DIMINUTION OF THE LAKE. & 



cr five miles. The dimensions, as deduced from my observa- 

 tions are much less than those hitherto adopted by the 

 natives. It might be thought that, to form a precise idea 

 of the progressive diminution of the waters, it would be 

 sufficient to compare the present dimensions of the lake 

 with those attributed to it by ancient chroniclers; by 

 Oviedo for instance, in his History of the Province of Vene- 

 zuela, published about the year 1723. This writer in his 

 emphatic style, assigns to "this inland sea, this monstruoso 

 cuerpo de la lagunade Valencia"* fourteen leagues in length 

 and six in breadth. He affirms that at a small distance 

 from the shore the lead finds no bottom ; and that large 

 floating islands cover the surface of the waters, which are 

 constantly agitated by the winds. No importance can be 

 attached to estimates which, without being founded on any 

 measurement, are expressed in leagues (leguas) reckoned in 

 the colonies at three thousand, five thousand, and six thou- 

 sand six hundred and fifty varas.-\ Oviedo, who must so 

 often have passed over the valleys of Aragua, asserts that 

 the town of Nueva Valencia del Eey was built in 1555, 

 at the distance of half a league from the lake ; and that 

 the proportion between the length of the lake and its 

 breadth, is as seven to three. At present, the town of 

 Valencia is separated from the lake by level ground of more 

 than two thousand seven hundred toises (which Oviedo 

 would no doubt have estimated as a space of a league and 

 a half) ; and the length of the basin of the lake is to its 

 breadth as 10 to 2 - 3, or as 7 to 1/6. The appearance of the 



* " Enormous body of the lake of Valencia." 



f Seamen being the first, and for a long time the only, persons who 

 introduced into the Spanish colonies any precise ideas on the astrono- 

 mical position and distances of places, the legua nautica of 6650 varas, 

 or of 2854 toises (20 in a degree), was originally used in Mexico and 

 throughout South America ; but this legua nautica has been gradually 

 reduced to one-half or one-third, on account of the slowness of tra- 

 velling across steep mountains, or dry and burning plains. The common 

 people measure only time directly ; and then, by arbitrary hypotheses, 

 infer from the time the space of ground travelled over. In the course of 

 my geographical researches, I have had frequent opportunities of exa- 

 mining the real value of these leagues, by comparing the itinerary dis- 

 tances between points lying under the same meridian with the difference 

 of latitudes. 



