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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Such Are The Small Bay Of Catia, Los
Arecifes, Puerto-La-Cruz, Choroni, Sienega De Ocumare, Turiamo,
Burburata, And Patanebo.
All these ports, with the exception of
that of Burburata, from which mules are exported to Jamaica, are
now
Frequented only by small coasting vessels, which are there
laden with provisions and cacao from the surrounding plantations.
The inhabitants of Caracas are desirous to avail themselves of the
anchorage of Catia, to the west of Cabo Blanco. M. Bonpland and
myself examined that point of the coast during our second abode at
La Guayra. A ravine, called the Quebrada de Tipe, descends from the
table-land of Caracas towards Catia. A plan has long been in
contemplation for making a cart-road through this ravine and
abandoning the old road to La Guayra, which resembles the passage
over St. Gothard. According to this plan, the port of Catia,
equally large and secure, would supersede that of La Guayra.
Unfortunately, however, all that shore, to leeward of Cabo Blanco,
abounds with mangroves, and is extremely unhealthy. I ascended to
the summit of the promontory, which forms Cabo Blanco, in order to
observe the passage of the sun over the meridian. I wished to
compare in the morning the altitudes taken with an artificial
horizon and those taken with the horizon of the sea; to verify the
apparent depression of the latter, by the barometrical measurement
of the hill. By this method, hitherto very little employed, on
reducing the heights of the sun to the same time, a reflecting
instrument may be used like an instrument furnished with a level. I
found the latitude of the cape to be 10 degrees 36 minutes 45
seconds; I could only make use of the angles which gave the image
of the sun reflected on a plane glass; the horizon of the sea was
very misty, and the windings of the coast prevented me from taking
the height of the sun on that horizon.
The environs of Cabo Blanco are not uninteresting for the study of
rocks. The gneiss here passes into the state of mica-slate
(Glimmerschiefer.), and contains, along the sea-coast, layers of
schistose chlorite. (Chloritschiefer.) In this latter I found
garnets and magnetical sand. On the road to Catia we see the
chloritic schist passing into hornblende schist.
(Hornblendschiefer.) All these formations are found together in the
primitive mountains of the old world, especially in the north of
Europe. The sea at the foot of Cabo Blanco throws up on the beach
rolled fragments of a rock, which is a granular mixture of
hornblende and lamellar feldspar. It is what is rather vaguely
called PRIMITIVE GRUNSTEIN. In it we can recognize traces of quartz
and pyrites. Submarine rocks probably exist near the coast, which
furnish these very hard masses. I have compared them in my journal
to the PATERLESTEIN of Fichtelberg, in Franconia, which is also a
diabase, but so fusible, that glass buttons are made of it, which
are employed in the slave-trade on the coast of Guinea. I believed
at first, according to the analogy of the phenomena furnished by
the mountains of Franconia, that the presence of these hornblende
masses with crystals of common (uncompact) feldspar indicated the
proximity of transition rocks; but in the high valley of Caracas,
near Antimano, balls of the same diabase fill a vein crossing the
mica-slate. On the western declivity of the hill of Cabo Blanco,
the gneiss is covered with a formation of sandstone, or
conglomerate, extremely recent. This sandstone combines angular
fragments of gneiss, quartz, and chlorite, magnetical sand,
madrepores, and petrified bivalve shells. Is this formation of the
same date as that of Punta Araya and Cumana?
Scarcely any part of the coast has so burning a climate as the
environs of Cabo Blanco. We suffered much from the heat, augmented
by the reverberation of a barren and dusty soil; but without
feeling any bad consequences from the effects of insolation. The
powerful action of the sun on the cerebral functions is extremely
dreaded at La Guayra, especially at the period when the yellow
fever begins to be felt. Being one day on the terrace of the house,
observing at noon the difference of the thermometer in the sun and
in the shade, a man approached me holding in his hand a potion,
which he conjured me to swallow. He was a physician, who from his
window, had observed me bareheaded, and exposed to the rays of the
sun. He assured me, that, being a native of a very northern
climate, I should infallibly, after the imprudence I had committed,
be attacked with the yellow fever that very evening, if I refused
to take the remedy against it. I was not alarmed by this
prediction, however serious, believing myself to have been long
acclimated; but I could not resist yielding to entreaties, prompted
by such benevolent feelings. I swallowed the dose; and the
physician doubtless counted me among the number of those he had
saved.
The road leading from the port to Caracas (the capital of a
government of near 900,000 inhabitants) resembles, as I have
already observed, the passage over the Alps, the road of St.
Gothard, and of the Great St. Bernard. Taking the level of the road
had never been attempted before my arrival in the province of
Venezuela. No precise idea had even been formed of the elevation of
the valley of Caracas. It had indeed been long observed, that the
descent was much less from La Cumbre and Las Vueltas (the latter is
the culminating point of the road towards the Pastora at the
entrance of the valley of Caracas), than towards the port of La
Guayra; but the mountain of Avila having a very considerable bulk,
the eye cannot discern simultaneously the points to be compared. It
is even impossible to form a precise idea of the elevation of
Caracas, from the climate of the valley, where the atmosphere is
cooled by the descending currents of air, and by the mists, which
envelope the lofty summit of the Silla during a great part of the
year.
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