30 



Firrna, which we began to coast. This position 

 seems to prove the influence of local causes on 

 meteors, the nature of which is not yet suffi- 

 ciently known to us. 



The 14th at sunrise, we were in sig'ht of the 

 Bocca-del-Dragq. We distinguished the inland 

 Chacachacarreo, the most westerly of those 

 islands which are placed between Cape Paria 

 and the north-west cape of Trinidad. When we 

 were five leagues distant from the coast, we felt, 

 near Punta de la Baca, the effect of a particular 

 current, which drew the ship toward the south. 

 The motion of the waters which flow through the 

 Bocca-del-Drago, and the action of the tides, 

 occasion an eddy. We hove the lead, and 

 found from thirty-six to forty-three fathoms on 

 a bottom of very fine green clay. According to 

 the rules established by Dampier*, we ought 

 not to have expected so little depth near a coast 

 formed by very high and perpendicular moun- 

 tains. We continued to heave the lead till we 

 reached Cabo de tres Puntas, and we every where 

 found shallow water, apparently indicating the 

 prolongation of the ancient coast. In these la- 

 titudes the temperature of the sea was twenty- 

 three or twenty-four degrees, consequently from 

 I'D to two degrees less than in the open ocean, 

 beyond the edges of the bank. 



Cape Three Points, the name given to it by 



* Voyage round the World, vol. ii, p. 476. 



