SAJi LUIS DEL ENCAKAMADA. 
177 
far beyond the mouth of the Apure. We had begun to 
°bserve it in this latter river as far off as Algodonal and the 
Cano del Manati. The spangles of mica come, no doubt, 
from the granite mountains of Curiquima and Encaramada; 
since further north-east we find only quartzose sand, sand- 
stone, compact limestone, and gypsum. Alluvial earth car- 
ried successively from south to north need not surprise us 
the Orinoco”; but to what shall we attribute the same 
phenomenon in the bed of the Apure, seven leagues west of 
its mouth ? In the present state of things, notwithstanding 
the swellings of the Orinoco, the waters of the Apure never 
retrograde so far ; and, to explain this phenomenon, wo are 
forced to admit that the micaceous strata were deposited at 
a time when the whole of the very low country lying be- 
tween Caycara, Algodonal, and the mountains of Encara- 
^ada, formed the basin of an inland lake. 
. We stopped some time at the port of Encaramada, which 
18 a sort of embarcadero, a place where boats assemble. A 
r °ck of forty or fifty feet high forms the shore. It is com- 
posed of blocks of granite, heaped one upon another, as 
the Scbneeberg in Eranconia, and in almost all the 
§>'amti c mountains of Europe. Some ot these detached 
Masses have a spheroidal form ; they are not balls with 
concentric lavers, but merely rounded blocks, nuclei se- 
parated from” their envelopes by the effect of decompo- 
sition. This granite is of a greyish lead-colour, often black, 
as if covered with oxide of manganese ; but this colour docs 
Jl °i penetrate one fifth of a line into the rock, which is of a 
Radish white colour within, coarse-grained, and destitute of 
tp blende. 
f he Indian names of the Mission of San Luis del Encara- 
’r'ada, are Ouaja and Caramana* This small village was 
w All the Missions of South America have names composed of two 
the first of which is necessarily the name of a saint, the patron of 
church, and the second an Indian name, that of the nation, or the 
"here the establishment is placed. Thus we say, San Jose de 
^ypures, Santa Cruz de Cachipo, San Juan Nepomuceno de los Atures, 
jjV These compound names appear only in official documents ; the 
be abltants adopt but one of the two names, and generally, provided it 
te 8onor pu s , the Indian. As the names of saints are several times 
e ated in neighbouring places, great confusion in geography arises from 
8e repetitions. The names of San Juan, San Diego, and San Pedro, 
v OL. II. II 
