THE PEDEO SHOALS. 
151 
Conceive vs-liat so strange a denomination meant. The bark 
belonged to a Franciscan missionary, a rich priest of an 
Indian village in the savannahs (Llanos) of Barcelona, vsdio 
bad for several vears carried on a very lucrative contraband 
trade with the Banish islands. M. Bonpland, and. several 
passengers, saw in the night at the distance of a quarter ot 
a mile, with the wind, a small flame on the surface of the 
Ocean ; it ran in the direction of 8.W. and lighted up the 
atmosphere. No shock of earthquake was felt, and there 
■Was no change in the direction of the waves. W as it a 
phosphoric gleam produced by a great accumulation of 
mollnsca in a state of putrefaction ; or did this flame issue 
Ironi the depth of the sea, as is said to have been sometimes 
observable in latitudes agitated by volcanoes ? The latter 
^Opposition appears to me devoid of all probability. The 
Volcanic flame can only issue from the deep when the rocky 
bed of the ocean is already heaved up, so that the flames 
“md incandescent scorim escape from the swelled and 
creviced part, without traversing the waters. 
At half-past ten in the morning of the 4th of December 
're were in the meridian of Cape Bacco (I’unta Abacou), 
which I found in 7G“ 7' 50", or 9° 3' i", west of Nueva 
Hareelona. Having attained the parallel of 17^, the tear of 
pirates made us prefer the direct passage across the bank ot 
•ibora, better known by tlie name of the Pedro Shoals. 
This bank occupies more than tvvo hundred and eighty 
®fluure sea leagues, and its coniignration strikes the eye ^ of 
bbc geologist, by its resemblance to that ot Jamaica, which 
in its neighbourhood. It forms an island almost as large 
Porto Bieo. 
From the 5th of December, the pilots believed they took 
Successively the measurement at a distance ot the island of 
Fanas (Morant Keys), Capo Portland, and Pedro Keys. They 
may probably have been deceived in several of these distances, 
which were taken from the mast-head. I have elsewhere 
noted these measurements, not with the view ot opposing 
them to those which have been made by able English navi- 
gators, in these frequented latitudes, but merely to connect, 
m the same system of observations, the points I determined 
m the forests of the Orinoco, and in the archipelago ot the 
liFest Indies. The milky coloim of the waters warned us 
