Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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Corografica page 25, in speaking of resins found in the
forests of Cumana, makes a just distinction between the Draco de la
Sierra de Unare, which has pinnate leaves (Pterocarpus Draco), and
the Draco de la Sierra de Paria, with entire and hairy leaves.
The
latter is the Croton sanguifluum of Cumanacoa, Caripe, and Cariaco.
) The red and astringent juice of this plant is employed to
strengthen the gums. The Indians recognize the species by the
smell, and more particularly by chewing the woody fibres. Two
natives, to whom the same wood was given to chew, pronounced
without hesitation the same name. We could avail ourselves but
little of the sagacity of our guides, for how could we procure
leaves, flowers, and fruits growing on trunks, the branches of
which commence at fifty or sixty feet high? We were struck at
finding in this hollow the bark of trees, and even the soil,
covered with moss* and lichens. (* Real musci frondosi. We also
found, besides a small Boletus stipitatus, of a snow-white colour,
the Boletus igniarius, and the Lycoperdon stellatum of Europe. I
had found this last only in very dry places in Germany and Poland.)
The cryptogamous plants are here as common as in northern
countries. Their growth is favoured by the moisture of the air, and
the absence of the direct rays of the sun. Nevertheless the
temperature is generally at 25 degrees in the day, and 19 degrees
at night.
The rocks which bound the crevice of Cuchivano are perpendicular
like walls, and are of the same calcareous formation which we
observed the whole way from Punta Delgada. It is here a blackish
grey, of compact fracture, tending sometimes towards the sandy
fracture, and crossed by small veins of white carbonated lime. In
these characteristic marks we thought we discovered the alpine
limestone of Switzerland and the Tyrol, of which the colour is
always deep, though in a less degree than that of the transition
limestone.* (* Escher, in the Alpina volume 4 page 340.) The first
of these formations constitutes the Cuchivano, the nucleus of the
Imposible, and in general the whole group of the mountains of New
Andalusia. I saw no petrifactions in it; but the inhabitants assert
that considerable masses of shells are found at great heights. The
same phenomenon occurs in the country about Salzburg.* (* In
Switzerland, the solitary beds of shells, at the height of from
1300 to 2000 toises (in the Jungfrauhorn, the Dent de Morcle, and
the Dent du Midi), belong to transition limestone.) At the
Cuchivano the alpine limestone contains beds of marly clay,*
(*Mergelschiefer.) three or four toises thick; and this geological
fact proves on the one hand the identity of the alpenkalkstein with
the zechstein of Thuringia, and on the other the affinity of
formation existing between the alpine limestone and that of the
Jura.* (* The Jura and the Alpine limestone are kindred formations,
and they are sometimes difficult to be distinguished, where they
lie immediately one upon another, as in the Apennines. The alpine
limestone and the zechstein, famous among the geologists of
Freyberg, are identical formations. This identity, which I noticed
in the year 1793 (Uber die Grubenwetter), is a geological fact the
more interesting, as it seems to unite the northern European
formations to those of the central chain. It is known that the
zechstein is situated between the muriatiferous gypsum and the
conglomerate (ancient sandstone); or where there is no
muriatiferous gypsum, between the slaty sandstone with roestones
(buntesandstein, Wern.), and the conglomerate or ancient sandstone.
It contains strata of schistous and coppery marl (bituminoce mergel
and kupferschiefer) which form an important object in the working
of mines at Mansfeld in Saxony, near Riegelsdorf in Hesse, and at
Hasel and Prausnitz, in Silesia. In the southern part of Bavaria
(Oberbaiern), I saw the alpine limestone, containing these same
strata of schistous clay and marl, which, though thinner, whiter,
and especially more frequent, characterize the limestone of Jura.
Respecting the slates of Blattenberg, in the canton of Glaris which
some mineralogists, because of their numerous impressions of fish,
have long mistaken for the cupreous slates of Mansfeld, they
belong, according to M. von Buch, to a real transition formation.
All these geological data tend to prove that strata of marl, more
or less mixed with carbon, are to be found in the limestone of
Jura, in the alpine limestone, and in the transition schists. The
mixture of carbon, sulphuretted iron, and copper, appears to me to
augment with the relative antiquity of the formations.) The strata
of marl effervesce with acids, though silex and alumina predominate
in them: they are strongly impregnated with carbon, and sometimes
blacken the hands, like a real vitriolic schistus. The supposed
gold mine of Cuchivano, which was the object of our examination, is
nothing but an excavation cut into one of those black strata of
marl, which contain pyrites in abundance. The excavation is on the
right bank of the river Juagua, and must be approached with
caution, because the torrent there is more than eight feet deep.
The sulphurous pyrites are found, some massive, and others
crystallized and disseminated in the rock; their colour, of a very
clear golden yellow, does not indicate that they contain copper.
They are mixed with fibrous sulphuret of iron,* (* Haarkies.) and
nodules of swinestone, or fetid carbonate of lime. The marly
stratum crosses the torrent; and, as the water washes out metallic
grains, the people imagine, on account of the brilliancy of the
pyrites, that the torrent bears down gold. It is reported that,
after the great earthquake which took place in 1766, the waters of
the Juagua were so charged with gold that "men who came from a
great distance, and whose country was unknown," established
washing-places on the spot. They disappeared during the night,
after having collected a great quantity of gold. It would be
needless to show that this is a fable. Pyrites dispersed in
quartzose veins, crossing the mica-slate, are often auriferous, no
doubt; but no analogous fact leads to the supposition that the
sulphuretted iron which is found in the schistose marls of the
alpine limestone, contains gold.
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