498 



25 leagues broad, mountainous, where we 

 should seek in vain a mound of a few feet in 

 height. 



In fixing our eyes on the Island of Margue- 

 rita, composed, like the peninsula of Araya, of 

 micaceous slate, and anciently linked with that 

 peninsula by the Morro de Chacopata and the 

 isles of Coche and Cubagua we are inclined 

 to recognize in the two mountainous groupes of 

 Macanao and la Vega de San Juan, the traces 

 of a third chain of the Cordillera of the shore 

 of Venezuela. Do these two groupes of Mar- 

 guerita, of which the most westerly is above 

 600 toises high ^, belong to a sub-marine chain 

 stretching by the isle of Tortuga, towards the 

 Sierra de Santa Lucia de Coro, on the parallel 

 of 11° ? Must we admit, that in 1 11° and 121° 

 of latitude, a fourth chain, the most northerly 

 of all, stretched heretofore by the island of Her- 

 manos, by Blanquilla, the Orchila, Los Roques, 

 Aves, Buen Ayre, Curacao, and Oruba, towards 

 Cape Chichivacoa ? These important problems 

 can only be solved when this chain of islands 

 parallel to the coast have been examined by a 

 well-informed geognost. It must not be for- 



which has been hitherto followed, and from which Surville 

 himself has not ventured to deviate in his map subjoined to 

 Caulin's work. 



* See Vol. vf, p. 94. 

 t Vol. ii, p. 46. 



