THE PEDEO SHOAL8. 151 



conceive what so strange a denomination meant. The bark 

 belonged to a Franciscan missionary, a rich priest of an 

 Indian village in the savannahs (Llanos) of Barcelona, who 

 Lad for several years carried on a very lucrative contraband 

 trade with the Danish islands. M. Bonpland, and several 

 passengers, saw in the night at the distance of a quarter of 

 a mile, with the wind, a small flame on the surface of the 

 ocean ; it ran in the direction of S.W. and lighted up the 

 atmosphere. No shock of earthquake was felt, and there 

 was no change in the direction of the waves. Was it a 

 phosphoric gleam produced by a great accumulation of 

 mollusca in a state of putrefaction ; or did this flame issue 

 from the depth of the sea, as is said to have been sometimes 

 observable in latitudes agitated by volcanoes ? The latter 

 supposition appears to me devoid of all probability. The 

 volcanic flame can only issue from the deep when the rocky 

 bed of the ocean is already heaved up, so that the flames 

 and incandescent scoriae escape from the swelled and 

 creviced part, without traversing the waters. 



At half-past ten in the morning of the 4th of December 

 we were in the meridian of Cape Bacco (Punta Abacou), 

 which I found in 76 7' 50", or 9 3' 2", west of Nueva 

 Barcelona. Having attained the parallel of 17, the fear of 

 pirates made us prefer the direct passage across the bank of 

 Vibora, better known by the name of the Pedro Shoals. 

 This bank occupies more than two hundred and eighty 

 square sea leagues, and its configuration strikes the eye of 

 the geologist, by its resemblance to that of Jamaica, which 

 is in its neighbourhood. It forms an island almost as large 

 as Porto Eico. 



From the 5th of December, the pilots believed they took 

 successively the measurement at a distance of the island of 

 Ennas (Morant Keys), Cape Portland, and Pedro Keys. They 

 n i:i y probably have been deceived in several of these distances, 

 which were taken from the mast-head. I have elsewhere 

 noted these measurements, not with the view of opposing 

 them to those which have been made by able English navi- 

 gators, in these frequented latitudes, but merely to connect, 

 in the same system of observations, the points I determined 

 in the forests of the Orinoco, and in the archipelago of the 

 West Indies. The milky colour of the waters warned us 



