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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It Was Even Asserted,
And This Opinion Prevails Still In The Country, That The Two Domes
Of The Silla Sunk Fifty Or Sixty Toises; But This Statement Is Not
Founded On Any Measurement.
I am informed that, in like manner, in
the province of Quito, the people, at every period of great
commotions, imagine that the volcano of Tunguragua diminishes in
height.
It has been affirmed, in many published accounts of the
destruction of Caracas, that the mountain of the Silla is an
extinguished volcano; that a great quantity of volcanic substances
are found on the road from La Guayra to Caracas; that the rocks do
not present any regular stratification; and that everything bears
the stamp of the action of fire. It has even been stated that
twelve years prior to the great catastrophe, M. Bonpland and myself
had, from our own observations, considered the Silla as a very
dangerous neighbour to the city of Caracas, because the mountain
contained a great quantity of sulphur, and the commotions must come
from the north-east. It is seldom that observers of nature have to
justify themselves for an accomplished prediction; but I think it
my duty to oppose ideas which are too easily adopted on the LOCAL
CAUSES of earthquakes.
In all places where the soil has been incessantly agitated for
whole months, as at Jamaica in 1693, Lisbon in 1755, Cumana in
1766, and Piedmont in 1808, a volcano is expected to open. People
forget that we must seek the focus or centre of action, far from
the surface of the earth; that, according to undeniable evidence,
the undulations are propagated almost at the same instant across
seas of immense depth, at the distance of a thousand leagues; and
that the greatest commotions take place not at the foot of active
volcanoes, but in chains of mountains composed of the most
heterogeneous rocks. In our geognostical observation of the country
round Caracas we found gneiss, and mica-slate containing beds of
primitive limestone. The strata are scarcely more fractured or
irregularly inclined than near Freyburg in Saxony, or wherever
mountains of primitive formation rise abruptly to great heights. I
found at Caracas neither basalt nor dorolite, nor even trachytes or
trap-porphyries; nor in general any trace of an extinguished
volcano, unless we choose to regard the diabases of primitive
grunstein, contained in gneiss, as masses of lava, which have
filled up fissures. These diabases are the same as those of
Bohemia, Saxony, and Franconia;* (* These grunsteins are found in
Bohemia, near Pilsen, in granite; in Saxony, in the mica-slates of
Scheenberg; in Franconia, between Steeben and Lauenstein, in
transition-slates.) and whatever opinion may be entertained
respecting the ancient causes of the oxidation of the globe at its
surface, all those primitive mountains, which contain a mixture of
hornblende and feldspar, either in veins or in balls with
concentric layers, will not, I presume, be called volcanic
formations. Mont Blanc and Mont d'Or will not be ranged in one and
the same class.
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