145 



r 



surrounded with steep declivities, where a regu- 

 lar breeze and descending currents of air are 

 felt toward evening, and the bottom of which is 

 flat, and looks as if it were levelled by the 

 waters. We have elsewhere remarked, that 

 the heat, which prevails throughout the year 

 at Cura, Guacara, Nueva Valencia, and on the 

 borders of the lake, is the same as that which 

 is felt at midsummer in Naples and Sicily. 

 The mean annual temperature of the valleys of 

 Aragua is nearly 25*5° * ; my hygrometrical 

 observations of the month of February, taking 

 the mean of day and night, gave 71*4° of the 

 hair-hygrometer -f\ As the words great drought 

 and great humidity have no determinate signi- 

 fication, and an air, that would be called very 

 dry in the lower regions of the tropics, would be 

 regarded as a humid air in Europe, we can 

 judge of these relations between climates only 

 by comparing spots placed under the same 

 zone. Now at Cumana, where it sometimes 

 does not rain during a whole year, and where I 

 had the means of collecting a great number of 

 hygrometric observations made at different 

 hours of the day and night, the mean humidity 



* 20*4° Reaumur, According to {he observations of the 

 month of February, 19*5° R. ; and, at Cumana, this month is 

 €•7° R. below the mean temperature of the vear. 



f These 71*4° of apparent humidity correspond to a mean 

 temperature of 24*3°. 



VOL. IV. L 



