OBSERVATIONS IN SOUTH AMERICA, 113 



" ' These clear and positive facts suggested numerous explanations, 

 all assuming a subterranean outlet, which permitted the discharge of 

 the water to the ocean. Humboldt disposed of these hypotheses, 

 and did not hesitate to ascribe the diminution of the waters of the 

 lake to the numerous clearings which had been made in the valley of 

 Aragua within half a century.' 



" Twenty-two years later, Boussingault explored the valley of Ara- 

 gua. For some years previous, the inhabitants had observed that the 

 waters of the lake were no longer retiring, but, on the contrary, were 

 sensibly rising. Grounds, not long before occupied by plantations, 

 were submerged. The islands of Nuevas Aparecidas, which appeared 

 above the surface in 1796, had again become shoals dangerous to 

 navigation. Cabrera, a tongue of land on the north side of the 

 valley, was so narrow that the least rise of the water completely 

 inundated it. A protracted north wind sufl5ced to flood the road 

 between Maracay and New Valencia. The fears which the inhabi- 

 tants of the shores had so long entertained were reversed. Those 

 who had explained the diminution of the lake by the supposition of 

 subterranean channels were suspected of blocking them up, to prove 

 themselves in the right. 



*' During the twenty-two years that had elapsed, the valley of 

 Aragua had been the theatre of bloody struggles, and war had 

 desolated those smiling lands and decimated their population. At 

 the first cry of independence a great number of slaves found their 

 liberty by enlisting under the banners of the new republic ; the great 

 plantations were abandoned, and the forest, which in the tropics so 

 rapidly encroaches, had soon recovered a large proportion of the soil 

 which man had wrested from it by more than a century of constant 

 and painful labour." 



In this case war seems to have produced a contrary effect to that 

 attributed to it, in other circumstances, by Mr Draper. 



Boussingault proceeds to state that two lakes near Ubate, in New 

 Granada, had formed but one a century before his visit ; that the 

 waters were gradually retiring, and the plantations extending over 

 the abandoned bed ; that, by inquiry of old hunters, and by examina- 

 tion of parish records, he found that extensive clearings had been 

 made and were still going on. 



" He found, also, that the length of the Lake of Fuquend, in the 

 same valley, had, within two centuries, been reduced from ten 

 leagues to one and a half, its breadth from three leagues to one. At 



