144 
ELECTRIC PHENOMENA. 
great seasons of drought and wet, or, as the Indians say in 
their expressive language, of sun* and rain.t it is highly 
interesting to follow the progress of meteorological pheno- 
mena in the transition from one season to another We 
had already observed, in the valleys of Aragua, from the 
18th and 19th of February, clouds forming at the com- 
mencement of the night. In the beginning of the month 
of March the accumulation of the vesicular vapours, visible 
to the eye, and with them signs of atmospheric electricity, 
augmented daily. AV r e saw flashes of heat-lightning to the 
south ; and the electrometer of Volta constantly displayed, 
at sunset, positive electricity. The pith balls, unexcited 
during the day, separated to the width of three or four lines 
at the commencement of the night, which is triple what I 
generally observed in Europe, with the same instrument, in 
calm weather. Upon the whole, from the 26th of May, the 
electrical equilibrium of the atmosphere seemed disturbed. 
During whole hours the electricity was nil, then it became 
very strong, and soon after was again imperceptible. The 
hygrometer of Deluc continued to indicate great dryness 
(from 33° to 35°), and yet the atmosphere appeared no 
longer the same. Amidst these perpetual variations of the 
electric state of the air, the trees, divested of their foliage, 
already began to unfold new leaves, and seemed to feel the 
approach of spring. 
The variations which we have just described are not 
peculiar to one year. Everything in the equinoctial zone 
lias a wonderful uniformity of succession, because the active 
powers of nature limit and balance each other, according to 
laws that are easily recognized. I shall here note the 
progress of atmospherical phenomena in the islands to the 
east of the Cordilleras of Merida and of New Grenada, in 
the Llanos of Venezuela and the Bio Meta, from four to teD 
degrees of north latitude, wherever the rains are constant 
* In the Maypure dialect camoti, properly “the heat [of the sun]." 
The Tamanacs call the season of drought uamu, “the time of grass- 
hoppers.” 
f In the Tamanac language canepo. The year is designated, among 
several nations, by the name of one of the two seasons. The Maypures 
rty, '‘so many suns,” (or rather “so many heats;”) the TamanacSc 
“ to many rgins.” 
