VENEZUELA. 



123 



of quartz, containing- rutile in prisms of two or three 

 lines in diameter. The gneiss of the intervening 

 valley contains red arid green garnets, which disap- 

 pear when the rock passes into mica-slate. Near 

 the cross of La Guayra, half a league distant from 

 Caraccas, there were vestiges of blue copper-ore 

 disseminated in veins of quartz, and small layers of 

 graphite. Between the former point and the spring 

 of Sanchorquiz were beds of bluish-gray primitive 

 limestone, containing mica, and traversed by veins 

 of white calcareous spar. In this deposite were 

 found crystals of pyrites and rhomboidal fragments 

 of sparry iron-ore. 



CHAPTER XII. 



City of Caraccas and surrounding District. 



City of Caraccas — General View of Venezuela— Population— Climate — 

 Character of the Inhabitants of Caraccas— Ascent of the Silla— Geo- 

 logical Nature of the District, and the Mines. 



Caraccas, the capital of the former captain-gen- 

 eralship of Venezuela, is more known to Europeans 

 on account of the earthquakes by which it was des- 

 olated than from its importance in a political or com- 

 mercial point of view. At the present day it is the 

 chief city of a district of the same name, forming 

 part of the republic of Colombia; though, at the 

 time of Humboldt's visit, it was the metropolis of a 

 Spanish colony which contained nearly a million of 

 inhabitants, and consisted of New- Andalusia, or the 

 province of Cumana, New-Barcelona, Venezuela or 

 Caraccas, Coro, and Maracaybo, along the coast ; 

 and in the interior, the provinces of Varinas and 

 Guiana. 



