76 DISCREPANCIES. 



Venezuela, the temperature of which was above 194 deg., 

 and which boiled eggs in less than four minutes. The 

 vegetation around seemed to rejoice in the heat, being 

 unusually luxuriant, the mimosas and fig-trees spreading 

 their branches far over the hot water, and actually push- 

 ing their roots into it. 



One of the most interesting discoveries of modern 

 science is that of a subterranean fauna, all the members 

 of which are blind. The transition from the illuminated 

 tenants of this upper world to those darkened subjects of 

 Pluto is indeed facilitated by certain intermediate condi- 

 tions. Such is the guacharo, or fruit-eating nightjar, found 

 by Humboldt inhabiting, in immense hosts, a deep, sepul- 

 chral cavern in South America, shut out far from the re- 

 motest ray of light, coming forth under the cover of night, 

 and invested with superstitious terrors by the natives. 

 Such, too, is the aspalax, or mole of eastern Europe, which 

 habitually lives under ground ; and such is the proteus, 

 a strange sort of salamander found in the lakes of im- 

 mense caverns in Illyria. They are believed to come 

 from some great central, inaccessible reservoir, where no 

 ray of light has ever penetrated, and whence occasional 

 floods may have forced the individuals that have been 

 discovered.* 



I know not what the condition of the eye may be in 

 the guacharo, but in the mammal and reptile, it exists 

 only in the most rudimentary condition, completely covered 

 by the integuments. 



* See Davy's Consolations in Travel. 



