Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 155 of 407 - First - Home
From Paramo Has Been Made Emparamarse,
Which Signifies To Be As Cold As If We Were On The Ridge Of
The
Andes.) From these observations it follows, that between the
tropics, in plains where the temperature of the air is
In the
day-time almost invariably above twenty-seven degrees, warmer
clothing during the night is requisite, whenever in a damp air the
thermometer sinks four or five degrees.
We landed about eight in the morning at the point of Araya, near
the new salt-works. A solitary house, near a battery of three guns,
the only defence of this coast, since the destruction of the fort
of Santiago, is the abode of the inspector. It is surprising that
these salt-works, which formerly excited the jealousy of the
English, Dutch, and other maritime powers, have not created a
village, or even a farm; a few huts only of poor Indian fishermen
are found at the extremity of the point of Araya.
This spot commands a view of the islet of Cubagua, the lofty hills
of Margareta, the ruins of the castle of Santiago, the Cerro de la
Vela, and the calcareous chain of the Brigantine, which bounds the
horizon towards the south. I availed myself of this view to take
the angles between these different points, from a basis of four
hundred toises, which I measured between the battery and the hill
called the Pena. As the Cerro de la Vela, the Brigantine, and the
castle of San Antonio at Cumana, are equally visible from the Punta
Arenas, situated to the west of the village of Maniquarez, the same
objects were available for an approximate determination of the
respective positions of several points, which are laid down in the
mineralogical chart of the peninsula of Araya.
The abundance of salt contained in the peninsula of Araya was known
to Alonzo Nino, when, following the tracks of Columbus, Ojeda, and
Amerigo Vespucci, he visited these countries in 1499. Though of all
the people on the globe the natives of South America consume the
least salt, because they scarcely eat anything but vegetables, it
nevertheless appears, that at an early period the Guayquerias dug
into the clayey and muriatiferous soil of Punta Arenas. Even the
brine-pits, now called new, (la salina nueva,) situated at the
extremity of Cape Araya, were worked in very remote times. The
Spaniards, who settled at first at Cubagua, and soon after on the
coasts of Cumana, worked, from the beginning of the sixteenth
century, the salt marshes which stretch away like a lagoon to the
north of Cerro de la Vela. As at that period the peninsula of Araya
had no settled population, the Dutch availed themselves of the
natural riches of a soil which appeared to be property common to
all nations. In our days, each colony has its own salt-works, and
navigation is so much improved, that the merchants of Cadiz can
send, at a small expense, salt from Spain and Portugal to the
southern hemisphere, a distance of 1900 leagues, to cure meat at
Monte Video and Buenos Ayres.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 155 of 407
Words from 80165 to 80682
of 211363