ISLAND OF MARGUERITA. 333 



northern side unquestionably presents the vestiges of the 

 northern chain of Venezuela, that is, of the Montana de 

 Faria (the * Paradise' of Christopher Columbus), the penin- 

 sula of Araya, and the Silla of Caracas. The observations 

 of latitude I made at the Villa de Cura (10 2' 47"), the 

 farm of Cocollar (10 9' 37"), and the convent of Caripe 

 10 10" 14"), compared with the more anciently known 

 position of the south coast of Trinidad (lat. 10 0'), prove 

 that the southern chain, south of the basins of Valencia and 

 of Tuy* and of the gulfs of Cariaco and Paria, is still more 

 uniform in the direction from west to east than the northern 

 chain from Porto Cabello to Punta Galera. It is highly 

 important to know the southern limit of the littoral Cor- 

 dillera of Venezuela, because it determines the parallel at 

 which the Llanos or the savannahs of Caracas, Barcelona, 

 and Cum an a begin. On' some well-known maps, we find 

 erroneously marked between the meridians of Caracas and 

 Cumana, two Cordilleras stretching from north to south, as 

 far as latitude 8f, under the names of Cerros de Alta 

 Gracia, and del Bergantin, thus describing as mountainous 

 a territory of 25 leagues broad, where we should seek in 

 vain a hillock of a few feet in height. 



Turning to the island of Marguerita, composed, like the 

 peninsula of Araya, of micaceous slate, and anciently linked 

 \\ith that peninsula by the Morro de Chacopata and the 

 islands of Coche and Cubagua, we seem to recognize in the 

 t\vo mountainous groups of Macanao and La Vega de San 

 Juan, traces of a third coast-chain of the Cordillera oi 

 Venezuela. Do these two groups of Marguerita, of which 

 the most westerly is above GOO toises high, belong to a sub- 

 marine chain stretching by the isle of Tortuga, towards 

 the Sierra de Santa Lucia de Coro, on the parallel of 11 ? 

 Must we admit, that in lat. lli and 12, a fourth chain, 

 the most northerly of all, formerly stretched out in the 

 direction of the island of Hermanos, by Blanquilla, Los 

 Roques, Orchila, Aves, Buen Ayre, Cura9ao, and Oiuba, 



* The bottom of the first of these four basins bounded by parallel 

 chains, is from 230 to 460 toises above, and that oi the two latter from 

 30 to 40 toises below the present sea-level. Hot springs gush from the 

 bottom of the gulf of the basin of Cariaco, as from the bottom of the 

 basin of Valencia on the continent. 



