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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We Crossed
That Part Of The Gulf Where Hot Springs Gush From The Bottom Of The
Sea.
It was flood-tide, so that the change of temperature was not
very perceptible:
Besides, our canoe drove too much towards the
southern shore. It may be supposed that strata of water must be
found of different temperatures, according to the greater or less
depth, and according as the mingling of the hot waters with those
of the gulf is accelerated by the winds and currents. The existence
of these hot springs, which we were assured raise the temperature
of the sea through an extent of ten or twelve thousand square
toises, is a very remarkable phenomenon. (* In the island of
Guadaloupe, there is a fountain of boiling water, which rushes out
on the beach. Hot-water springs rise from the bottom of the sea in
the gulf of Naples, and near the island of Palma, in the
archipelago of the Canary Islands.) Proceeding from the promontory
of Paria westward, by Irapa, Aguas Calientes, the gulf of Cariaco,
the Brigantine, and the valley of Aragua, as far as the snowy
mountains of Merida, a continued band of thermal waters is found in
an extent of 150 leagues.
Adverse winds and rainy weather forced us to go on shore at
Pericantral, a small farm on the south side of the gulf. The whole
of this coast, though covered with beautiful vegetation, is almost
wholly uncultivated. There are scarcely seven hundred inhabitants:
and, excepting in the village of Mariguitar, we saw only
plantations of cocoa-trees, which are the olives of the country.
This palm occupies on both continents a zone, of which the mean
temperature of the year is not below 20 degrees.* (* The cocoa-tree
grows in the northern hemisphere from the equator to latitude 28
degrees.
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