Eros OF SANTIAGO. 
195 
■nlich in remarkable for its extreme solidity. The walls 
ot freestone, five feet thick, have been blown up bv 
mines; but we still found masses of seven or eight hunch-ell 
feet square, which have scarcely a crack in them. Our «uide 
showed us a cistern (aljibe) thirty feet deep, which, though 
much damaged, furnishes water to the inhabitants of the 
peninsula of Araya, This cistern was finished in 1681 by 
the governor Don Juan de Padilla Guardiola, the same who 
built at Cumana the small fort of Santa Maria. As the 
basin is covered with an arched vault, the water, which is of 
excellent quality, keeps very cool : the confervas, while they 
decompose the carburetted' hydrogen, also shelter worms 
which hinder the propagation of small insects. It had been 
believed for ages, that the peninsula of Araya was entirely 
destitute of springs of fresh water ; but in 1797, after many 
useless researches, the inhabitants of Maniquarez succeeded 
m discovering some. 
In crossing the arid hills of Cape Cii-ial, we perceived a 
strong smell of petroleum. The wind blew from the direc- 
tion in which the springs of this substance are found, and 
which were mentioned by the first historians of these coun- 
tries.' Near the village of Maniquarez, the mica-sktef 
comes out from below the secondary rock, forming a chain 
mountains from one hundred and fifty to one hundred and 
eighty toises in height. The direction of the primitive rock 
near Cape Sotto is from north-east to south-v est ; its strata 
incline fifty degrees to the north-west. The mica-slate is 
silvery white, of lamellar and undulated texture, and con- 
tains garnets. Strata of quartz, the thickness of which 
vanes from three to four toises, traverse the mica-slate, as 
we may observe in several ravines hollowed out by the 
waters. We detached with difficulty a fragment of cyanite 
from a block of splintered and milky quartz, which was 
isolated on the shore. This was the only time we found 
this substance in South America.J 
this latter denomination was formerly synonymous with Cumana. — 
Herrera, p. 14. 
, ° vie £b t erms it “ A resinous, aromatic, and medicinal liquor.” 
T I ue Piedra pelada of the Creoles. 
Spain, the cyanite has been discovered only in the province 
Guatlm ala> at Estancia Grande,-— Del Rio, Tablas 3\lin. f 1804, p. 27. 
o 2 
