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The Andes is a vast mountain system forming a continuous chain of highland along the western coast of South America. It is roughly 7000 km (4400 miles) long, 160 km (100 miles) wide in some parts, and of an average height of about 4000 m (13,000 feet).
The connection of this system with that of the Rocky Mountains, which has been pointed out by many writers, has received much support from the discovery of the extensive eruptions of granite during Tertiary times, extending from the southern extremity of South America to Alaska.
The Andean range is composed of two great principal chains with a deep intermediate depression , in which, and at the sides of the great chains, arise other chains of minor importance, the chief of which is that called the Cordillera de la Costa of Chile. This starts from the southern extremity of the continent and runs in a northerly direction, parallel with the coast, being broken up at its beginning into a number of islands and afterwards forming the western boundary of the great central valley of Chile. To the north this coastal chain continues in small ridges or isolated hills along the Pacific Ocean as far as Colombia, always leaving the same valley more or less visible to the west of the western great chain.
Of the two principal chains the eastern is generally called Los Andes, and the western La Cordillera, in Colombia, Peru and BoliviaThe Republic of Bolivia is a landlocked country in western South America. It is bordered by Brazil in the north and east, Paraguay and Argentina in the south, and Chile and Peru in the west. History Main article: History of Bolivia Bolivia has long been i, where the eastern is likewise known as Cordillera Real de los Andes, while to the south of parallel 23°S in Chile and ArgentinaArgentina is a Spanish-speaking country in southern South America, situated between the Andes in the west and the southern Atlantic Ocean in the east. It is bordered by Paraguay and Bolivia in the north, Brazil and Uruguay in the northeast and Chile in th, the western is called Cordillera de los Andes. The eastern disappears in the centre of Argentina, and it is therefore only the Cordillera de los Andes that is prolonged as far as the south-eastern extremity of the continent.
The Cordillera de la Costa begins near
Cape HornCape Horn is often said to be the southernmost point of South America. It is located in the Tierra del Fuego archipelago. The southernmost point on the mainland is Cape Froward. The cape was first rounded on January 26, 1616 by a Dutch expedition of Wille, which is composed principally of crystalline rocks,and its heights are inconsiderable when compared with those of the true Cordillera of the Andes. The latter, as regards its main chain, is on the northern coast of the
Beagle ChannelBeagle Channel is a strait seperating islands of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago, in extreme southern South America. It seperates Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego from several smaller islands to the south. Its eastern portion is part of the border between in Tierra del FuegoTierra del Fuego ( Spanish: land of fire is an archipelago at the southernmost tip of South America. In 1881 it was divided between Argentina and Chile. The archipelago consists of a main island ( Isla Grande de Tierra del Fuego, often called Tierra del F, bounded on the northby the deep depression of Lake Fagnano and of Admiralty Sound . Staten Island appears to be the termination to the east. The Cordillera of the Andes in Tierra del Fuego is formed of crystalline schistThe schists form a group of metamorphic rocks chiefly notable for the preponderance of lamellar minerals such as micas, chlorite, talc, hornblende, graphite, etc. Quartz often occurs in drawn-out grains to such an extent that quartz schist is produced.s, and culminates in the snow-capped peaks of Mount Darwin and Mount Sarmiento 2200 m(7200 feet), which contains glaciers of greater extent than those of Mont Blanc. The extent of the glaciers is considerable in this region, which, geographically, is more complex than was formerly supposed. Although in the explored portion of the Fuegian chain the volcanoes which have been mentioned from time to time have not been met with, there seem to have existed to the south, on the islands, many neo-volcanic rocks, some of which appear to be contemporaneous with the basaltic sheet that covers a part of eastern Patagonia. The insular region between Mount Sarmiento and the Cordillera de los Andes, properly so called, i.e. that which extends from Magellan Strait northwards, is not fully explored, and all that is known of it is that it is principally composed of the same rocks as the Fuegian section, and that the greater part of its upper valleys is occupied by glaciers that reach down to the sea amid dense forest.
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