GOLD MIKE OE BCBIA. 
441 
tention of the Conquistadores. These mountains join the 
Cordilleras of New Grenada (those of Santa Pe, Pamplona, 
la Grita, and Merida) to the littoral chain of Caracas. 
It is a land the more interesting in a geognOstieal point 
of view, as no map has vet made known the mountainous 
ramifications which the paramos of Niquitao and Las Eosas 
send out towards the north-east. Between Toeuyo, Araure, 
and Barquisimeto, rises the group of the Altar Mountains, 
connected on the south-east with the paramo of Las Iiosas. 
A branch of the Altar stretches north-east by San Pelipe 
el Puerte, joining the granitic mountains of the coast near 
Porto Cabello. The other branch takes an eastward direc- 
tion towards Nirgua and Tinaco, and joins the chain of the 
interior, that of Yusma, Villa de Cura, and Sabana de 
Ocumnre. 
The region we have been here describing separates the 
waters which flow to the Orinoco from those which run 
into the immense lake of Maracaybo and the Caribbean 
Sea. It includes climates which may be termed temperate 
rather than hot ; and it is looked upon in the country, not- 
withstanding the distance of more than a hundred leagues, 
as a prolongation of the metalliferous soil of Pamplona. It 
was in the group of the western mountains of Venezuela, 
that the Spaniards, in tho year 1551, worked the gold mine 
of Buria,*' which was the origin of the foundation of the 
town of Barquisimeto.t But these works, like many other 
mines successively opened, were soon abandoned. Here, as 
in all the mountains of Venezuela, the produce of the ore 
has been found to be very variable. The lodes are very often 
divided, or they altogether cease ; and the metals appear only 
in kidney-ores, and present the most delusive appearances. 
It is, however, only in this group of mountains of San 
Pelipe and Barquisimeto, that tho working of mines has 
been continued till the present time. Those of Aroa, near 
San Pelipe el Puerte, situated in the centre of a very 
insalubrious country, are the only mines which are wrought 
in tho whole capitania-general of Caracas. They yield a 
imall quantity of copper. 
* Real tie Minas de Sun Felipe de Buria. 
•f* Ni’^va Sejnviu, 
