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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It
Appears That This Metal Was Not Collected In Veins Of Quartz, But
Was Found Disseminated In The Rock, As It Is Sometimes In Granite
And Gneiss.
At Maniquarez we met with some creoles, who had been hunting at
Cubagua.
Deer of a small breed are so common in this uninhabited
islet, that a single individual may kill three or four in a day. I
know not by what accident these animals have got thither, for Laet
and other chroniclers of these countries, speaking of the
foundation of New Cadiz, mention only the great abundance of
rabbits. The venado of Cubagua belongs to one of those numerous
species of small American deer, which zoologists have long
confounded under the vague name of Cervus mexicanus. It does not
appear to be the same as the hind of the savannahs of Cayenne, or
the guazuti of Paraguay, which live also in herds. Its colour is a
brownish red on the back, and white under the belly; and it is
spotted like the axis. In the plains of Cari we were shown, as a
thing very rare in these hot climates, a variety quite white. It
was a female of the size of the roebuck of Europe, and of a very
elegant shape. White varieties are found in the New Continent even
among the tigers. Azara saw a jaguar, the skin of which was wholly
white, with merely the shadow, as it might be termed, of a few
circular spots.
Of all the productions on the coasts of Araya, that which the
people consider as the most extraordinary, or we may say the most
marvellous, is 'the stone of the eyes,' (piedra de los ojos.) This
calcareous substance is a frequent subject of conversation: being,
according to the natural philosophy of the natives, both a stone
and an animal. It is found in the sand, where it is motionless; but
if placed on a polished surface, for instance on a pewter or
earthen plate, it moves when excited by lemon juice. If placed in
the eye, the supposed animal turns on itself, and expels every
other foreign substance that has been accidentally introduced. At
the new salt-works, and at the village of Maniquarez, these stones
of the eyes* were offered to us by hundreds, and the natives were
anxious to show us the experiment of the lemon juice. (* They are
found in the greatest abundance near the battery at the point of
Cape Araya.) They even wished to put sand into our eyes, in order
that we might ourselves try the efficacy of the remedy. It was easy
to see that the stones are thin and porous opercula, which have
formed part of small univalve shells. Their diameter varies from
one to four lines. One of their two surfaces is plane, and the
other convex. These calcareous opercula effervesce with lemon
juice, and put themselves in motion in proportion as the carbonic
acid is disengaged. By the effect of a similar reaction, loaves
placed in an oven move sometimes on a horizontal plane; a
phenomenon that has given occasion, in Europe, to the popular
prejudice of enchanted ovens.
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