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If we may be allowed to judge of the structure of the whole Sierra Parime, from the part which I examined in 6 degrees of longitude, and 4 degrees of latitude, we may believe it to be entirely composed of gneiss-granite; I saw some beds of greenstone and amphibolic slate, but neither mica-slate, clay-slate, nor banks of green limestone, although many phenomena render the presence of mica-slate probable on the east of the Maypures and in the chain of Pacaraina.

The amphibolic slates of Angostura run north 45 degrees east, like the gneiss of Guapasoso which forms the bed of the Atabapo, and like the mica-slate of the peninsula of Araya, though there is a distance of 160 leagues between the limits of those rocks.

This celebrated man was beheaded on October the 29th, 1618. The third town, now the capital of the province, is fifty leagues west of the confluence of the Carony. Angostura, the longitude and latitude of which I have already indicated from astronomical observations, stands at the foot of a hill of amphibolic schist* bare of vegetation.

We find at the back of this granitic, or rather mica-slate-gneiss soil of the southern chain, on the south of the Villa de Cura, a transition stratum, composed of greenstone, amphibolic serpentine, micaceous limestone, and green and carburetted slate. The most southern limit of this district is marked by volcanic rocks. According to the observations of Major Long and Dr.

In the Sierra Parime, mica-slate predominates only in the most eastern part, where its lustre has led to strange errors. The amphibolic slate of Angostura, and masses of diorite in balls, with concentric layers, near Muitaco, appear to be superposed, not on mica-slate, but immediately on gneiss-granite.

The fine saussurite which we saw in the Upper Orinoco in the hands of the Indians, seems to indicate the existence of a soil of euphotide, superposed on gneiss-granite, or amphibolic slate, in the eastern part of the Sierra Parime. The Morros of San Juan rise like ruinous towers in a soil of diorite.

The abundance of copper mentioned by the Conquistadores of the sixteenth century, at a period when the Spaniards were more attentive than they have been in latter times to the natural productions of America, may possibly be attributed to the formations of amphibolic slate, transition clay-slate mixed with diorite, and to euphotides analogous to those I found in the mountains of Guanabacoa.

Neither olivine nor amphibole can be distinguished. Before it shows itself as a separate stratum, rising in small conic hills, the amygdaloid seems to alternate by layers with the diorite, which we have mentioned above as mixed with carburetted slate and amphibolic serpentine.