DIP OP THE STIIAXA. 
115 
^ water ; the goats for want of grass died by hundreds, 
g ^riDg our stay at the Orinoco, the order of the seasons 
eetned to be entuely changed. At Araya, Cocheu, and 
anT island of Margarcta, it had rained abundantly ; 
d those showers were remembered by the inhabitants in 
« ® way as a fall of aerolites would be noted in the 
•jphection of the naturalists of Europe, 
dir^ Indian who was our guide scarcely knew in what 
Do shoidd find the alum ; he ivas ignorant of its real 
all^tl ignorance of localities characterises almost 
hil 1 here, who are chosen from among the most 
Din^ 1 ^ class of the people. We wandered for eight or 
c hours among rocks totally bare of vegetation. The 
j ^d-slate passes sometimes to clay-slate of a darkish grey. 
„ ^gain struck by the extreme i-egularity in the direction 
ill 1- l^nhnation of the strata. They run north 50 “ east, 
from 60 ° to 70 ° north-west. This is the general 
which I had observed in tlie gneiss-granite of 
"■0 nnd the Orinoco, in the hornblende-slates of An- 
nnd even in the greater part of the secondary 
of 1 ^ beds, over a vast extent 
Jnake the same angle with the meridian of the 
as ^ Present a parallelism, which may be considered 
the great geologic laws capable of being veri- 
*’UDa P^ocise measimes. Advancing toward Capo Chiipa- 
crea (juai’tz that cross the mica-slate in- 
hroa^f ? found some from ono to two toises 
We ’ 9 ^ small fasciculated crj'stals of rutile titanitc. 
**0111 in vain for cyanite, which we had discovered in 
pros'll ^^ocks near Maniquarez. Farther on, the mica-slate 
tfon^ veins, but little beds of graphite or carburetted 
prec' 1 from two to three inches thick, and have 
^ranhY *• direction and inclination as the rock, 
carbo primitive soils, marks the first appearance of 
Vdro'p ^ carbon uncombined witli 
the ea anterior to the period when the surface ot 
FfoinVp oecame covered with monocotyledonous plants, 
vie^ jT® summit of those wild mountains there is a majestic 
alrp„ 1 island of Margareta. Two groups of mountains 
luaii ‘^..^^’'tmued, those of Macauao, and La Vega de San 
> ‘ise from the bosom of the waters. The capital of 
I 2 
