Morning journal and courier., 1880-03-30
Price Four Cen ts.
A Milo in Mid-Air.
An Inaccessible Mountain and Fall Five Thousand Feet High I'm Gui anR.

. An Inaccessible Mountain and Falls , Five Thousand Feet High In Gui- ana.
 MT. Burlington Brown, during his memo
 rable survey of Guiana, reached the foot of
 Roraima, and ascended it's sloping portion to
 height of 5, 100 feet above the level of the
 sea. Between the highest point he reached
 and the foot of the great perpendicular DOT
 tion which lowered above is band of thick
 forest. Looking up at the great wall of rock,
 2,000 feet in height, he could see that forest
 covered its top, and that in places on it's sides
 where small trees or shrubs could gain hold,
 there they cluug. The gigantic cliff itself is
 composed of beds of white, pink and red sandstone, intsrbedded with layers of red
 shale, the whole resting on bed of diorite. l The length of Roraima is about eight or ten miles; Kukenam is perhaps larger; and the
 area of I1ebeapeur is certainly most exten-
 sive. It is impossible to view this wonderful group of mountains without realizing that far back in the youth of the world they formed part of an archipelago in tropical seas. That
 they are well wooded and watered is made
 certain by visible trees and the enormous | waterfall which pours at least from Roraima | A grand view of this cataract was obtained by | Mir. Burlington Brown from the mouth os 2
 cave, inhabited by Guacharo birds, and situ- l ated oo2 feet above the level of the sea, l Through the clear atmosphere was distinctly visible at distance of thirty miles the white | thread of the waterfall. Tho Indians said it was the head of branch of the Cotinpa river. | but it is more probably the head of the Ga.
 roui, branch of the Orinoka. This tropical l Staubbach is probably the highest fall in the | world, and is at the same time of considera-. l ble bulk. The cliff of Roraima is 2OOO feet | in height, lover the upper half of which it
 fell like plumb-line, and then descended l with slight slope outward. The remaining 3, ,o0o feet to the valley below slopes ct an angle of forty-fve degrees, and, being tree- covered, the rest of the fall is hidden by fol iage."
 The irresistible attraction of the curious Savanna range of island mountains to natur- alists arises from it's inaccessibility. This should not be understood as the mere desire to excel others in romantic feat of climbing, but as the hope that some relics of the man. malian life of the called 'miocene' period may have survived on these isolated attitudes cut of from all communication with the liy- ing, moving world below. If any of the ''miocene" mammals lived upon them when
 the sea washed over their bases, the descend ants of those animals may exist there still, as
 the lemurs exist in Madagascar, and whole family of marsupials, such as the kangaroo in Australia.
 Perhaps a balloon may one day solve the
 mystery which lends a charm to these island
 mountains, and the happy naturalist who
 Iands-as one will, of course, and in time-on
 the summit of Roraima, may find himself
 among the descendants of the races long since plotted from the lower world in which the evidence of their existence is recorded in the great stone books alone. Amid the forest depths, on which rests ahuge cloud, he may find not the gigantic saurians of the youthful world, grim monsters of the fsh-Iizard and bird lizard kind, but the great progenitors of ex- isting mammalia. Leaving the tapir, one of the most ancient of extant creatures, at the bottom of the Roraima cascade, he may find at it's top it's gigantic congeners-huge her bivorous animals fifteen and eighteen feet in length the dinotherium, tapir-like creature larger than the elephant antique analogues of the mastodon !; ancestors of the horse the hog, and the greater cats, which in the known parts of the continent are represented by the jaguar, the puma and the ocelot. The pros pect of the dinotherium alone would be suffi- cient to compensate an enthusiastic naturalist for the labor of years. It is the largest of the terrestrial mammalia which have inhabit- ed our globe, and deservedly stands at the head of the thick skinned animals, as the me gatherium or gigantic soth st that of the tar digrades. Probably the dinotherium would be found, If found at all, pursuing life like that of the hippopotamus. It's great head and tusks are fitted for grubbing up aquatic plants, and like those of the walrus, for helping the animal out of the water. But the is but one of tho startling forms which might be looked for on Roreima if it's cliffsabo really as difficult as painted. Lizards in the semi ophadian stage might be encoun- tered, and other animals which, as the little boy who had been taken into lecture of Professor Ovens, "had not quite made up their minds what they were going to be-
 The question is Is Roraima as inaccessi- ble as it looks From recent evidence there is break in the waterfall at point thou sand feet below the flat, cliff-like summit. Now 0 thousand feet do not cover very great height, and there is no good evidence as to the inaccessibility of the mountain. Trav- slers have looked from afar, and Indians have talked, and nothing has been done among them. Has any white man tried the ascent and failed? Is the scientific world of to-day going to give up as impossible what has ney- CT been seriously attempted.