428 



Notes on the Infiuence 



[No. 36, 



with the greatest care, I have found that its waters have precisely 

 the same elevation as those of Ubata. It is now nearly two centuries 

 since this lake was visited by Don Lucas Fernandes de Piedrahita, 

 Bishop of Panama, to whom we are indebted for the History of the 

 conquest of New Grenada. This author, whose accuracy I have 

 frequently had occasion to admire and more especially as it respects 

 distances, gives the length of the lake Fuquena at ten leagues, and 

 its breadth at three. By a very happy coincidence Dr. Roulin a few 

 years ago had occasion to construct a plan of this same lake, and he 

 found the dimensions to be a league and a half in length and half a 

 league in breadth. 



It may be conceived by some, that the dimensions adopted by 

 Piedrahita are exaggerated. But this is not my opinion, and support- 

 ing myself on the one side by my barometrical observations, and on 

 the other by the silence which all the ancient historians have main- 

 tained respecting the lake of Ubata, a silence which is the more 

 remarkable since they have described far less considerable bodies of 

 water, I am inclined to believe that at the time that the Bishop of 

 Panama visited this country there existed only a single lake, which 

 extended without interruption from Ubata to Fuquena. In this 

 view the calculation of Piedrahita is in no degree exaggerated. At 

 any rate, the fact of the retreat of the waters is much more impor- 

 tant than the estimate of the extent of surface which is left bare, a 

 fact which is not questioned by any one. All the inhabitants of 

 Fuquena know well that the village was built quite close to the lake, 

 and now it is about three miles distant from it. In former times it 

 was an easy matter to procure timber for building in the environs of 

 Fuquena. The mountains, which rise on all sides of the valley, used 

 to be quite covered to a certain height with the trees peculiar to these 

 elevated regions. There was the Cordillera oak (encinos) in abun- 

 dance ; and also a great many laurels (myrica,) from which great 

 quantities of wax were procured. Now the mountains are nearly 

 entirely bare, which great change is chiefly owing to the working 

 the salt springs of Taosa and Enemocon. To all these authentic 

 facts, whose number might be increased, it may be replied that the 

 disappearance of the water, however incontestible, might possibly 

 have occurred had there been no clearing of the ground, and it 

 might be contended that their failure is omng to a wholly different 



