of Valencia, and the whole system of small rivers flowing into it,
have no large alligators, though this dangerous animal abounds a few
leagues off in the streams which flow either into the Apure or the
Orinoco, or immediately into the Caribbean Sea between Porto Cabello
and La Guayra.

In the islands that rise like bastions in the midst of the waters, and
wherever the rocky bottom of the lake is visible, I recognised a
uniform direction in the strata of gneiss. This direction is nearly
that of the chains of mountains on the north and south of the lake. In
the hills of Cabo Blanco there are found among the gneiss, angular
masses of opaque quartz, slightly translucid on the edges, and varying
from grey to deep black. This quartz passes sometimes into hornstein,
and sometimes into kieselschiefer (schistose jasper). I do not think
it constitutes a vein. The waters of the lake* decompose the gneiss by
erosion in a very extraordinary manner. (* The water of the lake is
not salt, as is asserted at Caracas. It may be drunk without being
filtered. On evaporation it leaves a very small residuum of carbonate
of lime, and perhaps a little nitrate of potash. It is surprising that
an inland lake should not be richer in alkaline and earthy salts,
acquired from the neighbouring soils. I have found parts of it porous,
almost cellular, and split in the form of cauliflowers, fixed on
gneiss perfectly compact. Perhaps the action ceases with the movement
of the waves, and the alternate contact of air and water.

The island of Chamberg is remarkable for its height. It is a rock of
gneiss, with two summits in the form of a saddle, and raised two
hundred feet above the surface of the water. The slope of this rock is
barren, and affords only nourishment for a few plants of clusia with
large white flowers. But the view of the lake and of the richly