LAKE OF VALENCIA. 



99 



Since tlie time when the Tacarigua drained to the Orinoco, it has frequently- 

 changed its form and volume. In the middle of the sixteenth century, when the 

 Spanish conquerors founded the city of Victoria, the margin stood, according to 

 Oviedo, only " half a league" farther east. But in 1800 Humboldt and Bonpland 

 found the intervening space had increased to 2,700 toises, or about double that 

 distance.* Since 1796 the gradual subsidence had exposed new islands, the 

 Nuevas Aparecidas, while a fortalice erected on Cabrera Island had become 

 connected by a strip of sand with the mainland. The inhabitants supposed that 

 this gradual subsidence must be due to the opening of some underground channel, 



Fig 34. — Lake of Valencia. 

 Scale 1 : 1,000,000. 



West oF Greenw cK 



67'30 



to25 

 Fathoms. 



Depths. 



25 Fathoms 

 and upwards. 



25 Miles. 



a view not justified by the nature of the surrounding rocks. Humboldt attributed 

 it to the destruction of the forests and the development of agriculture ; nor can 

 there be any doubt that the plantations now covering the slopes to a great height 

 round the encircling hills must absorb much water, which formerly escaped to the 

 lacustrine basin. But the level again rose when the forests recovered a part of 

 their old domain owing to the havoc caused by the War of Independence. Then 

 with the return of peace and of peaceful pursuits the waters once more subsided, 

 and in 1888 Valencia had retired 5 miles from the nearest point of the lake. But 

 although it has become very slightly brackish, there is no fear of its disappearing 

 * The old Frencli toise was rather more than a fathom, 6-395 English feet. 



