LAKE OF VALENCIA. 173 
with large yellow flowers, gives a peculiar character 
to the landscape, as it unites its branches with those 
of the purple erythrina. The mixture and _ bril- 
lianey of the vegetable colours form a contrast to the 
unvaried tint of a cloudless sky. In the dry season, 
when the burning soil is covered with a wavy va- 
pour, artificial irrigations keep up its verdure and 
fecundity. Here and there the granitic rocks pierce 
the cultivated land, and enormous masses rise ab- 
ruptly in the midst of the plain, their bare and fis- 
sured surfaces affording nourishment to some succu- 
lent plants, which prepare a soil for future ages. 
Often on the summit of these detached hills, a fig- 
tree or a clusia, with juicy leaves, have fixed their 
roots in the rock, and overlook the landscape. With 
their dead and withered branches they seem like 
signals erected on a steep hill. The form of these 
eminences reveals the secret of their origin ; for 
when the whole of this valley was filled with water, 
and the waves beat against the base of the peaks of 
Mariara, the Devil’s Wall, and the coast chain, these 
rocky hills were shoals or islets.” 
But the Lake of Valencia is remarkable for other 
circumstances than its beauties. From a careful 
examination, Humboldt was convinced that in 
very remote times, the whole valley from the 
mountains of Cocuyza to those of Torito and 
Nirgua, and from the Sierra of Mariara to that 
of Guigue, Guacimo, and La Palma, had been 
filled with water. The form of the promontories 
and their abrupt slopes indicate the shores of an 
Alpine lake. The same little shells (helicites and 
valvate), which occur at the present day in the 
Lake of Valencia, are found in layers three or four 
