478 



enriched Mexico. In the midst of the marvels 

 of Nature, so rich in productions, no person on 

 this coast was devoted to the study of plants 

 and minerals. In a convent of St. Francis 

 alone I met with a respectable old gentleman *, 

 who calculated the almanac for all the pro- 

 vinces of Venezuela, and who possessed some 

 precise ideas on the state of modern astronomy. 

 Our instruments interested him deeply, and one 

 day our house was filled with all the monks of 

 St. Francis, begging to see a dipping-needle. 

 The curiosity that dwells on physical pheno- 

 mena is augmented in countries undermined by 

 volcanic fires, and in a climate where nature 

 is at once so overwhelming, and so mysteriously 

 agitated. 



When we remember, that in the United States 

 of North America newspapers are published 

 in small towns not exceeding three thousand 

 inhabitants, we may be surprised to learn, that 

 Caraccas, with a population of forty or fifty 

 thousand souls, possessed no printing office be- 

 fore 1806; for we cannot give this name to 

 the presses, which served only from year to 

 year to print a few pages of an almanac, or the 

 pastoral letter of a bishop. The number of 

 those who feel the want of reading is not very 

 considerable, even in the Spanish colonies most 



* Father Puerto. 



