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 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 tem- 



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

 ing water, that rushes out on the beach (JLescalier, 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. 



