

144 ELECTRIC PHENOMENA. 



great seasons of drought and wot, or, as the Indians eay in 

 their expressive language, of sun* and rain,f it is highly 

 interesting to follow the progress of meteorological pheno- 

 mena in the transition from one season to another We 

 had already observed, in the valleys of Aragua, from the 

 18th and 19th of February, clouds forming at the com- 

 mencement of the night. In the beginning of the month 

 of March the accumulation of the vesicular vapours, visible 

 to the eye, and with them signs of atmospheric electricity, 

 augmented daily. We saw flashes of heat-lightning to the 

 south ; and the electrometer of Yolta constantly displayed, 

 at sunset, positive electricity. The pith balls, unexcited 

 during the day, separated to the width of three or four lines 

 at the commencement of the night, which is triple what I 

 generally observed in Europe, with the same instrument, in 

 calm weather. Upon the whole, from the 26th of May, the 

 electrical equilibrium of the atmosphere seemed disturbed. 

 During whole hours the electricity was nil, then it became 

 very strong, and soon after was again imperceptible. The 

 hygrometer of Deluc continued to indicate great dryness 

 (from 33 to 35), and yet the atmosphere appeared no 

 longer the same. Amidst these perpetual variations of the 

 electric state of the air, the trees, divested of their foliage, 

 already began to unfold new leaves, and seemed to feel the 

 approach of spring. 



The variations which we have just described are not 

 peculiar to one year. Everything in the equinoctial zone 

 has a wonderful uniformity of succession, because the active 

 powers of nature limit and balance each other, according to 

 laws that are easily recognized. I shall here note the 

 progress of atmospherical phenomena in the islands to the 

 east of the Cordilleras of Merida and of New Grenada, in 

 the Llanos of Venezuela and the Bio Meta, from four to ten 

 degrees of north latitude, wherever the rains are constant 



* In the Maypure dialect camoti, properly "the heat [of the sun]." 

 The Tamanacs call the season of drought uamu, "the time of grass- 

 hoppers." 



f In the Tamanac language canepo. The year is des'gnated, among 

 ersral nations, by the name of one of the two seasons. The Maypurea 

 y, "so many suns," (or rather "so many heats;") the Tamanac*, 

 "o many rains." 



