SB . HOT SPRINGS OF LA TRINCHERA. 



mica-slate in the Cordillera of the coast are generally di- 

 directed from the south-west to the north-east. Most of 

 these ravines penetrate into the mountains at their southern 

 declivity, without crossing them entirely. But there is an 

 opening (abra) on the meridian of Nueva Valencia, which 

 leads towards the coast, and by which a cooling sea-breeze 

 penetrates every evening into the valleys of Aragua. This 

 breeze rises regularly two or three hours after sunset. 



By this abra, the farm of Barbula, and an eastern branch 

 of the ravine, a new road is being constructed from Va- 

 lencia to Porto Cabello. It will be so short, that it will 

 require only four hours to reach the port ; and the traveller 

 will be able to go and return in the same day from the coast 

 to the valleys of Aragua. lu order to examine this road, we 

 set out on the 26th of February in the evening for the farm 

 of Barbula. 



On the morning of the 27th we visited the hot springs of 

 La Trinchera, three leagues from Valencia. The ravine is 

 very large, and the descent almost continual from the banks 

 of the lake to the sea-coast. La Trinchera takes its name 

 from some fortifications of earth, thrown up in 1677 by the 

 French buccaneers, who sacked the town of Valencia. The 

 hot springs (and this is a remarkable geological fact,) do not 

 issue on the south side of the mountains, like those of Ma- 

 riara, Onoto, and the Brigantine; but they issue from the 

 chain itself, almost at its northern declivity. They are much 

 more abundant than any we had till then seen, forming a 

 rivulet which, in times of the greatest drought, is two feet 

 deep and eighteen wide. The temperature of the water, 

 measured with great care, was 9O3 of the centigrade ther- 

 mometer. Next to the springs of Urijino, in Japan, which 

 are asserted to be pure water at 100 of temperature, the 

 waters of the Trinchera of Porto Cabello appear to be the 

 hottest in the world. "We breakfasted near the spring; 

 eggs plunged into the water were boiled in less than four 

 minutes. These waters, strongly charged with sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, gush out from the back of a hill rising one hun- 

 dred and fifty feet above the bottom of the ravine, and tend- 

 ing from south-south-east to north-north-wpt The rock 

 from which the springs gush, is a real coarse-grained granite, 

 resembling that of the Rincon del Diablo, in the mountains 



