228 
FOSSIL ELMAIKS. 
I thins I have observed, in the course of my travels, that the 
drier the climate, the slower the vat works, and the greater 
the quantity of indigo, at the minimum of oxidation, con- 
tained in the stalks. In the province of Caracas, where 
562 cubic feet of the plant slightly piled up yield thirty-five 
or forty pounds of dry indigo, the liquid does not pass into 
the heater till after twenty, thirty, or thirty-five hours. It 
is probable that the inhabitants of Cumanacoa would extract 
more colouring matter if they left the plants longer steeping 
in the first vat.* During my abode at Cumana 1 made solu- 
tions of the indigo of Cumanacoa, which is somewhat heavy 
and coppery, and that ot Caracas, in sulphuric acid, m 
order to compare them, and the solution of the former 
appeared to me to be of a much more intense blue. 
The plain of Cumanacoa, spotted with farms and small 
plantations of indigo and tobacco, is surrounded with moun- 
tains, which towards the south rise to considerable height. 
Everything indicates that the valley is the bottom of an ancient 
lake. The mountains, which in ancient times formed its 
shores, all rise perpendicularly in the direction of the plain. 
The only outlet for the waters of the lake was on the side 
of Arenas. In digging foundations, beds of round pebbles, 
mixed with small bivalve shells, are found ; and according 
to the report of persons worthy of credit, there were dis- 
covered, thirty years ago, at the bottom of the ravine of 
San Juanillo, two enormous femoral bones, four feet long, 
and weighing more than thirty pounds. The Indians ima- 
gined that these were giants’ bones; whilst the halt- 
learned sages of the country, who assume the right of ex- 
plaining everything, gravely asserted that they were mere 
sports of nature, and little worthy of attention; an opinion 
founded on the circumstance that human bones decay 
rapidly in the soil of Cumanacoa. In order to decorate 
their churches on the festival ot the dead, they take skulls 
from the cemeteries on the coast, where the earth is impreg- 
nated with saline substances. Those pretended thigh-bones 
of giants were carried to the port of Cumana, where I 
sought for them in vain; hut from the analogy of some 
* The planters are pretty generally of opinion, that the fermentation 
should never continue less than ten hours. — Beauvais-Raseau, “Art de 
’Indigotier,” p. 81. 
