200 



existence of these hot springs, which we were 

 assured raise the temperature of the sea through 

 an extent of ten or twelve thousand square toi- 

 ses, is a very remarkable phenomenon*. On 

 proceeding from the promontory of Paria to- 

 ward the west, by Irapa, Aquas Calientes, the 

 Gulf of Cariaco, the Brigantine, and the valleys 

 of Aragua, as far as the snowy mountains of 

 Merida, a continued band of thermal waters 

 is found in an extent of 150 leagues. 



The contrary winds and rainy weather forced 

 us to go on shore at Pericantral, a small farm 

 situate on the south side of the gulph. The whole 

 of this coast, covered with beautiful vegetation, 

 is almost without cultivation. There are 

 scarcely seven hundred inhabitants: and, ex- 

 cept the village of Mariguitar -f-, we saw only 

 plantations of cocoa-trees, which are the olives 

 of the country. This palm-tree occupies on 

 both continents a zone, of which the mean tern- 



* In the island of Guadaloupe, there is a fountain of boil- 

 ing water, that rushes out on the beach (Lescalier, Journ. de 

 Physique, torn. 67, p. 379). Springs of hot water rise from 

 the bottom of the sea in the Gulf|of Naples, and near the 

 Island of Palma, in the archipelago of the Canary Islands. 



t The Geographical Atlas of Raynal indicates, between > 

 Cariaco and Cumana, a town called Verina, that never ex- 

 isted. The most recent maps of America are loaded with 

 names of places, rivers, and mountains, without it's being pos- 

 sible to discover the source of these errors, which are handed 

 down from age to age. 



