ILLUSTRATIONS (9), LAKE PARIME. 181 



of great weight in questions of geography, the impartiality 

 which ought to influence every scientific investigation makes 

 it incumbent on me to mention that this learned man was 

 inclined to the view that there must be lakes west of the 

 Rio Branco, at no great distance from the sources of the 

 Orinoco. He wrote to me from London shortly before his 

 ileath, " I wish you were here that I might converse with 

 you respecting the geography of the Upper Orinoco, which 

 has occupied you so much. I have been fortunate enough to 

 rescue from entire destruction the papers of the General of 

 Marine, Don Jose Solano, father of the Solano who perished in 

 so melancholy a manner at Cadiz. These documents relate to 

 the settlement of the boundary line between the Spaniards and 

 Portuguese, with which Solano had been charged since 1 754, 

 in conjunction with the Escadre Chef Yturriaga and Don 

 Vicente Doz. In all these plans and sketches I find a Laguna 

 Parime sometimes as a source of the Orinoco, and sometimes 

 as wholly detached from it. Are we then to assume that 

 there is another lake further eastward to the north-east of 

 Esmeralda?" 



Loffling, the celebrated pupil of Linnrcus, accompanied the 

 last-named expedition to Cumana in the capacity of botanist. 

 He died on the 22nd of February. 1756, at the mission of 

 Santa Eulalia de Murucuri (somewhat to the south of the 

 confluence of the Orinoco and Caroni), after traversing the 

 missions on the Piritu and Caroni. The documents of which 

 Bauza speaks are the same as those on which the great map 

 of De la Cruz Olmedilla is based. They have served as the 

 foundation of all the maps of South America, which appeared 

 in England, France, and Germany, before the end of the last 

 century; and have also served for the two maps executed in 

 1756 by Father Caulin, the historiographer of Solano's ex- 

 pedition, and by M. de Surville, Keeper of the Archives in 

 the Secretary of State's Office at Madrid, who was but an un- 

 skilful compiler. The contradictions abounding in these 

 maps show the little reliance that can be placed on the results 

 of this expedition. Nay more, Father Caulin, above referred 

 to, acutely details the circumstances which gave rise to this 

 fable of the lake of Parime ; and the map of Surville, which 

 accompanies his work, not only restores this lake, under 

 the name of the White Lake, and the Mar Dorado, but indi- 

 cates another smaller one, from which flow partly by means 



