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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We Shall Not Question, That
Sal-Gem, Either Pure Or Mixed With Muriatiferous Clay, May Have
Been Deposited By An
Ancient sea; but everything evinces that it
was formed during an order of things bearing no resemblance to that
in
Which the sea at present, by a slower operation, deposits a few
particles of muriate of soda on the sands of our shores. In the
same manner as sulphur and coal belong to periods of formation very
remote from each other, the sal-gem is also found sometimes in
transition gypsum,* (* Uebergangsgyps, in the transition slate of
White Alley (l'Allee Blanche), and between the grauwacke and black
transition limestone near Bex, below the Dent de Chamossaire,
according to M. von Buch.) sometimes in the Alpine limestone,* (*
At Halle in the Tyrol.) sometimes in a muriatiferous clay lying on
a very recent sandstone,* (* At Punta Araya.) and lastly, sometimes
in a gypsum* posterior to the chalk. (* Gypsum of the third
formation among the secondary gypsums. The first formation contains
the gypsum in which are found the brine-springs of Thuringia, and
which is placed either in the Alpine limestone or zechstein, to
which it essentially belongs (Freiesleben Geognost. Arbeiten tome 2
page 131), or between the zechstein and the limestone of the Jura,
or between the zechstein and the new sandstone. It is the ancient
gypsum of secondary formation of Werner's school (alterer
flozgyps), which we almost preferably call muriatiferous gypsum.
The second formation is composed of fibrous gypsum, placed either
in the molasse or new sandstone, or between this and the upper
limestone. It abounds in common clay, which differs essentially
from the salzthon or muriatiferous clay. The third formation of
gypsum is more recent than chalk. To this belongs the bony gypsum
of Paris; and, as appears from the researches of Mr. Steffens
(Geogn. Aufsatsze 1810 page 142), the gypsum of Segeberg, in
Holstein, in which sal-gem is sometimes disseminated in very small
nests (Jenaische Litteratur-Zeitung 1813 page 100). The gypsum of
Paris, lying between a cerite limestone, which covers chalk and a
sandstone without shells, is distinguished by fossil bones of
quadrupeds, while the Segeberg and Lunebourg gypsums, the position
of which is more uncertain, are characterized by the boracits which
they contain. Two other formations, far anterior to the three we
have just mentioned, are the transition gypsum (ubergangsgyps) of
Aigle, and the primitive gypsum (urgyps) of the valley of Canaria,
near Airolo. I flatter myself that I may render some service to
those geologists who prefer the knowledge of positive facts to
speculation on the origin of things, by furnishing them with
materials from which they may generalize their ideas on the
formation of rocks in both hemispheres. The relative antiquity of
the formations is the principal object of a science which is to
render us acquainted with the structure of the globe; that is to
say, the nature of the strata which constitute the crust of our
planet.)
The new salt-works of Araya have five reservoirs, or pits, the
largest of which have two thousand three hundred square toises
surface.
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