The United States Discovers Panama by LaRosa Michael J.;Mejía Germán R.;Mejia German R; & Germán R. Mejía

Author:LaRosa, Michael J.;Mejía, Germán R.;Mejia, German R; & Germán R. Mejía
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Published: 2004-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

Great Falls, Limon River

This table-land is about three miles long, and is very healthy, being well suited for human settlements. The trail traverses this plateau, and strikes hills about eighty feet high. Following the path, the Rancho Grande, or Embarcadero, is reached soon after. It lies about 250 feet above ocean level, and is about halfway between the divide and the Atrato. The natives have built a comparatively large hut at this point, which serves as a stopping-place during their travels through this portion of the country. The hut was occupied by a few Indians, who showed themselves very friendly, and immediately offered all the hospitality in their power to the exploring party.

At this place the Napipi becomes navigable for canoes, although still farther below are several rapids of no inconsiderable size. For about thirteen miles from the dividing ridge the country is broken and mountainous in its character, but assumes a flat appearance where the Doguado River flows into the Napipi—a point lying twenty-five miles inland from the Pacific Ocean.

Beds of clay and gravel form the river bank, but gradually the levees become lower and lower, and the gravelly shores give way to long stretches of soft mud, in which are imbedded logs and all kinds of river stuff, like the shores of the Atrato. This lower portion of the river is subjected to violent freshets.

The Napipi flows in a very crooked course of 68 miles through an area measuring but a little more than 27 miles in a straight line, emptying into the Atrato in latitude 6°35′ north, 150 miles from the Gulf of Darien. It is about 100 feet wide at its mouth. The height of the Atrato above mean tide is 41 feet at this point, while its levees have a height of about twelve feet.

The survey of the Napipi Valley by Master Collins and Ensign Paine shows that the divide of the Napipi line has an altitude of 612 feet at a point lying very near the Pacific coast. After passing the Limon River the land forms an elevated plateau, with a rise of about twenty feet, and a total height of 560 feet. The country here assumes the general character of table-land, interspersed with low hills, until a range 400 feet high is encountered, through which the river has cut its way, bounding along a rocky gorge.

The hilly country ends at Rancho Grande, and after passing the Doguado no more tributaries of any size are met with, and the river-bottom becomes level and pebbly, and the rapids less frequent.

The survey also shows that the Napipi is an extremely crooked stream, following a serpentine course of sixty-eight miles, while the distance in a straight line from its source to the mouth is less than thirty. Its general width is 120 feet, and the current at the end of the dry season about one and a half miles per hour, giving a volume of flow of 510,300 cubic feet per hour. During the rainy season its banks are overflowed from two to four feet.

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