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Show A!'\ 'OTATIONS A 'D .\.DDlTIONS. 47 "cry remarkable physiological fact), al o sea water. In the Society, Friendly, and andwich Islands, the light green, thick-stalked sugar-cane is always the one cultivated. Besides the Cafia de Otaheiti and the Cafia criolla, a reddish African variety, called Cafia de Guinea, is cultivated in the 'IV est Indies: it juice isle s in quantity than that of the common Asiatic cane, but i said to be better suited for making rum. In the province of Caraccas, the dark shade pf the cacao plantations contra ts beautifully with the light green of the Tahitian sugarcane. Few tropical trees have such thick foliage as the Theobrorna cacao. It loves hot and humid valleys : great fertility of soil and insalubrity of atmosphere are inseparable from each other in South America as well as in Asia i and it has even been remarked that, as increasing cultivation lessens the extent of the forests, and renders the soil and climate less humid, the cacao plantations become less flouri bing. For these reasons, these plantations are diminishing in number and extent in the province of Caraccas, and increasing rapidly in the more eastern provinces of New Barcelona and Cumana, and particularly in the moist woody district between Cariaco and the Golfo Triste. ( 2) p. 25.-" 'Banlcs' is the name given vy the natives to this phenomenon.'' The Llanos of Caraccas are occupied by a great and widely extended formation of conglomerate of an early period. In descending from the valleys of Aragua, and crossing over the most southern ridge of the coast chain of Guigue and Villa de Cura towards Parapara, one finds successively, gneiss and mica slate i-a probably silurian formation of clay slate and black limestone j-serpentine and greenstone in detached spheroidal masses i- and, lastly, close to the margin of the great plain, small hills of augitic, amygdaloid, and porphyritic slate. These hills between Parapara and Ortiz appear to me like volcanic eruptions on the ancient sea-shore of the Llanos. Farther to the north are the celebrated grotesque-shaped cavernous rocks of Morros de San Juan i they form a kind of rampart, have a crystalline grain like upheaved dolomite, and are rather to be regarded as parts of the shore of the ancient gulf than as islands. I |