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2 GEOLOGY AND CLIMATE OF SPAIN. 
Urquijo, he to his great joy obtained leave to visit 
and explore, without impediment or restriction, all 
the Spanish territories in America. The impatience 
_of the travellers to take advantage of the permission 
thus granted did not allow them to bestow much 
time upon preparations; and about the middle of 
May they left Madrid, crossed part of Old Castile, 
Leon, and Galicia, and betook themselves to Co- 
runna, whence they were to sail for the island of 
Cuba. 
According to the observations made by our travel- 
lers, the interior of Spain consists of an elevated table- 
land, formed of secondary deposites,—sandstone, 
gypsum, rock-salt, and Jura limestone. The climate 
of the Castiles is much colder than that of Toulon 
and Genoa, its mean temperature scarcely rising to 
59° of Fahrenheit’s thermometer. - The central plain 
is surrounded by a low and narrow belt, in several 
parts of which the fan-palm, the date, the sugar-cane, 
the banana, and many plants common to Spain and 
the north of Africa vegetate, without suffering from 
the severity of the winter. In the space included 
between the parallels of thirty-six and forty degrees 
of north latitude the mean temperature ranges from 
62:6° to 66:2° Fahrenheit, and by a concurrence of 
favourable circumstances this section has become the 
principal seat of industry and intellectual cultivation. 
Ascending from the shores of the Mediterranean, 
towards the elevated plains of La Mancha and the 
Castiles, one imagines that he sees far inland, in the 
extended precipices, the ancient coast of the Penin- 
sula ; a circumstance which brings to mind the tradi- 
tions of the Samothracians and certain historical testi- 
monies, according to which the bursting of the waters 
