8 



SUPPOSED OUTLET. 



midst of brushwood, on small flats (four, six, and even eighl 

 toises height above the surface of the lake,) fine sand mixed 

 with helicites, anciently deposited by the waters. In each of 

 these islands may be perceived the most certain traces of the 

 gradual sinking of the waters. But still farther (and this 

 accident is regarded by the inhabitants as a marvellous phe- 

 nomenon) in 1796 three new islands appeared to the east 

 of the island Caiguira, in the same direction as the islands 

 Burro, Otama, and Zorro, These new islands, called by the 

 people Los nuevos Penones, or Los Aparecidos^ form a kind 

 of banks with surfaces quite flat. They rose, in 1800, more 

 than a foot above the mean level of the water. 



It has already been observed that the lake of Valencia,, 

 like the lakes of the valley of Mexico, forms the centre 

 of a little system of rivers, none of which have any com- 

 munication with the ocean. These rivers, most of which 

 deserve only the name of torrents, or brooks,f are twelve 

 or fourteen in number. The inhabitants, little acquainted 

 with the effects of evaporation, have long imagined that 

 the lake has a subterranean outlet, by which a quantity of 

 water runs out equal to that which flows in by the rivers. 

 Some suppose tha^ this outlet communicates with grottos,, 

 supposed to be at great depth; others believe that the 

 water flows through an oblique channel into the basin 

 of the ocean. These bold hypotheses on the communi- 

 cation between two neighbouring basins have presented 

 themselves in every zone to the imagination of the igno- 

 rant, as well as to that of the learned; for the latter, 

 without confessing it, sometimes repeat popular opinions 

 in scientific language. "We hear of subterranean gulfs and 

 outlets in the New World, as on the shores of the Caspian 

 sea, though the lake of Tacarigua is two hundred and 

 twenty-two toises higher, and the Caspian sea fifty-four 

 toises lower, than the sea; and though it is well known, 

 that fluids find the same level, when they communicate by a 

 lateral channel. 



* Los Nuevos Penones (the New Rocks). Los Apareci dos (the Un- 

 expectedly-appeared^. 



t The following are their names : Rios de Aragua, Turmero, Maracay, 

 Tapatapa, Aguas Calientes, Mariara, Cura, Guacara, Guataparo, Valencia, 

 Caflo Gvande de Cambury, &c. 



