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 These Respects The Canary Islands
Have No Great Resemblance To The Other Spanish Colonies, Excepting
The Havannah.
We were present on the eve of St. John at a pastoral fete in the
garden of Mr. Little.
This gentleman, who rendered great service to
the Canarians during the last famine, has cultivated a hill covered
with volcanic substances. He has formed in this delicious site an
English garden, whence there is a magnificent view of the Peak, of
the villages along the coast, and the isle of Palma, which is
bounded by the vast expanse of the Atlantic. I cannot compare this
prospect with any, except the views of the bays of Genoa and
Naples; but Orotava is greatly superior to both in the magnitude of
the masses and in the richness of vegetation. In the beginning of
the evening the slope of the volcano exhibited on a sudden a most
extraordinary spectacle. The shepherds, in conformity to a custom,
no doubt introduced by the Spaniards, though it dates from the
highest antiquity, had lighted the fires of St. John. The scattered
masses of fire and the columns of smoke driven by the wind, formed
a fine contrast with the deep verdure of the forests which covered
the sides of the Peak. Shouts of joy resounding from afar were the
only sounds that broke the silence of nature in these solitary
regions.
Don Cologan's family has a country-house nearer the coast than that
I have just mentioned. This house, called La Paz, is connected with
a circumstance that rendered it peculiarly interesting to us. M. de
Borda, whose death we deplored, was its inmate during his last
visit to the Canary Islands. It was in a neighbouring plain that he
measured the base, by which he determined the height of the Peak.
In this geometrical operation the great dracaena of Orotava served
as a mark. Should any well-informed traveller at some future day
undertake a new measurement of the volcano with more exactness, and
by the help of astronomical repeating circles, he ought to measure
the base, not near Orotava, but near Los Silos, at a place called
Bante. According to M. Broussonnet there is no plain near the Peak
of greater extent. In herborizing near La Paz we found a great
quantity of Lichen roccella on the basaltic rocks bathed by the
waters of the sea. The archil of the Canaries is a very ancient
branch of commerce; this lichen is however found in less abundance
in the island of Teneriffe than in the desert islands of Salvage,
La Graciosa, and Alegranza, or even in Canary and Hierro. We left
the port of Orotava on the 24th of June.
To avoid disconnecting the narrative of the excursion to the top of
the Peak, I have said nothing of the geological observations I made
on the structure of this colossal mountain, and on the nature of
the volcanic rocks of which it is composed. Before we quit the
archipelago of the Canaries, I shall linger for a moment, and bring
into one point of view some facts relating to the physical aspect
of those countries.
Mineralogists who think that the end of the geology of volcanoes is
the classification of lavas, the examination of the crystals they
contain, and their description according to their external
characters, are generally very well satisfied when they come back
from the mouth of a burning volcano. They return loaded with those
numerous collections, which are the principal objects of their
research. This is not the feeling of those who, without confounding
descriptive mineralogy (oryctognosy) with geognosy, endeavour to
raise themselves to ideas generally interesting, and seek, in the
study of nature, for answers to the following questions: -
Is the conical mountain of a volcano entirely formed of liquified
matter heaped together by successive eruptions, or does it contain
in its centre a nucleus of primitive rocks covered with lava, which
are these same rocks altered by fire? What are the affinities which
unite the productions of modern volcanoes with the basalts, the
phonolites, and those porphyries with bases of feldspar, which are
without quartz, and which cover the Cordilleras of Peru and Mexico,
as well as the small groups of the Monts Dores, of Cantal, and of
Mezen in France? Has the central nucleus of volcanoes been heated
in its primitive position, and raised up, in a softened state, by
the force of the elastic vapours, before these fluids communicated,
by means of a crater, with the external air? What is the substance,
which, for thousands of years, keeps up this combustion, sometimes
so slow, and at other times so active? Does this unknown cause act
at an immense depth; or does this chemical action take place in
secondary rocks lying on granite?
The farther we are from finding a solution of these problems in the
numerous works hitherto published on Etna and Vesuvius, the greater
is the desire of the traveller to see with his own eyes. He hopes
to be more fortunate than those who have preceded him; he wishes to
form a precise idea of the geological relations which the volcano
and the neighbouring mountains bear to each other: but how often is
he disappointed, when, on the limits of the primitive soil,
enormous banks of tufa and puzzolana render every observation on
the position and stratification impossible! We reach the inside of
the crater with less difficulty than we at first expect; we examine
the cone from its summit to its base; we are struck with the
difference in the produce of each eruption, and with the analogy
which still exists between the lavas of the same volcano; but,
notwithstanding the care with which we interrogate nature, and the
number of partial observations which present themselves at every
step, we return from the summit of a burning volcano less satisfied
than when we were preparing to visit it. It is after we have
studied them on the spot, that the volcanic phenomena appear still
more isolated, more variable, more obscure, than we imagine them
when consulting the narratives of travellers.
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