Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 48.djvu/554

512 supplies the neighboring city of Merida with ice. Low chains also stretch along the coast as far as the delta of the Orinoco. These mountains for the most part run in parallel ranges, between which lie elevated valleys. In these valleys are most of the cultivated lands of the country. Here also are the chief cities, although many of the seaports are of considerable size. Carácas, the capital, is nine miles back from the coast, at an elevation of three thousand feet, but the railroad which runs to it from La Guaira is obliged to take a tortuous way of twenty-three miles, passing through many cuts and tunnels. There are no stations along the route, and the country is not cultivated except near the termini. In many places the track winds around a mountain on the verge of a sheer descent of hundreds of feet. Carácas lies in one of the mountain valleys, which slopes toward the south and is traversed by the Guaire River. Its temperature is equable; the mean of its coldest month, January, being 68° F., and of its hottest month, May, being 93°. Rain falls abundantly in April, May, and June, though not so constantly as in other tropical regions. The rest of the year is rather dry.

Between the mountains and the Orinoco stretch the broad llanos or grassy and partly tree-covered plains which form the basin of the great river on the northwestern side. The extensive, thinly populated territory south and east of the Orinoco is made up of alternating hills and valleys, and is heavily wooded. This region has some mountains of moderate elevation, among which is Roraima, of much interest to explorers, standing on (or near) the boundary of British Guiana. Its tablelike upper portion, a mass of pink sandstone rising sheer sixteen hundred feet, was first ascended in 1884 by Im Thurn and Perkins after many unsuccessful attempts had been made. "Obviously Roraima was formerly," says Reclus, "part of an elevated table land, which has been gradually isolated by a process of cleavage and erosive action. It survives to present times as a superb witness to former geological conditions. Streams have their rise on the upper platform, over the edge of which they fall in cascades, draping the pink escarpments as with lace veils of their silvery spray. 'O Roraima, red mountain, wrapped in clouds, fruitful mother of streams!' sing the Arecuna Indians encamped in the surrounding valleys."

Venezuela has no volcanoes, but traces of ancient eruptions are to be found among the highlands. Certain flames often seen hovering over the ground were formerly thought to be connected with subterranean fires, but this idea has been dispelled by advancing knowledge. "This curious phenomenon," says Reclus in his description of it, "has been noticed on the slopes of Duida, on Mount Cuchivano, in the province of Cumaná, and in the marshy valley of the Catatumbo and of other streams flowing to Lake