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 201 of 208 - First - Home
The Valley Of The Tuy Has Its 'gold Mine,' Like Almost Every Part
Of America Inhabited By Whites, And
Backed by primitive mountains.
I was assured, that in 1780, foreign gold-gatherers had been
engaged in picking up grains
Of that metal, and had established a
place for washing the sand in the Quebrada del Oro. An overseer of
a neighbouring plantation had followed these indications; and after
his death, a waistcoat with gold buttons being found among his
clothes, this gold, according to the logic of the people here,
could only have proceeded from a vein, which the falling in of the
earth had rendered invisible. In vain I objected, that I could not,
by the mere view of the soil, without digging a large trench in the
direction of the vein, judge of the existence of the mine; I was
compelled to yield to the desire of my hosts. For twenty years past
the overseer's waistcoat had been the subject of conversation in
the country. Gold extracted from the bosom of the earth is far more
alluring in the eyes of the vulgar, than that which is the produce
of agricultural industry, favoured by the fertility of the soil,
and the mildness of the climate.
North-west of the Hacienda del Tuy, in the northern range of the
chain of the coast, we find a deep ravine, called the Quebrada
Seca, because the torrent, by which it was formed, loses its waters
through the crevices of the rock, before it reaches the extremity
of the ravine. The whole of this mountainous country is covered
with thick vegetation. We there found the same verdure as had
charmed us by its freshness in the mountains of Buenavista and Las
Lagunetas, wherever the ground rises as high as the region of the
clouds, and where the vapours of the sea have free access. In the
plains, on the contrary, many trees are stripped of a part of their
leaves during the winter; and when we descend into the valley of
the Tuy, we are struck with the almost hibernal aspect of the
country. The dryness of the air is such that the hygrometer of
Deluc keeps day and night between 36 and 40 degrees. At a distance
from the river scarcely any huras or piper-trees extend their
foliage over thickets destitute of verdure. This seems owing to the
dryness of the air, which attains its maximum in the month of
February; and not, as the European planters assert, "to the seasons
of Spain, of which the empire extends as far as the torrid zone."
It is only plants transported from one hemisphere to the other,
which, in their organic functions, in the development of their
leaves and flowers, still retain their affinity to a distant
climate: faithful to their habits, they follow for a long time the
periodical changes of their native hemisphere. In the province of
Venezuela the trees stripped of their foliage begin to renew their
leaves nearly a month before the rainy season. It is probable, that
at this period the electrical equilibrium of the air is already
disturbed, and the atmosphere, although not yet clouded, becomes
gradually more humid. The azure of the sky is paler, and the
elevated regions are loaded with light vapours, uniformly diffused.
This season may be considered as the awakening of nature; it is a
spring which, according to the received language of the Spanish
colonies, proclaims the beginning of winter, and succeeds to the
heats of summer.* (* That part of the year most abundant in rain is
called winter; so that in Terra Firma, the season which begins by
the winter solstice, is designated by the name of summer; and it is
usual to hear, that it is winter on the mountains, at the time when
summer prevails in the neighbouring plains.)
Indigo was formerly cultivated in the Quebrada Seca; but as the
soil covered with vegetation cannot there concentrate so much heat
as the plains and the bottom of the Tuy valley receive and radiate,
the cultivation of coffee has been substituted in its stead. As we
advanced in the ravine we found the moisture increase. Near the
Hato, at the northern extremity of the Quebrada, a torrent rolls
down over sloping beds of gneiss. An aqueduct was being formed
there to convey the water to the plain. Without irrigation,
agriculture makes no progress in these climates. A tree of
monstrous size fixed our attention.* (* Hura crepitans.) It lay on
the slope of the mountain, above the house of the Hato. On the
least dislodgment of the earth, its fall would have crushed the
habitation which it shaded: it had therefore been burnt near its
foot, and cut down in such a manner, that it fell between some
enormous fig-trees, which prevented it from rolling into the
ravine. We measured the fallen tree; and though its summit had been
burnt, the length of its trunk was still one hundred and fifty-four
feet.* (* French measure, nearly fifty metres.) It was eight feet
in diameter near the roots, and four feet two inches at the upper
extremity.
Our guides, less anxious than ourselves to measure the bulk of
trees, continually pressed us to proceed onward and seek the 'gold
mine.' This part of the ravine is little frequented, and is not
uninteresting. We made the following observations on the geological
constitution of the soil. At the entrance of the Quebrada Seca we
remarked great masses of primitive saccharoidal limestone,
tolerably fine grained, of a bluish tint, and traversed by veins of
calcareous spar of dazzling whiteness. These calcareous masses must
not be confounded with the very recent depositions of tufa, or
carbonate of lime, which fill the plains of the Tuy; they form beds
of mica-slate, passing into talc-slate.* (* Talkschiefer of Werner,
without garnets or serpentine; not eurite or weisstein. It is in
the mountains of Buenavista that the gneiss manifests a tendency to
pass into eurite.) The primitive limestone often simply covers this
latter rock in concordant stratification.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 201 of 208
Words from 204163 to 205176
of 211363