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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He Descended The River Amazon With His Band, And Reached
By A Communication Of The Rivers Of Guyana The Island Of Margareta.
The Port Of Paraguache Still Bears, In This Island, The Name Of The
Tyrant's Port.)
The great earthquake of 1797 produced some changes in the
configuration of the shoal of Morro Roxo, towards the mouth of the
Rio Bordones.
Similar swellings were observed at the time of the
total destruction of Cumana, in 1766. At that period, the Punta
Delgado, on the southern coast of the gulf of Cariaco, became
perceptibly enlarged; and in the Rio Guarapiche, near the village
of Maturin, a shoal was formed, no doubt by the action of the
elastic fluids, which displaced and raised up the bed of the river.
In order to follow a plan conformable to the end we proposed in
this work, we shall endeavour to generalize our ideas, and to
comprehend in one point of view everything that relates to these
phenomena, so terrific, and so difficult to explain. If it be the
duty of the men of science who visit the Alps of Switzerland, or
the coasts of Lapland, to extend our knowledge respecting the
glaciers and the aurora borealis, it may be expected that a
traveller who has journeyed through Spanish America, should have
chiefly fixed his attention on volcanoes and earthquakes. Each part
of the globe is an object of particular study; and when we cannot
hope to penetrate the causes of natural phenomena, we ought at
least to endeavour to discover their laws, and distinguish, by the
comparison of numerous facts, that which is permanent and uniform
from that which is variable and accidental.
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