ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 33 



In the province of Caraccas the dark shade of the cacao 

 plantations contrasts beautifully with the light green of the 

 Tahitian sugar cane. Few tropical trees have such thick 

 foliage as the Theobroma cacao. It loves hot and humid 

 valleys : great fertility of soil and insalubrity of atmosphere 

 are inseparable from each other in South America as well as 

 in Asia ; and it has even been remarked that as increasing 

 cultivation lessens the extent of the forests, and renders the 

 soil and climate less humid, the cacao plantations become 

 less flourishing. For these reasons these plantations are 

 diminishing in number and extent in the province of 

 Caraccas, and increasing rapidly in the more eastern pro- 

 vinces of New Barcelona and Cumana, and particularly in 

 the moist woody district between Cariaco and the Golfo 

 Triste. 



( 2 ) p. 2. "' Banks' is the name given by the natives 

 to this phenomenon" 



The Llanos of Caraccas are occupied by a great and 

 widely extended formation of conglomerate of an early 

 period. In descending from the vallies of Aragua, and 

 crossing over the most southern ridge of the coast chain 

 of Guigue and Villa de Cura towards Parapara, one finds 

 successively, gneiss and mica slate ; a probably silurian 

 formation of clay slate and black limestone ; serpentine and 

 greenstone in detached spheroidal masses ; and, lastly, close 

 to the margin of the great plain, small lulls of augitic 

 amygdaloid and porphyritic slate. These hills between 

 Parapara and Ortiz appear to me like volcanic eruptions on 



VOL. I. D 



