290 
THE COCOA-PAT, if 
sometimes ground, ou this bank ; but always without danger, 
because the sea is never rough or heavy. We crossed tliat 
part of the gulf where hot springs gush from the bottom of 
the sea. It was flood-tide, so that the change of temperature 
was not verv perceptible : besides, our canoe drove too much 
towards the’ southern shore. It may be supposed that strata 
of water must be found of different temperatures, according 
to the greater or less depth, and according as the mingling of 
the hot waters with those of tlio gulf is accelerated by the 
winds and currents. The existence of these hot springs, 
which we were assured raise the temperature of the sea 
through au extent of ten or twelve thousand square toises, 
is a very remarkable phenomenon.* Proceeding from the 
promontory of Paria westward, by Irapa, Aguas Calientes, the 
gulf of Cariaco, the Brigantine, and the valley of Aragua, as 
far as the snowy mountains of Merida, a continued band ot 
thermal waters is found in an extent of 150 leagues. 
Adverse winds and rainy weather forced us to go on shore 
at Pericantral, a small farm ou the south side of the gulf. 
The whole of this coast, though covered with beautiful vege- 
tation, is almost wholly uncultivated. There arc scarcely 
seven hundred inhabitants : and, excepting in the village of 
Mariguitar, wo saw only plantations of cocoa-trees, which 
are the olives of the country. This palm occupies on both 
continents a zone, of which the mean temperature ol the 
year is not below 20°.+ It is, like the chamcerops of the 
basin of the Mediterranean, a true palm-tree of the coast. 
It prefers salt to fresh water; and flourishes less inland, 
where the air is not loaded with saline particles, than on the 
shore. When cocoa-trees are planted in Terra-Pinna, or in 
the Missions of the Orinoco, at a distance from the sea, a 
considerable quantity of salt, sometimes as much as half a 
bushel, is thrown into the hole which receives the nut. 
Among the plants cultivated by man, the sugar-cane, the 
plantain, the mammee-apple, and alligator-pear (Laurus per- 
* In the island of Guadaloupe, there is a fountain of boiling water, 
which rushes out on the beach. Hot- water springs rise from the bottom 
of the sea in the gulf of Naples, and near the island of Palma, in the 
archipelago of the Canary Islands. 
f The cocoa-tree grows in the northern hemisphere from the equator 
to latitude 28°. Near the equator we find it from the plains to tbs 
height of 700 toises aljr: ye the level of the sea. 
