97 



daylight. The spectacle of the phosphonescence 

 of the ocean, embellished by the sports of the 

 porpoises which surrounded our canoe, could 

 alone compensate for this delay. We again 

 passed those spots, where springs of petroleum 

 gush from micaslate* at the bottom of the sea, 

 and the smell of which is perceived from 

 afar. When we recollect, that farther to the 

 east, near Cariaco, the hot-f- and submarine 

 waters are sufficiently abundant to change the 

 temperature of the gulf at it's surface, we cannot 

 doubt, that the petroleum is the effect of a dis- 

 tillation at an immense depth, issuing from those 

 primitive rocks, beneath which lies the focus of 

 all volcanic commotions. 



The Laguna chica is a cove surrounded by 

 perpendicular mountains, and connected with 

 the gulf of Cariaco only by a narrow channel 

 twenty-five fathoms deep. It seems, like the 

 fine port of Acapulco, to have been formed by 

 the effect of an earthquake. A beach shows, 

 that the sea here retires from the land, as it 



* Vol. ii, p. 290. The petroleum of the Caraccas islands, 

 and that of Buen Pastor, of which 1 have spoken above (vol, 

 iii, p. 186 ; vol. ii, p 51), issue from secondary formations. 

 Is not this a direct proof of the communication of the cre- 

 vices that traverse the micaslate, limestone, and clay, lying 

 on eaeh other? I was also assured, that there is a spring 

 of petroleum to the west of Maniquarez, in the inland, 

 t Vol. iii, p. 199. 



VOL. VI. H 



