244 CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO. 



so much. I have been so fortunate as to rescue from entire 

 destruction the papers of the General of Marine, Don Jose 

 Solano, father of the Solano who perished in so melancholy 

 a manner at Cadiz. These documents relate to the boun- 

 dary division between the Spaniards and the Portuguese, 

 with which the elder Solano had been charged, in conjunc- 

 tion with Chef d'Escadron Yturriaga and Don Yicente Doz, 

 since 1754. In all these plans and sketches I see a Laguna 

 Parime, represented sometimes as the source of the Orinoco, 

 and sometimes quite detached from that river. Are we, 

 then, to admit the existence of another lake north-east of 

 EsmeraldaT 



Loffling, the celebrated pupil of Linna3us, came to 

 Cumana as the botanist of the boundary expedition above 

 alluded to. After traversing the missions on the Piritu and 

 the Caroni he died on the 22d of February, 1756, at the 

 mission of Santa Eulalia de Murucuri, a little to the south 

 of the confluence of the Orinoco and the Caroni. The 

 documents of which Bauza speaks are the same as those on 

 which the great map of De la Cruz Olmedilla is based. 

 They constitute the type of all the maps which appeared in 

 England, Prance, and Germany up to the close of the last 

 century ; and they also served for the two maps drawn in 

 1756 by Peter Caulin, the historian of Solano' s expedition, 

 and by an unskilful compiler, M. de Surville, Keeper of the 

 Archives of the Secretary of State's office at Madrid. The 

 discordance between these maps shews the little dependence 

 which can be placed on the surveys of the expedition; 

 besides which, Caulin's acute remarks lead us to perceive 



