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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Everything That Relates To The Formation Of That Sea,* (*
Some Of The Ancient Geographers Believed That The Mediterranean,
Swelled By
The waters of the Euxine, the Palus Maeotis, the Caspian
Sea, and the Sea of Aral, had broken the pillars
Of Hercules;
others admitted that the irruption was made by the waters of the
ocean. In the first of these hypotheses, the height of the land
between the Black Sea and the Baltic, and between the ports of
Cette and Bordeaux, determine the limit which the accumulation of
the waters may have reached before the junction of the Black Sea,
the Mediterranean, and the Atlantic, as well to the north of the
Dardanelles, as to the east of this strip of land which formerly
joined Europe to Mauritania, and of which, in the time of Strabo,
certain vestiges remained in the Islands of Juno and the Moon.)
which has had so powerful an influence on the first civilization of
mankind, is highly interesting. We might suppose, that Spain,
forming a promontory amidst the waves, was indebted for its
preservation to the height of its land; but in order to give weight
to these theoretic ideas, we must clear up the doubts that have
arisen respecting the rupture of so many transverse dikes; - we must
discuss the probability of the Mediterranean having been formerly
divided into several separate basins, of which Sicily and the
island of Candia appear to mark the ancient limits. We will not
here risk the solution of these problems, but will satisfy
ourselves in fixing attention on the striking contrast in the
configuration of the land in the eastern and western extremities of
Europe. Between the Baltic and the Black Sea, the ground is at
present scarcely fifty toises above the level of the ocean, while
the plain of La Mancha, if placed between the sources of the Niemen
and the Borysthenes, would figure as a group of mountains of
considerable height. If the causes, which may have changed the
surface of our planet, be an interesting speculation,
investigations of the phenomena, such as they offer themselves to
the measures and observations of the naturalist, lead to far
greater certainty.
From Astorga to Corunna, especially from Lugo, the mountains rise
gradually. The secondary formations gently disappear, and are
succeeded by the transition rocks, which indicate the proximity of
primitive strata. We found considerable mountains composed of that
ancient grey stone which the mineralogists of the school of
Freyberg name grauwakke, and grauwakkenschiefer. I do not know
whether this formation, which is not frequent in the south of
Europe, has hitherto been discovered in other parts of Spain.
Angular fragments of Lydian stone, scattered along the valleys,
seemed to indicate that the transition schist is the basis of the
strata of greywacke. Near Corunna even granitic ridges stretch as
far as Cape Ortegal. These granites, which seem formerly to have
been contiguous to those of Britanny and Cornwall, are perhaps the
wrecks of a chain of mountains destroyed and sunk in the waves.
Large and beautiful crystals of feldspar characterise this rock.
Common tin ore is sometimes discovered there, but working the mines
is a laborious and unprofitable operation for the inhabitants of
Galicia.
The first secretary of state had recommended us very particularly
to brigadier Don Raphael Clavijo, who was employed in forming new
dock-yards at Corunna. He advised us to embark on board the sloop
Pizarro,* (* According to the Spanish nomenclature, the Pizarro was
a light frigate (fragata lijera).) which was to sail in company
with the Alcudia, the packet-boat of the month of May, which, on
account of the blockade, had been detained three weeks in the port.
Senor Clavijo ordered the necessary arrangements to be made on
board the sloop for placing our instruments, and the captain of the
Pizarro received orders to stop at Teneriffe, as long as we should
judge necessary to enable us to visit the port of Orotava, and
ascend the peak.
We had yet ten days to wait before we embarked. During this
interval, we employed ourselves in preparing the plants we had
collected in the beautiful valleys of Galicia, which no naturalist
had yet visited: we examined the fuci and the mollusca which the
north-west winds had cast with great profusion at the foot of the
steep rock, on which the lighthouse of the Tower of Hercules is
built. This edifice, called also the Iron Tower, was repaired in
1788. It is ninety-two feet high, its walls are four feet and a
half thick, and its construction clearly proves that it was built
by the Romans. An inscription discovered near its foundation, a
copy of which M. Laborde obligingly gave me, informs us, that this
pharos was constructed by Caius Sevius Lupus, architect of the city
of Aqua Flavia (Chaves), and that it was dedicated to Mars. Why is
the Iron Tower called in the country by the name of Hercules? Was
it built by the Romans on the ruins of a Greek or Phoenician
edifice? Strabo, indeed, affirms that Galicia, the country of the
Callaeci, had been peopled by Greek colonies. According to an
extract from the geography of Spain, by Asclepiades the Myrlaean,
an ancient tradition stated that the companions of Hercules had
settled in these countries.
The ports of Ferrol and Corunna both communicate with one bay, so
that a vessel driven by bad weather towards the coast may anchor in
either, according to the wind. This advantage is invaluable where
the sea is almost always tempestuous, as between capes Ortegal and
Finisterre, which are the promontories Trileucum and Artabrum of
ancient geography. A narrow passage, flanked by perpendicular rocks
of granite, leads to the extensive basin of Ferrol. No port in
Europe has so extraordinary an anchorage, from its very inland
position. The narrow and tortuous passage by which vessels enter
this port, has been opened, either by the irruption of the waves,
or by the reiterated shocks of very violent earthquakes.
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