of the lake is much further north.) The progressive retreat of the
waters has given birth to the beautiful and luxuriant plains of
Maracay, Cura, Mocundo, Guigue, and Santa Cruz del Escoval, planted
with tobacco, sugar-canes, coffee, indigo, and cacao; but how can it
be doubted for a moment that the lake alone spreads fertility over
this country? If deprived of the enormous mass of vapour which the
surface of the waters sends forth daily into the atmosphere, the
valleys of Aragua would become as dry and barren as the surrounding
mountains.

The mean depth of the lake is from twelve to fifteen fathoms; the
deepest parts are not, as is generally admitted, eighty, but
thirty-five or forty deep. Such is the result of soundings made with
the greatest care by Don Antonio Manzano. When we reflect on the vast
depths of all the lakes of Switzerland, which, notwithstanding their
position in high valleys, almost reach the level of the Mediterranean,
it appears surprising that greater cavities are not found at the
bottom of the lake of Valencia, which is also an Alpine lake. The
deepest places are between the rocky island of Burro and the point of
Cana Fistula, and opposite the high mountains of Mariara. But in
general the southern part of the lake is deeper than the northern: nor
must we forget that, if all the shores be now low, the southern part
of the basin is the nearest to a chain of mountains with abrupt
declivities; and we know that even the sea is generally deepest where
the coast is elevated, rocky, or perpendicular.

The temperature of the lake at the surface during my abode in the
valleys of Aragua, in the month of February, was constantly from 23 to
23.7 degrees, consequently a little below the mean temperature of the
air. This may be from the effect of evaporation, which carries off