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 332 of 407 - First - Home
It Appears To Me Probable, That The Singular
Effects Of The Catia, And Of All Those Currents Of Air, To The
Influence Of Which Popular Opinion Attaches So Much Importance,
Must Be Looked For Rather In The Changes Of Humidity And Of
Temperature, Than In Chemical Modifications.
We need not trace
miasms to Caracas from the unhealthy shore on the coast:
It may be
easily conceived that men accustomed to the drier air of the
mountains and the interior, must be disagreeably affected when the
very humid air of the sea, pressed through the gap of Tipe, reaches
in an ascending current the high valley of Caracas, and, getting
cooler by dilatation, and by contact with the adjacent strata,
deposits a great portion of the water it contains. This inconstancy
of climate, these somewhat rapid transitions from dry and
transparent to humid and misty air, are inconveniences which
Caracas shares in common with the whole temperate region of the
tropics - with all places situated between four and eight hundred
toises of elevation, either on table-lands of small extent, or on
the slope of the Cordilleras, as at Xalapa in Mexico, and Guaduas
in New Granada. A serenity, uninterrupted during a great part of
the year, prevails only in the low regions at the level of the sea,
and at considerable heights on those vast table-lands, where the
uniform radiation of the soil seems to contribute to the perfect
dissolution of vesicular vapours. The intermediate zone is at the
same height as the first strata of clouds which surround the
surface of the earth; and the climate of this zone, the temperature
of which is so mild, is essentially misty and variable.
Notwithstanding the elevation of the spot, the sky is generally
less blue at Caracas than at Cumana. The aqueous vapour is less
perfectly dissolved; and here, as in our climates, a greater
diffusion of light diminishes the intensity of the aerial colour,
by introducing white into the blue of the air. This intensity,
measured with the cyanometer of Saussure, was found from November
to January generally 18, never above 20 degrees. On the coasts it
was from 22 to 25 degrees. I remarked, in the village of Caracas,
that the wind of Petare sometimes contributes singularly to give a
pale tint to the celestial vault. On the 22nd of January, the blue
of the sky was at noon in the zenith feebler than I ever saw it in
the torrid zone.* (* At noon, thermometer in the shade 23.7 (in the
sun, out of the wind, 30.4 degrees); De Luc's hygrometer, 36.2;
cyanometer, at the zenith, 12, at the horizon 9 degrees. The wind
ceased at three in the afternoon. Thermometer 21; hygrometer 39.3;
cyanometer 16 degrees. At six o'clock, thermometer 20.2; hygrometer
39 degrees.) It corresponded only to 12 degrees of the cyanometer.
The atmosphere was then remarkably transparent, without clouds, and
of extraordinary dryness. The moment the wind of Petare ceased, the
blue colour rose at the zenith as high as 16 degrees.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 332 of 407
Words from 172185 to 172696
of 211363