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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This Advantage Is Invaluable Where
The Sea Is Almost Always Tempestuous, As Between Capes Ortegal And
Finisterre, Which Are The Promontories Trileucum And Artabrum Of
Ancient Geography.
A narrow passage, flanked by perpendicular rocks
of granite, leads to the extensive basin of Ferrol.
No port in
Europe has so extraordinary an anchorage, from its very inland
position. The narrow and tortuous passage by which vessels enter
this port, has been opened, either by the irruption of the waves,
or by the reiterated shocks of very violent earthquakes. In the New
World, on the coasts of New Andalusia, the Laguna del Obispo
(Bishop's lake) is formed exactly like the port of Ferrol. The most
curious geological phenomena are often repeated at immense
distances on the surface of continents; and naturalists who have
examined different parts of the globe, are struck with the extreme
resemblance observed in the rents on coasts, in the sinuosities of
the valleys, in the aspect of the mountains, and in their
distribution by groups. The accidental concurrence of the same
causes must have everywhere produced the same effects; and amidst
the variety of nature, an analogy of structure and form is observed
in the arrangement of inanimate matter, as well as in the internal
organization of plants and of animals.
Crossing from Corunna to Ferrol, over a shallow, near the White
Signal, in the bay, which according to D'Anville is the Portus
Magnus of the ancients, we made several experiments by means of a
valved thermometrical sounding lead, on the temperature of the
ocean, and on the decrement of caloric in the successive strata of
water.
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