22 
BIO DE AG DAS CALIENTES. 
Cura towards its source, the mountains of Mariara are seen 
advancing into the plain in the form of a vast amphitheatre, 
composed of perpendicular rocks, crowned by peaks with 
rugged summits. The central point of the amphitheatre 
bears the strange name of the Devil’s Nook (Eincon del 
Diablo). The range stretching to the east is called El 
Chaparro ; that to the west, Las Yiruelas. These ruin-like 
rocks command the plain; they are composed of a coarse- 
grained granite, nearly porphyritie, the yellowish white feld- 
spar crystals of which are more than an inch and a half long. 
Mica is rare in them, and is of a fine silvery lustre. Nothing 
can be more picturesque and solemn than the aspect of this 
group of mountains, half covered with vegetation. The 
Peak of Calavera, which unites the Eincon del Diablo to the 
Chaparro, is visible from afar. In it the granite is separated 
by perpendicular fissures into prismatic masses. It would 
seem as if the primitive rock were crowned with columns of 
basalt. In the rainy season, a considerable sheet of water 
rushes down like a cascade from these cliffs. The moun- 
tains connected on the east with the Eincon del Diablo, 
are much less lofty, and contain, like the promontory of La 
Cabrera, and the little detached hills in the plain, gneiss 
and mica-slate, including garnets. 
In these lower mountains, two or three miles north-east 
of Mariara, we find the ravine of hot waters called Que- 
brada de Aguas Calientes. This ravine, running N.W. 75°, 
contains several small basins. Of these the two uppermost, 
which have no communication with each other, are only 
eight inches in diameter ; the three lower, from two to three 
feet. Their depth varies from three to fifteen inches. The 
temperature of these different f unn els (pozos) is from 56° 
to 59°; and what is remarkable, the lower funnels are 
hotter than the upper, though the difference of the level 
is only seven or eight inches. The hot waters, collected 
together, form a little rivulet, called the Eio de Aguas 
Calientes, which, thirty feet lower, has a temperature of only 
48°. In seasons of great drought, the time at which we 
visited the ravine, the whole body of the thermal waters 
forms a section of only twenty-six square inches. This is 
considerably augmented in the rainy season ; the rivulet is 
then transformed into a torrent, and its heat diminishes 
