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Updated: June 16, 2025
But Don Pablo was too good a botanist not to know the nature of the trees that grew around, and the uses to which they could be applied. Near by grew a curious tree, which is known among the Indians as the parapara. Dona Isidora was not long in making a trial of it, and found this to be true.
It is the real porphyrschiefer of Werner; and it would be difficult to distinguish, in a collection of stones, the phonolite of Parapara from that of Bilin, in Bohemia. It does not, however, here form rocks in grotesque shapes, but little hills covered with tabular blocks, large plates extremely sonorous, translucid on the edges, and wounding the hands when broken.
This phenomenon is the more remarkable, as the grunsteins which are called primitive almost always contain quartz in Europe. The most general dip of the slates of Piedras Azules, of the grunsteins of Parapara, and of the pyroxenic amygdaloids embedded in strata of grunstein, does not follow the slope of the ground from north to south, but is pretty regular towards the north.
Farther south, towards Parapara and Ortiz, the slates disappear. They are concealed under a trap-formation more varied in its aspect. The soil becomes more fertile; the rocky masses alternate with strata of clay, which appear to be produced by the decomposition of the grunsteins, the amygdaloids, and the phonolites.
I could not see the line of junction of these two limestones, or that of the calcareous formation and the diabasis. The transverse valley which descends from Piedras Negras and the village of San Juan, towards Parapara and the Llanos, is filled with trap-rocks, displaying close affinity with the formation of green slates, which they cover.
Does it belong to the trap-formation of Parapara? It becomes thicker, and mixed with sand, as we approach the Rio Apure; for near Calabozo it is one toise thick, near the mission of Guayaval five toises, which may lead to the belief that the strata of red sandstone dips towards the south. We gathered in the Mesa de Pavones little nodules of blue iron-ore disseminated in the clay.
To the east of the island is the mouth of the Cano de la Tortuga, which descends from the mountains of Cerbatana, continually wrapped in electric clouds. On the southern bank of the Cano, between the tributary streams Parapara and Oche, lies the almost ruined mission of San Miguel de la Tortuga.
Lower down, towards Parapara and Ortiz, where the amygdaloids and phonolites are connected with the grunstein, everything assumes a basaltic aspect. Balls of grunstein heaped one upon another, form those rounded cones, which are found so frequently in the Mittelgebirge in Bohemia, near Bilin, the country of phonolites. The following is the result of my partial observations.
The clay which separates these amygdaloid concretions arises from the decomposition of their crust. They acquire by the contact of the air a very thin coating of yellow ochre. South-west of the village of Parapara rises the little Cerro de Flores, which is discerned from afar in the steppes.
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