5 io POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



look to the ether system, not only for an illustration on the 

 widest scale of the law of assimilation, but also for the ultimate 

 source of all the phenomena in which the operation of that law 

 can be traced. For whether the ether be continuous or granular, 

 it clearly satisfies, by its very nature and uniformity, the de- 

 mand that likes shall be associated, the while that, by the actions 

 known as chemical and gravitative, it also fulfills the require- 

 ment that there shall be dissociation of unlikes. Lacking, as we 

 do, all explanation of the -actual mechanism of gravitation, we 

 may none the less find its form suggested to us when we describe 

 it as an act of dissociation by the ether system. And if this view 

 be tenable, we should be justified in regarding the ether as pri- 

 marily embodying the power manifested in the multifarious 

 changes which we call evolution. 



NATURAL FEATURES OF VENEZUELA. 



BY FREDERIK A. FERNALD. 



npHE first part of the American mainland seen by Columbus 

 -L was Venezuela. On his third voyage, in 1498, he bore farther 

 to the south than before, and had become convinced that he 

 should not meet with any land on that course when his look- 

 out descried three hilltops in the southwest. The island from 

 which these peaks arose Columbus appropriately named Trinidad 

 (the Trinity). Sailing on, he entered the chief mouth of the 

 Orinoco and then skirted the island-fringed coast on his way to 

 Haiti. The country is said to owe its name to Ojedo, who, on 

 entering Lake Maracaibo the following year, noticed one of the 

 Indian villages of pile dwellings on its shore. " Why, here," he 

 said, "is a little Venice" (Venezuela), and this name became the 

 designation of the whole region round about. 



The great curve of the Orinoco divides the area of Venezuela 

 into two unequal parts, the larger of which, lying to the north 

 and west of the river, contains the more populous districts. 

 Seven of the eight States of the republic lie wholly in this part, 

 while most of the region south of the river and along its up- 

 per course is divided into Territories. The surface of the coun- 

 try is much diversified. In the extreme northwest, around the 

 gulf and lake of Maracaibo, it is level and well watered. East of 

 this tract a branch of the Andes crosses the country diagonally. 

 Five of its peaks extend above the snow line, the highest, Con- 

 cha, rising to fifteen thousand four hundred feet above the sea 

 between the height of Mount Whitney, in California, and that of 

 Mont Blanc. From this peak descends a small glacier which 



