115 



The convent is founded on a spot, which 

 was anciently called Areocuar. It's height 

 above the level of the sea is nearly the same as 

 that of the town of Caraccas, or of the inhabited 

 part of the Blue Mountains of Jamaica # . Thus 

 the mean temperatures of these three points, all 

 situate between the tropics, are nearly the same. 

 The necessity of being covered during the night 

 is felt at Caripe, especially at sunrise. We saw 

 the centigrade thermometer, at midnight, be- 

 tween 16° and 17'5°*f~; in the morning, be- 

 tween 19° and 20°. About one o'clock it had 

 risen only to 21°, or 22*5° J. This temperature 

 is sufficient for the developement of the produc- 

 tions of the torrid zone ; though, compared 

 with the excessive heat of the plains of Cumana, 



* In the district of Clarendon, the centigrade therm, 

 remains in the day between 22° and 24° ; it rises but seldom 

 to 26*5° and sometimes falls to 18°. This region of the Blue 

 Mountains is pretty well inhabited. Some houses are there 

 found at elevations, where the colonists are obliged to light 

 fires to warm them, when (as at Santa Fe de Bogota) the air 

 is cooled in the morning down to 10°. At the same time 

 the heat of the plain, at Kingston for example, is from 

 32° to 35°. See the observations of Mr. Farquhar, who 

 lived seventeen years in Jamaica, in the Philadelphian Med. 

 Museum, Vol. 1, p. 183. I wished to collect in my work 

 every thing relative to the influence of heights on climates, 

 and organized beings, as well in the West India islands as 

 on the continent of Equinoctial America. 



f Between 12*8° and 14* Reaum. 



X Only to 16 8° or 18° Reaum. 



2 i 



