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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While
The Comparative Analysis Of Sugar, Gum, And Starch; The Discovery
Of The Radical Of The Prussic Acid (The Effects
Of which are so
powerful on the organization), and many other phenomena of
vegetable chemistry, clearly prove that substances composed
Of
identical elements, few in number and proportional in quantity,
exhibit the most heterogeneous properties, on account of that
particular mode of combination which corpuscular chemistry calls
the arrangement of the particles.
Leaving the ravine which descends from the Imposible, we entered a
thick forest traversed by many small rivers, which are easily
forded. We observed that the cecropia, which in the disposition of
its branches and its slender trunk, resembles the palm-tree, is
covered with leaves more or less silvery, in proportion as the soil
is dry or moist. We saw some small plants of the cecropia, the
leaves of which were on both sides entirely green.* (* Is not the
Cecropia concolor of Willdenouw a variety of the Cecropia peltata?)
The roots of these trees are hid under tufts of dorstenia, which
flourishes only in humid and shady places. In the midst of the
forest, on the banks of the Rio Cedeno, as well as on the southern
declivity of the Cocollar, we find, in their wild state, papaw and
orange-trees, bearing large and sweet fruit. These are probably the
remains of some conucos, or Indian plantations; for in those
countries the orange-tree cannot be counted among the indigenous
plants, any more than the banana-tree, the papaw-tree, maize,
cassava, and many other useful plants, with the true country of
which we are unacquainted, though they have accompanied man in his
migrations from the remotest times.
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