72 



GEOLOGICAL PHENOMENA. 



their listless disposition, and their not being excited 

 by the same stimulus. 



In crossing the arid hills of Cape Cirial, they per- 

 ceived a strong smell of petroleum, the wind blow- 

 ing from the side where the springs of that sub- 

 stance occur. Near the village of Maniquarez, they 

 found the mica-slate cropping out from below the 

 secondary rocks. It was of a silvery white, con- 

 tained garnets, and was traversed by small layers 

 of quartz. From a detached block of this last, found 

 on the shore, they separated a fragment of cyanite, 

 the only specimen of that mineral seen by them in 

 South America. 



A rude manufacture of pottery is carried on at 

 that hamlet by the Indian women. The clay is pro- 

 duced by the decomposition of mica-slate, and is of 

 a reddish colour. The natives, being unacquainted 

 with the use of ovens, place twigs around the ves- 

 sels, and bake them in the open air. 



At the same place they met with some Creoles 

 who had been hunting small deer in the uninhabited 

 islet of Cubagua, where they are very abundant. 

 These creatures are of a brownish-red hue, spotted 

 with white, and of the latter colour beneath. They 

 belong to the species named by naturalists Cervus 

 Mexicanus. 



In the estimation of the natives, the most curious 

 production of the coast of Araya is what they call 

 the eye-stone. They consider it as both a stone and 

 an animal, and assert that when it is found in the 

 sand it is motionless ; whereas on a polished surface, 

 as an earthen plate, it moves when stimulated by 

 lemon-juice. When introduced into the eye it ex- 

 pels every other substance that may have accident- 

 ally insinuated itself. The people offered these 

 stones to the travellers by hundreds, and wished to 

 put sand into their eyes, that they might try the 

 power of this wondrous remedy ; which, however, 



