201 



fresh and white corallites of this very recent lit- 

 toral formation, with the corallites blended in the 

 mass of transition rocks, grauwakke, and black 

 limestone. We were astonished to find in this 

 uninhabited spot a large parkinsonia aculeata 

 loaded with flowers. Our botanical works indi- 

 cate this tree as peculiar to the New World ; 

 but during five years we saw it only twice in a 

 wild state, once in the plains of the Rio Guai- 

 guaza, and once in the Llanos of Cuinana, thirty 

 leagues from the coast, near la Villa del Pao. 

 Nay, we may even suppose, that this latter 

 place had been an ancient conuco, or cultivated 

 enclosure. Every where else on the continent 

 of America we saw the parkinsonia, like the 

 plumeria, only in the gardens of the Indians. 



I reached Porto-Cabello in time to take some 

 altitudes of Canopus near the meridian ; but 

 these observations, as well as the corresponding 

 altitudes of the Sun, taken on the 28th of February, 

 are not to be entirely depended on *. I did not 

 perceive till too late a slight derangement in 

 the alidade of a sextant by Troughton. It was 

 a snuff-box sextant, of two inches radius, which 

 cannot be too much recommended to the use of 

 travellers. I employed it in general only for 

 geodesical bearings, taken in boats on rivers. 

 At Porto-Cabello, as at La Guayra, it is dis- 



* Obs. Ast. } vol. i, p. 206. 



