235 



From the whole of the observations * which I 

 made in 1799 and 1800 it follows, that the 

 latitude of the great square at Cumana is 

 10° 27' 52", and it's longitude 66° 30' 2". This 

 longitude is founded on the difference of time, 

 on lunar distances, on the eclipse of the Sun on 

 the 28th of October, 1799, and on ten immer- 

 sions of Jupiter's satellites, compared with ob- 

 servations made in Europe. It differs very little 

 from that which Mr. Fidalgo had obtained before 

 me, but only by mere chronometrical means. 

 The oldest chart which we have of the Conti- 

 nent, that of Don Diego Ribeiro, geographer to 

 the emperor Charles the Fifth, places Cumana 

 in latitude 9° 30 y +• ; which differs fifty-eight 

 minutes from the real latitude, and half a de- 

 gree from that marked by JefFeries in his Ame- 

 rican Pilot, published in 1794. During three 

 centuries the whole of the coast of Terra Firma 

 has been laid down too far to the south : this 

 has been owing to the current near the island of 

 Trinidad, which sets toward the north, and 

 mariners are led by their dead-reckoning, to 

 think themselves farther south than they really 

 are. 



* Astron. Obs., vol. i, p. 42 to 92. 

 f According to Herera, latitude 9° 50/ (Descripcion de 

 las Indias Occid. p. 9). According to the Carte de l'Oce*an 

 Atlantique, publice au Dep6t de la Marine en 1792, latitude 

 9° 52'. The chart of Ribeiro is of the year 1529. 



2 M 



