On Some Interesting Cases of Migrations of Marine Fishes on the Coast of Venezuela at Carupano

Abstract

CARÚPANO is a thriving seaport on the northern coast of Venezuela, midway between the peninsulas of Araya and Paria, in lat. 10° 14′ 15″N., and long. 63° 18′ W. from Greenwich, and therefore in close vicinity to the channel which leads from the Atlantic into the Caribbean Sea between Tobago and Grenada on the one side, and Trinidad and the South American mainland on the other side. Through this channel enters the great western current of the Caribbean Sea, running at the rate of about one mile and a half an hour, though not with much regularity. The coast-line forms the western prolongation of the northern shore of Trinidad, trending almost due west. The water is rather shallow to a considerable distance from the land, the 100-fathom line due north of Carúpano being about 60 miles off the shore,¹ which gives for the sea-bottom a gradient of but 1.67 per 1000.²