386 



enabled me to compare the climate of this port, 

 and that of Cumana, the Havannah, and Vera- 

 Cruz. This comparison is the more interesting, 

 as it furnishes an inexhaustible subject of con- 

 versation in the Spanish colonies, and among 

 the mariners who frequent those latitudes. As 

 nothing is more deceitful in this matter than 

 the testimony of the senses, we can judge of 

 the difference of climates only by numerical 

 calculations. 



The four places of which we have been speak- 

 ing are considered as the hottest * on the shores 

 of the New World. A comparison of them 

 may serve to confirm, what we have several 

 times observed, that it is generally the dura- 

 tion of a high temperature, and not the excess 

 of heat, or it's absolute quantity, which occa- 

 sions the sufferings of the inhabitants of the 

 torrid zone. 



The mean of the observations made at noon, 

 from the 27th of June to the 16th of Novem- 

 ber, were, at La Guayra, 31*6° of the centi- 

 grade thermometer; at Cumana, 293°; at 



which 1 compared with mine, and, by means of mine, with 

 the thermometer of the observatory at Paris. 



* We could add to this small number, Coro, Carthagena, 

 Omoa, Campeachy, Guayaquil, and Acapulco. My com- 

 parisons are founded, for Cumana, on my own observations 

 and those of Don Faustin Rubio j and for Vera Cruz and 

 the Havannah, on the observations of Don Bernardo de Or- 

 id and Don Joacquin Ferrer. 



