ROCK TOBMATIONS. 
183 
secondary rocks.* The sea has separated the two northern 
Cordilleras, those of the island of Margareta and the penin- 
sula of Araya; and the small islands of Coche and of 
Cubagua are remnants of the land that was submerged. 
Farther to the south, the vast gulf Cariaco stretches away, 
like a longitudinal valley formed by the irruption of the 
sea, between the two small chains of Araya and the Cocollar, 
between the mica-slate and the Alpine limestone. We shall 
soon see that the direction of the strata, very regular in the 
first of these rocks, is not quite parallel with the general direc- 
tion of the gulf. In the high Alps of Europe, the great 
longitudinal valley of the Ehone also sometimes cuts at an 
oblique angle the calcareous banks in which it has been 
excavated. 
The two parallel chains of Araya and the Cocollar were 
connected, to the east of the town of Cariaco, between the 
lakes of Campoma and Putaquao, by a kind of transverse 
dyke, which bears the name of Cerro de Meapire, and which 
in distant times, by resisting the impulse of the waves, has 
hindered the waters of the gulf of Cariaco from uniting 
with those of the gulf of Paria. Thus, in Switzerland, the 
central chain, that which passes by the Col de Ferrex, the 
Simplon, St. Gothard, and the Spliigen, is connected on the 
north and the south with two lateral chains, by the moun- 
tains of Furca and Maloya, It is interesting to recall to 
mind those striking analogies exhibited in both continents 
by the external structure of the globe. 
The primitive chain of Araya ends abruptly in the meridian 
of the village of Maniquarez ; and the western slope of the 
peninsula, as well as the plains in the midst of which stands 
the castle of San Antonio, is covered with very recent forma- 
tions of sandstone and clay mixed with gypsum. Near 
Maniquarez, breccia or sandstone with calcareous cement, 
* In New Andalusia, the Cordillera of the Cocollar nowhere contains 
primitive rocks. If these rocks form the nucleus of this chain, and rise 
above the level of the neighbouring plains, which is scarcely probable, we 
must suppose that they are all covered with limestone and sandstone. In 
the Swiss Alps, on the contrary, the chain which is designated under 
the too vague denomination of lateral and calcareous, contains primitive 
rocks, which, according to the observations of Escher and Leopold 
von Buch, are often visible to the height of eight hundred or a thousand 
toises. 
