antillean chain was situated between Cape Tiburon and Point Morant. The Copper Mountains (Montañas de Cobre) near Santiago de Cuba have not yet been measured, but their elevation is probably greater than that of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica, (1138 toises, 7277 English feet,) which somewhat exceeds the height of the St. Gothard Pass. My conjectures on the valley-form of the Atlantic Ocean, and on the ancient connection of the continents, were given more in detail in a memoir written in Cumana, entitled Fragment d’un Tableau Géologique de l’Amerique Meridionale (Journal de Physique, Messidor, An. IX.) It is worthy of remark, that Columbus himself, in his Official Reports, called attention to the connection between the direction of the equatorial current and the form of the coast line of the larger Antilles. (Examen critique de l’hist. de la Géographie, p. 104-108.)