SALT-WOEKS OF A BATA. 
179 
exposed, to the rain sinks only to 21‘5°. 'From these obser- 
vations it follows, that between the tropics, in plains where 
the temperature of the air is in the day-time almost inva- 
riably above twenty-seven degrees, wanner clothing during 
the night is requisite, whenever hi a damp ah- the thermo- 
meter sinks four or five degrees. 
We landed about eight in the morning at the point of 
A ray a, near the new salt-works. A solitary house, near a 
battery of three guns, the only defence of this coast, since 
the destruction of the fort of Santiago, is the abode of 
the inspector. It is surprising that these salt-works, which 
formerly excited the jealousy of the English, Dutch, and 
other maritime powers, have not created a village, or even a 
farm ; a few huts only ot poor Indian fishermen are found 
at the extremity of the point of Arava. 
, Thf spot commands a view of the islet of Cubagua, the 
loity lulls of Margareta, the ruins of the castle of Santiago, 
the Lerro de la Vela, and the calcareous chain of the Bri- 
gantine, which bounds the horizon towards the south. I 
availed myself of this view to take the angles between these 
different points, from a basis of four hundred toises, which 
I measured between the battery and the hill called the 
Pena. As the Cerro de la Vela, the Brigantine, and the cas- 
tle of San Antonio at Cumana, are equally visible from the 
Punta Arenas, situated to the west of the village of Mani- 
quaroz, the same objects were available for an approximate 
determination of the respective positions of several points, 
which are laid down in the mineralogical chart of the penin- 
sula of Araya. 
The abundance of salt contained in the peninsula of 
Araya was known to Alonzo Nino, when, following the 
tracks of Columbus, Ojeda, and Amerigo Vespucci, he visited 
these countries in 1499. Though of all the people on the 
globe the natives of South America consume the least salt, 
because they scarcely eat anything but vegetables, it never- 
theless appears, that at an early period the Guayquerias 
dug into the clayey and muriatiferous soil of Punta Arenas 
Even the brine-pits, now called new, (la salina nueva ,) 
whm a thick small rain falls, anti the temperature of the air sinks con- 
siderably. From paramo has been made emparamarse, which signifies 
to be as cold as if we were on the ridge of the Andes. 
K 2 
