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(Presented to the Society December 19, 1890.)

Two years ago I selected for my annual address Africa, or the Dark Continent; last year Asia, the Land of Mountains and Deserts; this year I have chosen South America, the Land of Rivers and Pampas.

The recent meeting of the Pan-American Congress has called attention to South America, a part of our continent under republican forms of government and rich in products which we lack, while it relies mainly on other foreign countries for goods which we manufacture. North America and South America should be more closely united, for the one is the complement of the other.

The prominent features of South America are its long ranges of mountains-next to the Himalayas the highest in the world,— its great valley, and its immense plateau extending from the Straits of Magellan to the Caribbean sea.

THE MOUNTAINS.

The Andes rise in the extreme south at Cape Horn, run in a northerly course through Patagonia and southern Chili; thence continuing in three nearly parallel ranges, the western chain called the Andes, the others known as the Cordilleras, through Peru,

1-NAT. GEOG. MAG., VOI.. III, 1891.

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