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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The Accordance Just
Observed Between The Barometrical And Thermometrical Measures Is So
Much More Striking, Because In Mountainous Countries, With
Steep
declivities, the springs generally indicate too great a decrement
of caloric, for they unite small currents of water, which
Filtrate
at different heights, and their temperature is consequently the
mean between the temperature of these currents. The spring of
Dornajito has considerable reputation in the country; and at the
time I was there, it was the only one known on the road which leads
to the summit of the volcano. The formation of springs demands a
certain regularity in the direction and inclination of the strata.
On a volcanic soil, porous and splintered rocks absorb the rain
waters, and convey them to considerable depths. Hence arises that
aridity observed in the greater part of the Canary Islands,
notwithstanding the considerable height of their mountains, and the
mass of clouds which navigators behold incessantly overhanging this
archipelago.
From Pino del Dornajito to the crater of the volcano we continued
to ascend without crossing a single valley; for the small ravines
(barancos) do not merit this name. To the eye of the geologist the
whole island of Teneriffe is but one mountain, the almost
elliptical base of which is prolonged to the north-east, and in
which may be distinguished several systems of volcanic rocks formed
at different epochs. The Chahorra, or Montana Colorada, and the
Urca, considered in the country as insulated volcanoes, are only
little hills abutting on the peak, and masking its pyramidal form.
The great volcano, the lateral eruptions of which have given birth
to vast promontories, is not however precisely in the centre of the
island, and this peculiarity of structure appears the less
surprising, if we recollect that, as the learned mineralogist M.
Cordier has observed, it is not perhaps the small crater of the
Piton which has been the principal agent in the changes undergone
by the island of Teneriffe.
Above the region of arborescent heaths, called Monte Verde, is the
region of ferns. Nowhere, in the temperate zone, have I seen such
an abundance of the pteris, blechnum, and asplenium; yet none of
these plants have the stateliness of the arborescent ferns which,
at the height of five or six hundred toises, form the principal
ornament of equinoctial America. The root of the Pteris aquilina
serves the inhabitants of Palma and Gomera for food; they grind it
to powder, and mix with it a quantity of barley-meal. This
composition, when boiled, is called gofio; the use of so homely an
aliment is a proof of the extreme poverty of the lower order of
people in the Canary Islands.
Monte Verde is intersected by several small and very arid ravines
(canadas), and the region of ferns is succeeded by a wood of
juniper trees and firs, which has suffered greatly from the
violence of hurricanes. In this place, mentioned by some travellers
under the name of Caravela,* (* "Philosophical Transactions" volume
29 page 317. Carabela is the name of a vessel with lateen sails.
The pines of the peak formerly were used as masts of vessels.) Mr.
Eden states that in the year 1705 he saw little flames, which,
according to the doctrine of the naturalists of his time, he
attributes to sulphurous exhalations igniting spontaneously. We
continued to ascend, till we came to the rock of La Gayta and to
Portillo: traversing this narrow pass between two basaltic hills,
we entered the great plain of Spartium. At the time of the voyage
of Laperouse, M. Manneron had taken the levels of the peak, from
the port of Orotava to this elevated plain, near 1400 toises above
the level of the sea; but the want of water, and the misconduct of
the guides, prevented him from taking the levels to the top of the
volcano. The results of the operation, (which was two-thirds
completed,) unfortunately were not sent to Europe, and the work is
still to be recommenced from the sea-coast.
We spent two hours and a half in crossing the Llano del Retama,
which appears like an immense sea of sand. Notwithstanding the
elevation of this site, the centigrade thermometer rose in the
shade toward sunset, to 13.8 degrees, or 3.7 degrees higher than
toward noon at Monte Verde. This augmentation of heat could be
attributed only to the reverberation from the ground, and the
extent of the plain. We suffered much from the suffocating dust of
the pumice-stone, in which we were continually enveloped. In the
midst of this plain are tufts of the retama, which is the Spartium
nubigenum of Aiton. M. de Martiniere, one of the botanists who
perished in the expedition of Laperouse, wished to introduce this
beautiful shrub into Languedoc, where firewood is very scarce. It
grows to the height of nine feet, and is loaded with odoriferous
flowers, with which the goat hunters, that we met in our road, had
decorated their hats. The goats of the peak, which are of a deep
brown colour, are reckoned delicious food; they browse on the
spartium, and have run wild in the deserts from time immemorial.
They have been transported to Madeira, where they are preferred to
the goats of Europe.
As far as the rock of Gayta, or the entrance of the extensive Llano
del Retama, the peak of Teneriffe is covered with beautiful
vegetation. There are no traces of recent devastation. We might
have imagined ourselves scaling the side of some volcano, the fire
of which had been extinguished as remotely as that of Monte Cavo,
near Rome; but scarcely had we reached the plain covered with
pumice-stone, when the landscape changed its aspect, and at every
step we met with large blocks of obsidian thrown out by the
volcano. Everything here speaks perfect solitude. A few goats and
rabbits only bound across the plain. The barren region of the peak
is nine square leagues; and as the lower regions viewed from this
point retrograde in the distance, the island appears an immense
heap of torrefied matter, hemmed round by a scanty border of
vegetation.
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