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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As His Wealth Increased, He Purchased
Two Black Slaves; And By These Slaves He Was Murdered.
The goats
became wild, but the cultivated plants perished.
Maize in America,
like wheat in Europe, connected with man since his first
migrations, appears to be preserved only by his care. We sometimes
see these nutritive gramina disseminate themselves; but when left
to nature the birds prevent their reproduction by destroying the
seeds.
We anchored for some hours in the road of New Barcelona, at the
mouth of the river Neveri, of which the Indian (Cumanagoto) name is
Enipiricuar. This river is full of crocodiles, which sometimes
extend their excursions into the open sea, especially in calm
weather. They are of the species common in the Orinoco, and bear so
much resemblance to the crocodile of Egypt, that they have long
been confounded together. It may easily be conceived that an
animal, the body of which is surrounded with a kind of armour, must
be nearly indifferent to the saltness of the water. Pigafetta
relates in his journal recently published at Milan that he saw, on
the shores of the island of Borneo, crocodiles which inhabit alike
land and sea. These facts must be interesting to geologists, since
attention has been fixed on the fresh-water formations, and the
curious mixture of marine and fluviatile petrifactions sometimes
observed in certain very recent rocks.
The port of Barcelona has maintained a very active commerce since
1795. From Barcelona is exported most of the produce of those vast
steppes which extend from the south side of the chain of the coast
as far as the Orinoco, and in which cattle of every kind are almost
as abundant as in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The commercial
industry of these countries depends on the demand in the West India
Islands for salted provision, oxen, mules, and horses. The coasts
of Terra Firma being opposite to the island of Cuba, at a distance
of fifteen or eighteen days' sail, the merchants of the Havannah
prefer, especially in time of peace, obtaining their provision from
the port of Barcelona, to the risk of a long voyage in another
hemisphere to the mouth of the Rio de la Plata. The situation of
Barcelona is singularly advantageous for the trade in cattle. The
animals have only three days' journey from the llanos to the port,
while it requires eight or nine days to reach Cumana, on account of
the chain of mountains of the Brigantine and the Imposible.
Having landed on the right bank of the Neveri, we ascended to a
little fort called El Morro de Barcelona, situated at the elevation
of sixty or seventy toises above the level of the sea. The Morro is
a calcareous rock which has been lately fortified.
The view from the summit of the Morro is not without beauty. The
rocky island of Boracha lies on the east, the lofty promontory of
Unare is on the west, and below are seen the mouth of the river
Neveri, and the arid shores on which the crocodiles come to sleep
in the sun. Notwithstanding the extreme heat of the air, for the
thermometer, exposed to the reflection of the white calcareous
rock, rose to 38 degrees, we traversed the whole of the eminence. A
fortunate chance led us to observe some very curious geological
phenomena, which we again met with in the Cordilleras of Mexico.
The limestone of Barcelona has a dull, even, or conchoidal
fracture, with very flat cavities. It is divided into very thin
strata, and exhibits less analogy with the limestone of Cumanacoa,
than with that of Caripe, forming the cavern of the Guacharo. It is
traversed by banks of schistose jasper,* (Kieselschiefer of Werner.
)* black, with a conchoidal fracture, and breaking into fragments
of a parallelopipedal figure. This fossil does not exhibit those
little streaks of quartz so common in the Lydian stone. It is found
decomposed at its surface into a yellowish grey crust, and it does
not act upon the magnet. Its edges, a little translucid, give it
some resemblance to the hornstone, so common in secondary
limestones.* (* In Switzerland, the hornstone passing into common
jasper is found in kidney-stones, and in layers both in the Alpine
and Jura limestone, especially in the former.) It is remarkable
that we find the schistose jasper which in Europe characterizes the
transition rocks,* (The transition-limestone and schist.) in a
limestone having great analogy with that of Jura. In the study of
formations, which is the great end of geognosy, the knowledge
acquired in the old and new worlds should be made to furnish
reciprocal aid to each other. It appears that these black strata
are found also in the calcareous mountains of the island of
Boracha.* (* We saw some of it as ballast, in a fishing boat at
Punta Araya. Its fragments might have been mistaken for basalt.)
Another jasper, that known by the name of the Egyptian pebble, was
found by M. Bonpland near the Indian village of Curacatiche or
Curacaguitiche, fifteen leagues south of the Morro of Barcelona,
when, on our return from the Orinoco, we crossed the llanos, and
approached the mountains on the coast. This stone presented
yellowish concentric lines and bands, on a reddish brown ground. It
appeared to me that the round pieces of Egyptian jasper belonged
also to the Barcelona limestone. Yet, according to M. Cordier, the
fine pebbles of Suez owe their origin to a breccia formation, or
siliceous agglomerate.
At the moment of our setting sail, on the 19th of November, at
noon, I took some altitudes of the moon, to determine the longitude
of the Morro. The difference of meridian between Cumana and the
town of Barcelona, where I made a great number of astronomical
observations in 1800, is 34 minutes 48 seconds. I found the dip of
the needle 42.20 degrees: the intensity of the forces was equal to
224 oscillations.
From the Morro of Barcelona to Cape Codera, the land becomes low,
as it recedes southward; and the soundings extend to the distance
of three miles.
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