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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At Present We Perceive That The Humid Plains Which Stretch East And
West Of The Ridge, And Which Are Improperly Called The Valleys San
Bonifacio And Cariaco, Are Enlarging By Gaining On The Sea.
The
waters are receding, and these changes of the shore are very
remarkable, more particularly on the coast of Cumana.
If the level
of the soil seem to indicate that the two gulfs of Cariaco and
Paria formerly occupied a much more considerable space, we cannot
doubt that at present the land is progressively extending. Near
Cumana, a battery, called La Boca, was built in 1791 on the very
margin of the sea; in 1799 we saw it very far inland. At the mouth
of the Rio Neveri, near the Morro of Nueva Barcelona, the retreat
of the waters is still more rapid. This local phenomenon is
probably assignable to accumulations of sand, the progress of which
has not yet been sufficiently examined. Descending the Sierra de
Meapire, which forms the isthmus between the plains of San
Bonifacio and Cariaco, we find towards the east the great lake of
Putacuao, which communicates with the river Areo, and is four or
five leagues in diameter. The mountainous lands that surround this
basin are known only to the natives. There are found those great
boa serpents known to the Chayma Indians by the name of guainas,
and to which they fabulously attribute a sting under the tail.
Descending the Sierra de Meapire to the west, we find at first a
hollow ground (tierra hueca) which, during the great earthquakes of
1766, threw out asphaltum enveloped in viscous petroleum.
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