\ 



564 



the horizon solitary palm-trees, backed by the 

 sky, and crowning the tops of the mountains. 



We passed two hours on a large rock, stand- 

 ing in the middle of the Oroonoko, and called 

 the Stone of Patience % because the canoes, in 

 going up, are sometimes detained there two days, 

 to extricate themselves from the whirlpool caused 

 by this rock. I succeeded in fixing my instru- 

 ments on it. Altitudes of the Sun gave me 

 70° 4' 29" f for the longitude of the mouth of 

 the Meta. This chronometric observation proves, 

 that in this point the map of South America by 

 d' An ville is almost exempt from error in longitude, 

 while the error in latitude is a whole degree. 



The Rio Meta, which traverses the vast plains 

 of Casanare, and which is navigable as far as 

 the foot of the Andes of New Grenada, will one 

 day be of great political importance to the inha- 

 bitants of Guyana and Venezuela. From the 

 Golfo Tristo and the Mouth of the Dragon a 

 small fleet may go up the Oroonoko and the 



* Piedrade la Paciencia. 



f See my 05s. Astr. t vol. i, p. 222. Father Caulin, speak- 

 ing of the observations made on the expedition of Iturriaga 

 and Solano, in 1756, says expressly, that the latitude of the 

 mouth of the Meta is 6° 20 1 (Hist. Corogrqfica, p. 70) ; 

 yet in the maps constructed according to these same observa- 

 tions, those of Surville and La Cruz, we find the mouth of 

 the Meta in 6° 7' and 6° 10'. Gumilla thought it m 

 1°58'; Gili, in 4° 20'. 



