463 



cessively from the South to the North need not 

 surprise us in the Oroonoko ; but to what shall 

 we attribute the same phenomenon in the bed 

 of the Apure, seven leagues West of it's mouth ? 

 In the present state of things, notwithstanding 

 the swellings of the Oroonoko, the waters of the 

 Apure never retrograde so far ; and, to explain 

 this phenomenon, we are forced to admit, that the 

 micaceous strata were deposited at a time, when 

 the whole of the very low country, that lies be- 

 tween Caycara, Algodonal, and the mountains 

 of Encaramada, formed the basin of an inland 

 lake. 



We stopped some time at the port of Encara- 

 mada ; it is a sort of embarcadere, a place where 

 boats assemble. A rock of forty or fifty feet 

 high forms the shore. It is composed of the 

 same blocks of granite, heaped one upon another, 

 as at the Schneeberg in Franconia and in almost 

 all the granitic mountains of Europe. Some of 

 these detached masses have a spheroidal form ; 

 they are not balls however, with concentric 

 layers, as we have elsewhere described ; but 

 merely rounded blocks, nuclei separated from 

 their envelopes by the effect of decomposition. 

 This granite is of a grayish lead-colour, often 

 black, as if covered with oxide of manganese ; 

 but this colour does not penetrate one fifth of a 

 line into the rock, which is of a reddish white 



