902 ARRIVAL AT NEW BARCELONA. 
upon them. ‘The same remark is to be made in re- 
gard to the other great plains of South America. 
These circumstances, as Humboldt remarks, seem 
to prove that the granitic masses scattered over the 
sandy plains of the Baltic are a local phenomenon, 
and must have originated in some great convulsion 
which took place in the northern regions of Europe. 
On the 23d July they arrived at the town of 
New Barcelona, less fatigued by the heat, to which © 
they had been so long accustomed, than harassed by 
the sand-wind, that causes painful chaps in the 
skin. They were kindly received by a wealthy 
merchant of French extraction, Don Pedro Lavié. 
This town was founded in 1637, and in 1800 con- 
tained more than 16,000 inhabitants. The climate 
is not so hot as that of Cumana, but very damp, 
and in the rainy season rather unhealthy. M. Bon- 
pland had by this time regained his strength and 
activity, but his companion suffered more at Bar- 
celona than he had done at Angostura. One of 
those extraordinary tropical rains, during which 
drops of enormous size fall at sunset, had produced 
uneasy sensations that seemed to threaten an at- 
tack of typhus, a disease then prevalent on the 
coast. They remained nearly a month at Barce- 
lona, where they found their friend Juan Gonzales, 
who, having resolved to go to Europe, meant to ac- 
company them as far as Cuba. 
At the distance of seven miles to iene south-east 
of New Barcelona rises a chain of lofty mountains 
connected with the Cerro del Bergantin, which is 
seen from Cumana. When Humboldt’s health was 
sufficiently restored, the travellers made an excur- 
sion in that direction, for the purpose of examining 
