. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 314 MEXICO, CENTEAL MIEEICA, WEST INDIES. feet high, so that for an interoceanic canal it would have to be pierced by a tunnel at least seven miles long and high enough to admit the tallest vessels. The San Bias (Chepo) cordillera, consisting of gneiss and metamorphic schists, is continued under various names as the Atlantic coast-range as far as the entrance to Uraba Bay, where the isthmus takes the name of Darien. The hilly mass of Gandi (3,000 feet) and Turganti farther on mark the point where the system bends round to the south along the west
. The earth and its inhabitants ... Geography. 314 MEXICO, CENTEAL MIEEICA, WEST INDIES. feet high, so that for an interoceanic canal it would have to be pierced by a tunnel at least seven miles long and high enough to admit the tallest vessels. The San Bias (Chepo) cordillera, consisting of gneiss and metamorphic schists, is continued under various names as the Atlantic coast-range as far as the entrance to Uraba Bay, where the isthmus takes the name of Darien. The hilly mass of Gandi (3,000 feet) and Turganti farther on mark the point where the system bends round to the south along the west side of the Rio Atrato, At the Tihule Pass it falls as low as 420 feet, and this site has also been proposed for an interoceanic canal, which would replace an ancient marine strait along the valleys of the Rio Atrato in the east and Rio Tuyra in the west. Farther on the cordillera is connected by lateral ridges with the Baudo range, which runs close to the Pacific coast in the direction from north to south for a Fig-. 140. COTIESE OF THE RlTER ChAGEES. Trom a Spanish Mar» of the first half of the Eighteenth ^Oc, PESQUE^P&oDE LAS ^^y^-^'^ ^ ^''^'''^.''^'-^Mzî^Z^^l^^ distance of about 124 miles. The sierra culminates in the Baudo peak (6,000 feet), but it is interrupted by broad depressions, one of which, the Cupica Pass, is only 1,000 feet high. The last rising grounds of the plateau die out north of the San Juan estuarj\ Rivers, Bays, Islands. Apart from the Atrato, only a few lateral affluents of which are comprised in the province of Panama, the isthmus has no large rivers, or, at least, none that send down a large volume excejDt after heavy rains. Many have a considerable course owing to the disposition of their valleys, which run jiarallel with, and not transversely to, the seaboard. But their basins are too narrow to collect any great quantity of surface waters. Even the Chagres, a term which, according to Pinart, means " Great River " in the Muoi
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