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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These We Shall Distinguish By The Names Of Cordillera
Of The Island Of Margareta, And Cordillera Of Araya.
The third
chain, the most southerly of the whole, the Cordillera of the
Brigantine and of the Cocollar, contains
Rocks only of secondary
formation; and, what is remarkable enough, though analogous to the
geological constitution of the Alps westward of St. Gothard, the
primitive chain is much less elevated than that which was composed
of secondary rocks.* (* In New Andalusia, the Cordillera of the
Cocollar nowhere contains primitive rocks. If these rocks form the
nucleus of this chain, and rise above the level of the neighbouring
plains, which is scarcely probable, we must suppose that they are
all covered with limestone and sandstone. In the Swiss Alps, on the
contrary, the chain which is designated under the too vague
denomination of lateral and calcareous, contains primitive rocks,
which, according to the observations of Escher and Leopold von
Buch, are often visible to the height of eight hundred or a
thousand toises.) The sea has separated the two northern
Cordilleras, those of the island of Margareta and the peninsula of
Araya; and the small islands of Coche and of Cubagua are remnants
of the land that was submerged. Farther to the south, the vast gulf
Cariaco stretches away, like a longitudinal valley formed by the
irruption of the sea, between the two small chains of Araya and the
Cocollar, between the mica-slate and the Alpine limestone. We shall
soon see that the direction of the strata, very regular in the
first of these rocks, is not quite parallel with the general
direction of the gulf.
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