4 
AWCIETtT EXTEST. 
images, or more precise ideas, by comparing our landscapes 
with those of the equinoctial regions. It cannot be too 
often repeated that nature, in every zone, whether wild 
or cultivated, smiling or majestic, has an individual cha- 
racter. The impressions which she excites uYe infinitely 
varied, like the emotions produced by works of genius, 
according to the age in which they were conceived, and the 
diversity of language from which they in part derive their 
ciiarm. We must limit our comparisons merely to dimen- 
sions and external form. We may institute a parallel 
between the colossal summit of Mont Blanc and the 
Himalaya Mountains; the cascades of the Pyrenees and 
those of the Cordilleras : but these comparisons, useful with 
respect to science, fail to convey an idea of the character- 
istics of nature in the temperate and torrid zones. On the 
banks of a lake, in a vast forest, at the foot of summits 
covered with eternal snow, it is not the mere magnitude 
of the objects which excites our admiration. That which 
speaks to the soul, which causes such profound and varied 
emotions, escapes our measurements as it does the forms 
of language. Those who feel powerfully the charm a of 
nature cannot venture on comparing one with another, 
scenes totally different in character. 
But it is not alone the picturesque beauties of the lake 
of Valencia that have given celebrity to its banks. This 
basin presents several other phenomena, and suggests ques- 
tions, the solution of which is interesting alike to physical 
science and to the well-being of the inhabitants. What are 
the causes of the diminution of the waters of the lake? 
Is this diminution more rapid now than in former ages p 
Can we presume that an equilibrium between the waters 
flowing in and the waters lost will be shortly re-established, 
or may we apprehend that the lake will entirely disappear? 
According to astronomical observations made at La Vic- 
toria, Hacienda de Cura, Nueva Valencia, and Guigue, the 
length of the lake in its present state from Cagua to 
Guayos, is ten leagues, or twenty-eight thousand eight 
hundred toises. Its breadth is very unequal. H' we judge 
from the latitudes of the mouth of the Bio Cura and the 
village of Guigue, it nowhere surpasses 2 3 leagues, or six 
thousand five hundred toises ; most commonly it is but four 
