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hygrometer of Deluc, and the eyanometer of 

 Saussure, during the months of July, August, 

 October, and November 1799, and also during 

 the month of August, 1800 ; not everyday, but 

 often, in order to seize the progressive increase 

 better, ten or twelve times in the same day. Dur- 

 ing my journey to Caraccas, and the Oroonoko, I 

 begged a very intelligent person, zealous in 

 such researches, M. Faustin Rubio, to mark the 

 indications of a thermometer of Dollond on a 

 register, (and which was concordant with my 

 thermometer to nearly 0.2° cent.) three or four 

 times a day, to 7 h or 8^ in the morning, 2 h and 

 4 h in the afternoon, and ll h at night. This 

 thermometer was placed in the shade, in an 

 airy spot, far from the reflexion of the soil, at 

 the Faubourg of the Guayqueries Indians. Cu- 

 mana being regarded as one of the hottest, 

 dryest, and healthiest places of the low regions 

 of equinoxial America, it is important to make 

 known these partial observations. I take them 

 by chance, out of 1600 I possess; they will 

 serve, above all, to certify that the climate of 

 the tropics is much more characterized by the 

 duration of the heat, than by its intensity, that 

 is, by the maxima of temperature which the 

 thermometer attains on certain days. I never 

 saw that instrument at Cumana, below 20.8°, 

 nor above 32.8° cent. ; and I found on the re- 

 gisters of M. Orta, whose thermometers were 



