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La Condamine affirms that from the Pongo de Manseriche to the Strait of Pauxis not the smallest stone is to be found. Now the basin of the Rio Negro and of the Amazon is also a Llano, a plain like those of Venezuela and Buenos Ayres. The difference consists only in the state of vegetation.

The mountains are lofty near the Embarcadero, at the confluence of the Imasa, where large trees of cinchona, which might be easily transplanted to Cayenne, or the Canaries, approach the Amazon. The rocks in the famous strait of Manseriche are scarcely 40 toises high; and further eastward the last hills rise near Xeberos, towards the mouth of the Rio Huallaga.

The pongo of Manseriche, which ought rather to be called a strait than a fall, ingulfs, in a manner not yet sufficiently explored, a part of the waters and all the floating wood of the Upper Maranon. The spectator, seated on the bank of the Orinoco, with his eyes fixed on those rocky dikes, is naturally led to inquire whether, in the lapse of ages, the falls change their form or height.

The Amazon, on issuing from the longitudinal valley which bounds the chains of Caxamarca and Chachacocha, breaks the latter chain; and the point where the great river penetrates the mountains, is very remarkable. From thence to the Pongo de Rentema, a long succession of rocks follow, of which the last is the Pongo de Tayouchouc, between the strait of Manseriche and the village of San Borja.

We shall soon see that this latter branch forms, below the Rio Neva a tributary stream of the Amazon, the rocks that border the famous Pongo de Manseriche.

Such is the angostura of Carare, in the river Magdalena, a strait that impedes communication between Santa Fe de Bogota and the coast of Carthagena; and such is the pongo of Manseriche, in the Upper Maranon.

The waters are still acted upon by the impulsion they received near a thousand leagues distance, in the straits of Florida, between the island of Cuba and the shoals of Tortoise Island. This distance is double the length of the course of the river Amazon, from Jaen or the straits of Manseriche to Grand Para.