Between the Western and the Central Cordilleras is a longitudinal depression along which the river Cauca finds its way towards the sea.
During his term of office revolutionary disturbances occurred in the provinces of Cauca and Antioquia, but were suppressed with no great difficulty.
Goats are largely produced for their skins, and in some localities, as in Cauca, sheep are raised for their wool.
He was a native of Spain, but the exact place of his birth is uncertain (Cauca in Galicia according to Idatius and Zosimus, Italica according to Marcellinus).
High temperatures prevail throughout the greater part of the Magdalena and Cauca valleys, because the mountain ranges which enclose them shut out the prevailing winds.
In Ecuador the depression between the Eastern and Western Cordilleras is almost entirely filled with modern lavas and agglomerates; in Colombia the corresponding Cauca depression is almost free from such deposits.
It is an important commercial centre, being on the road which crosses the Quindio pass, or paramo, into the Cauca valley.
It is worthy of note that the principal rivers of these three classes - the Patia, Cauca, Magdalena, Caqueta and Putumayo - all have their sources on the high plateaus of southern Colombia and within a comparatively limited area.
It then forms the divide between the Cauca and Atrato valleys, and terminates near the Caribbean coast.
Medellin, the foundation of which dates from 1674, stands in the valley of the Porce, a tributary of the Cauca, and is reputed to be one of the healthiest as well as one of the most attractive cities of the republic. It has a university, national college, school of mines and other educational institutions, assaying and refining laboratories, a public library and a mint.
On October 16, 1899 - the outstanding circulation then amounting to 46,000,000 pesos, - the government decreed an unlimited issue to meet its expenditures in suppressing the revolution, and later on the departments of Antioquia, Bolivar, Cauca, and Santander were authorized to issue paper money for themselves.
Other important towns are Manizales (18,000) in the extreme south, the commercial centre of a rich gold and grazing region; Antioquia, the old capital, on the Cauca; and Puerto Berri() on the Magdalena, from which a railway has been started to the capital.
Small steamers also navigate the lower Cauca and Nechi rivers, and a limited service is maintained on the upper Cauca.
So difficult is the country through which the Cauca has cut its tortuous course that the fertile upper valley is completely isolated from the Caribbean, and has no other practicable outlet than the overland route from Cali to Buenaventura, on the Pacific. The upper sources of the Cauca flow through a highly volcanic region, and are so impregnated with sulphuric and other acids that fish cannot live in them.
The Cauca differs much from the Magdalena, although its principal features are the same.
The Cauca unites with the Magdalena about 200 m.
The department of Cauca is considered to be the richest of the republic in mineral deposits, but it is less conveniently situated for carrying on mining operations.
The greater part of its territory lies between the Magdalena and Cauca rivers and includes the northern end of the Central Cordillera.
The largest branch of the Cauca on its western side, however, is the San Jorge, which, though rising in the Western Cordillera on the northern slopes of the Alto del Viento, in about lat.
The most important rivers of Colombia, however, are the Magdalena and its principal tributary, the Cauca.
The other part of the republic, which may be roughly estimated at two-fifths of its total area, consists of an extremely rugged mountainous country, traversed from south to north by the parallel river valleys of the Magdalena, Cauca and Atrato.
The ridge forming the water-parting between the basins of the Cauca and Patia rivers crosses between the Central and Western Cordilleras at this point and culminates a few miles to the south.
The temperate and subtropical regions cover the greater part of the departments traversed by the Eastern Cordillera, the northern end of the Central Cordillera, the Santa Marta plateaus, and the Upper Cauca Valley.
The tribes of the Caribbean seaboard, from Chiriqui to Goajira, are generally attached to the great Carib stock; those of the eastern plains show affinities with the neighbouring Brazilian races; those of the elevated Tuquerres district are of the Peruvian type; and the tribes of Antioquia, Cauca, Popayan and Neiva preserve characteristics more akin to those of the Aztecs than to, any other race.
The valley of the Cauca is much narrower than that of the Magdalena, and between Cartago and Caceres the mountain ranges on both sides press down upon the river and confine it to a narrow canyon.
These territories formerly belonged to the departments of Boyaca, Cundinamarca and Cauca.
This range runs in a north-north-east direction and separates the valleys of the Magdalena and Cauca, terminating in some low hills south-west of El Banco, a small town on the lower Magdalena.