37 



difference of the mean [ temperature is from 

 nineteen to twenty-one degrees, while to the 

 people of southern count ries it is only from nine 

 to ten. We were fortunate enough to pass the 

 time, when a European recently landed runs 

 the greatest danger, in the extremely hot, but 

 very dry climate of Cumana, a city celebrated for 

 it's salubrity. Had we continued our voyage to 

 Vera Cruz, we should perhaps have shared in the 

 unhappy fate of several passengers of the packet 

 boat, the Alcudia, which arrived at the Havannah 

 with the Pizarro, at a period when the black 

 vomiting made such cruel ravages in the island 

 of Cuba, and on the eastern coasts of Mexico. 



The 15th, in the morning, when nearly abreast 

 of the hill of St. Joseph, we were surrounded by 

 a great quantity of floating sea weed. It's stems 

 had those extraordinary appendages in the form 

 of little cups and feathers, which Don Hippolyto 

 Ruiz remarked on his return from the expedi- 

 tion to Chili, and which he described in a sepa- 

 rate memoir as the sexual organs of the fucus 

 natans. A fortunate accident allowed us the 

 means of verifying a fact, which had been but 

 once observed by naturalists. The bundles of 

 fucus collected by Mr.Bonpland were completely 

 identical with the specimens given us by the 

 learned authors of the Flora of Peru. On ex- 

 amining both with the microscope, we found, 

 that these pretended parts of fructification, these 



i 



