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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In The Latter Place He
Founded The City Of Caracas.), And From The Ancient Gold-Mines Of
Baruta And Oripoto.
Ascending in the direction of Carapa, we enjoy
once more the sight of the Silla, which appears like an immense
dome with a cliff on the side next the sea.
This rounded summit,
and the ridge of Galipano crenated like a wall, are the only
objects which in this basin of gneiss and mica-slate impress a
peculiar character on the landscape. The other mountains have a
uniform and monotonous aspect.
A little before reaching the village of Antimano we observed on the
right a very curious geological phenomenon. In hollowing the new
road out of the rock, two large veins of gneiss were discovered in
the mica-slate. They are nearly perpendicular, intersecting all the
mica-slate strata, and are from six to eight toises thick. These
veins contain not fragments, but balls or spheres of granular
diabasis,* formed of concentric layers. (* Ur-grunstein. I remember
having seen similar balls filling a vein in transition-slate, near
the castle of Schauenstein in the margravate of Bayreuth. I sent
several balls from Antimano to the collection of the king of Spain
at Madrid.) These balls are composed of lamellar feldspar and
hornblende closely commingled. The feldspar approximates sometimes
to vitreous feldspar when disseminated in very thin laminae in a
mass of granular diabasis, decomposed, and emitting a strong
argillaceous smell. The diameter of the spheres is very unequal,
sometimes four or eight inches, sometimes three or four feet; their
nucleus, which is more dense, is without concentric layers, and of
a very dark green hue, inclining to black. I could not perceive any
mica in them; but, what is very remarkable, I found great
quantities of disseminated garnets. These garnets are of a very
fine red, and are found in the grunstein only. They are neither in
the gneiss, which serves as a cement to the balls, nor in the
mica-slate, which the veins traverse. The gneiss, the constituent
parts of which are in a state of considerable disintegration,
contains large crystals of feldspar; and, though it forms the body
of the vein in the mica-slate, it is itself traversed by threads of
quartz two inches thick, and of very recent formation. The aspect
of this phenomenon is very curious: it appears as if cannon-balls
were embedded in a wall of rock. I also thought I recognized in
these same regions, in the Montana de Avila, and at Cabo Blanco,
east of La Guayra, a granular diabasis, mixed with a small quantity
of quartz and pyrites, and destitute of garnets, not in veins, but
in subordinate strata in the mica-slate. This position is
unquestionably to be found in Europe in primitive mountains; but in
general the granular diabasis is more frequently connected with the
system of transition rocks, especially with a schist
(ubergangs-thonschiefer) abounding in beds of Lydian stone strongly
carburetted, of schistose jasper,* (Kieselschiefer.) ampelites,*
(Alaunschiefer.) and black limestone.
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