FORDS OF THE GUA7GTTAZA. 
41 
forming masses like towers, or old ruins, at the summit of 
the highest mountains.* 
The heat became stifling as we approached the coast. A 
reddish vapour veiled the horizon. It was near sunset, and 
the breeze was not yet stirring. We rested in the lonely 
farms known under the names of the Hato de Cambury and 
‘ the House of the Canarian’ (Casa del Isleno). The river of 
hot water , along the banks of which we passed, became deeper. 
A crocodile, more than nine feet long, lay dead on the 
strand. W e wished to examine its teeth, and the inside of 
its mouth ; but having been exposed to the sun for several 
weeks, it exhaled a smell so fetid that we were obliged to 
relinquish our design and remount our horses. When we 
arrived at the level of the sea, the road turned eastward, and 
crossed a barren shore a league and a half broad, resembling 
that ol Gumana. We there found some scattered cactuses, 
a sesuvium, a few plants of Coccoloba uvifera, and along the 
coast some avicennias and mangroves. We forded the Gluay- 
guaza ana the Bio Estevan, which, by their frequent over- 
flowing, form great pools of stagnant water. Small rocks of 
meandntes, madrepores, and other corals, either ramified or 
o'+i f ™ uaded surface, rise in this vast plain ; and seem to 
F ec 9 ,d j retreat of the sea. Bat these masses, 
f r . e habitations of polypi, are only fragments im- 
n • a hreecia with a calcareous cement. I say a 
corallitps e ^f U iv/ We must not co . n f°und the fresh and white 
corallitesj hi , 1S v ? r y recent littoral formation, vfith the 
wacke nml hi r* mass transition-rocks, grau- 
wacke, and black limestone. We were astonished to find 
■ „ irnmhabvted spot a large Parkin sonia aculeata loaded 
flowers. Our botanical works indicate this tree as 
peculiar to the New World; but during five years we saw it 
o y twice in a wild state, once in the plains of the Bio 
Uruayguaza, and once in the llanos of Cumana, thirty leagues 
c U t Ochsenkopf, at Rudolphstein, at Epprechtstein, at Luxburg, and 
achneaberg. The dip of the strata of these granites of Fiehtelberg ia 
generally only from 6* to 10*, rarely (at Schceberg) 18°. According to 
« , P s , T °^ serve d in the neighbouring strata of gneiss and mica-slate, I 
8 the granite of Fiehtelberg is very ancient, and serves as 
a asis for other formations ; but the strata of grttnstein, and the disse- 
minated tin-ore which it contains, may lead us to donbt its great an- 
nputy, from the analogy of the granites of Saxony containing tin. 
