Drought produces the same phenomena in animals and plants as the abstraction of heat. During the dry season many tropical plants lose their leaves. The crocodile and other amphibious animals conceal themselves in the mud and lie apparently dead, like animals in cold regions who are thrown into a state of hybernation.[[HC]]

[40]. p. 17.—“A vast inland sea.”

Nowhere are these inundations on a larger scale than in the net-work of streams formed by the Apure, the Arachuna, the Payara, the Arauca, and the Cabuliare. Large vessels sail across the country over the Steppe for 40 or 50 miles.

[41]. p. 17.—“To the mountainous plain of Antisana.”

The great mountain plateau which surrounds the volcano of Antisana is 13,473 feet above the level of the sea. The pressure of the atmosphere is so inconsiderable at this height, that blood will flow from the nostrils and mouth of the wild bull when hunted with dogs.

[42]. p. 17.—“The marshy waters of Bera and Rastro.”

I have elsewhere more circumstantially described the capture of the gymnotus.[[HD]] Mons. Gay Lussac and myself were perfectly successful in the experiments we conducted without a chain on a living gymnotus, which was still very vigorous when it reached Paris. The discharge of electricity is entirely dependent on the will of the animal. We did not observe any electric sparks, but other physicists have done so on numerous occasions.

[43]. p. 18.—“Awakened by the contact of moist and dissimilar particles.”

In all organic bodies dissimilar substances come into contact with each other, and solids are associated with fluids. Wherever there is organization and life, there must be electric tension, or, in other words, a voltaic pile must be brought into play, as the experiments of Nobili and Matteucci, and more especially the late most admirable labours of Emil Dubois, teach us. The last-named physicist has succeeded in “manifesting the presence of the electric muscular current in living and wholly uninjured animal bodies:” he shows that “the human body, through the medium of a copper wire, can at will cause the magnetic needle at a distance to deflect first in one direction and then in another.”[[HE]] I have myself witnessed these movements produced at will, and have thus unexpectedly seen much light thrown on phenomena, to which I had laboriously and ardently devoted so many years of my earlier life.

[44]. p. 19.—“The myth of Osiris and Typhon.”