Mairan Asserts, That In France It Is Common Enough To See The Zodiacal Light, In The Months Of February And

March, mingling with a kind of Aurora Borealis, which he calls 'undecided,' and the nebulous matter of which spreads

Itself all around the horizon, or appears toward the west. I very much doubt, whether, in the observations I have been describing, there was any mixture of these two species of light. The variations in intensity took place at considerable altitudes; the light was white, and not coloured; steady, and not undulating. Besides, the Aurora Borealis is so seldom visible within the tropics, that during five years, though almost constantly sleeping in the open air, and observing the heavens with unremitting attention, I never perceived the least traces of that phenomenon.

I am rather inclined to think that the variations of the zodiacal light are not all appearances dependent on certain modifications in the state of our atmosphere. Sometimes, during nights equally clear, I sought in vain for the zodiacal light, when, on the previous night, it had appeared with the greatest brilliancy. Must we admit that emanations which reflect white light, and seem to have some analogy with the tails of comets, are less abundant at certain periods? Researches on the zodiacal light have acquired a new degree of interest since geometricians have taught us that we are ignorant of the real causes of this phenomenon. The illustrious author of "La Mecanique Celeste" has shown that the solar atmosphere cannot reach even the planet Mercury; and that it could not in any case display the lenticular form which has been attributed to the zodiacal light. We may also entertain the same doubts respecting the nature of this light, as with regard to that of the tails of comets. Is it in fact a reflected or a direct light?

We left the plantation of Manterola on the 11th of February, at sunrise. The road runs along the smiling banks of the Tuy; the morning was cool and humid, and the air seemed embalmed by the delicious odour of the Pancratium undulatum, and other large liliaceous plants. In our way to La Victoria, we passed the pretty village of Mamon or of Consejo, celebrated in the country for a miraculous image of the Virgin. A little before we reached Mamon, we stopped at a farm belonging to the family of Monteras. A negress more than a hundred years old was seated before a small hut built of earth and reeds. Her age was known because she was a creole slave. She seemed still to enjoy very good health. "I keep her in the sun" (la tengo al sol), said her grandson; "the heat keeps her alive." This appeared to us not a very agreeable mode of prolonging life, for the sun was darting his rays almost perpendicularly. The brown-skinned nations, blacks well seasoned, and Indians, frequently attain a very advanced age in the torrid zone. A native of Peru named Hilario Pari died at the extraordinary age of one hundred and forty-three years, after having been ninety years married.

Don Francisco Montera and his brother, a well-informed young priest, accompanied us with the view of conducting us to their house at La Victoria. Almost all the families with whom we had lived in friendship at Caracas were assembled in the fine valleys of Aragua, and they vied with each other in their efforts to render our stay agreeable. Before we plunged into the forests of the Orinoco, we enjoyed once more all the advantages which advanced civilization affords.

The road from Mamon to La Victoria runs south and south-west. We soon lost sight of the river Tuy, which, turning eastward, forms an elbow at the foot of the high mountains of Guayraima. As we drew nearer to Victoria the ground became smoother; it seemed like the bottom of a lake, the waters of which had been drained off. We might have fancied ourselves in the valley of Hasli, in the canton of Berne. The neighbouring hills, only one hundred and forty toises in height, are composed of calcareous tufa; but their abrupt declivities project like promontories on the plain. Their form indicates the ancient shore of the lake. The eastern extremity of this valley is parched and uncultivated. No advantage has been derived from the ravines which water the neighbouring mountains; but fine cultivation is commencing in the proximity of the town. I say of the town, though in my time Victoria was considered only as a village (pueblo).

The environs of La Victoria present a very remarkable agricultural aspect. The height of the cultivated ground is from two hundred and seventy to three hundred toises above the level of the ocean, and yet we there find fields of corn mingled with plantations of sugar-cane, coffee, and plantains. Excepting the interior of the island of Cuba,* (* The district of Quatro Villas.) we scarcely find elsewhere in the equinoctial regions European corn cultivated in large quantities in so low a region. The fine fields of wheat in Mexico are between six hundred and twelve hundred toises of absolute elevation; and it is rare to see them descend to four hundred toises. We shall soon perceive that the produce of grain augments sensibly, from high latitudes towards the equator, with the mean temperature of the climate, in comparing spots of different elevations. The success of agriculture depends on the dryness of the air; on the rains distributed through different seasons, or accumulated in one season; on winds blowing constantly from the east; or bringing the cold air of the north into very low latitudes, as in the gulf of Mexico; on mists, which for whole months diminish the intensity of the solar rays; in short, on a thousand local circumstances which have less influence on the mean temperature of the whole year than on the distribution of the same quantity of heat through the different parts of the year.

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