CKOOODILES. 
19 
attains only three or four feet in length. It is said to he 
very harmless ; its habits however, as well as its form, much 
resemble those of the alligator (Crocodilus acutus). It 
swims in such a manner as to show only the point of its 
snout, and the extremity of its tail; and places itself 
at mid-day on the bare beach. It is certainly neither a 
monitor (the real monitors bring only in the old continent,) 
nor the sauvtigarde of Seba (Lacerta teguixin,) which dives 
and does not swim. It is somewhat remarkable that the 
lake of V alencia, and the whole system of small rivers 
flowing into it, have no large alligators, though this dan- 
gerous animal abounds a few leagues off in the streams 
that now either into the Apure or the Orinoco, or imme- 
diately into the Caribbean Sea between Porto Cabello and 
J-jji Cxuayra. 
In the islands that rise like bastions in the midst of the 
waters, and wherever the rocky bottom of the lake is visible, 
JL recogmsed a uniform direction in the strata of gneiss. 
ns direction is nearly that of the chains of mountains on 
the north and south of the lake. In the bibs of Cabo 
-Klanco there are found among the gneiss, angular masses 
of opaque quartz, shghtly translucid on the edges, and vary- 
ing from grey to deep black. This quartz passes sometimes 
into homstein, and sometimes into kieselschiefer (schistose 
i / ( ]° no* think it constitutes a vein. The waters 
ot the lake decompose the gneiss by erosion in a very 
extraordinary manner I have found parts of it porous 7 
almos cellular and split in the form of cauliflowers, fixed 
witlffhe i ^ compact. Perhaps the action ceases 
mth the movement of the waves, and the alternate contact 
OI air and water. 
The island of Chamberg is remarkable for its height. 
_ roc ' °f gneiss, with two summits in the form of 
a sa ddl e and raised two hundred feet above the surface of 
the water The lope of this rock ; g barre d affords 
only nourishment for a few plants of clusia with large white 
be *dmnk k® lak< t j s u0 ? salt > as is asserted at Caracas. It may 
residuum of 1 i!'* bem ? j! lte ‘' ed - °» evaporation it leaves a very small 
is surprising that “f ^ f' i' nd pe, ' ha I’ s & litUe nitrate of P ota ‘ h - il 
eartiiv salt ^ that . ar ' Inland lake should not be richer in alkaline and 
y salt5 - acquired from the neighbouring soils. 
o 2 
