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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I Can Affirm Nothing Respecting The
Accuracy Of This Latter Statement, Which It Would Be So Much The
More Important To Verify, As M. Poli, Of Naples, Is In Possession
Of A Fragment Of Rock Thrown Out By Vesuvius,* Which I Found To Be
A Real Mica-Slate.
(* In the valuable collection of Dr. Thomson,
who resided at Naples till 1805, is a fragment of lava enclosing a
real granite, which is composed of reddish feldspar with a pearly
lustre like adularia, quartz, mica, hornblende, and, what is very
remarkable, lazulite.
But in general the masses of known primitive
rocks, (I mean those which perfectly resemble our granites, our
gneiss, and our mica-slates) are very rare in lavas; the substances
we commonly denote by the name of granite, thrown out by Vesuvius,
are mixtures of nepheline, mica, and pyroxene. We are ignorant
whether these mixtures constitute rocks sui generis placed under
granite, and consequently of more ancient date; or simply form
either intermediate strata on veins, in the interior of the
primitive mountains, the tops of which appear at the surface of the
globe.) Every thing that tends to enlighten us with respect to the
site of the volcanic fire, and the position of rocks subject to its
action, is highly interesting to geology.
It is possible, that at the Peak of Teneriffe, the fragments of
primitive rocks thrown out by the mouth of the volcano may be less
rare than they at present appear to be, and may be heaped together
in some ravine, not yet visited by travellers. In fact, at
Vesuvius, these same fragments are met with only in one single
place, at the Fossa Grande, where they are hidden under a thick
layer of ashes. If this ravine had not long ago attracted the
attention of naturalists, when masses of granular limestone, and
other primitive rocks, were laid bare by the rains, we might have
thought them as rare at Vesuvius, as they are, at least in
appearance, at the Peak of Teneriffe.
With respect to the fragments of granite, gneiss, and mica-slate,
found on the shores of Santa Cruz and Orotava, they were probably
brought in ships as ballast. They no more belong to the soil where
they lie, than the feldsparry lavas of Etna, seen in the pavements
of Hamburg and other towns of the north. The naturalist is exposed
to a thousand errors, if he lose sight of the changes, produced on
the surface of the globe by the intercourse between nations. We
might be led to say, that man, when expatriating himself; is
desirous that everything should change country with him. Not only
plants, insects, and different species of small quadrupeds, follow
him across the ocean; his active industry covers the shores with
rocks, which he has torn from the soil in distant climes.
Though it be certain, that no scientific observer has hitherto
found at Teneriffe primitive strata, or even those trappean and
ambiguous porphyries, which constitute the bases of Etna, and of
several volcanoes of the Andes, we must not conclude from this
isolated fact, that the whole archipelago of the Canaries is the
production of submarine fires. The island of Gomera contains
mountains of granite and mica-slate; and it is, undoubtedly, in
these very ancient rocks, that we must seek there, as well as on
all other parts of the globe, the centre of the volcanic action.
Amphibole, sometimes pure and forming intermediate strata, at other
times mixed with granite, as in the basanites or basalts of the
ancients, may, of itself, furnish all the iron contained in the
black and stony lavas. This quantity amounts in the basalt of the
modern mineralogists only to 0.20, while in amphibole it exceeds 0.
30.
From several well-informed persons, to whom I addressed myself, I
learned that there are calcareous formations in the Great Canary,
Forteventura, and Lancerota.* (* At Lancerota calcareous stone is
burned to lime with a fire made of the alhulaga, a new species of
thorny and arborescent Sonchus.) I was not able to determine the
nature of this secondary rock; but it appears certain, that the
island of Teneriffe is altogether destitute of it; and that in its
alluvial lands it exhibits only clayey calcareous tufa, alternating
with volcanic breccia, said to contain, (near the village of La
Rambla, at Calderas, and near Candelaria,) plants, imprints of
fishes, buccinites, and other fossil marine productions. M. Cordier
brought away some of this tufa, which resembles that in the
environs of Naples and Rome, and contains fragments of reeds. At
the Salvages, which islands La Perouse took at a distance for
masses of scoriae, even fibrous gypsum is found.
I had seen, while herborizing between the port of Orotava and the
garden of La Paz, heaps of greyish calcareous stones, of an
imperfect conchoidal fracture, and analogous to that of Mount Jura
and the Apennines. I was informed that these stones were extracted
from a quarry near Rambla; and that there were similar quarries
near Realejo, and the mountain of Roxas, above Adexa. This
information led me into an error. As the coasts of Portugal consist
of basalts covering calcareous rocks containing shells, I imagined
that a trappean formation, like that of the Vicentin in Lombardy,
and of Harutsh in Africa, might have extended from the banks of the
Tagus and Cape St. Vincent as far as the Canary Islands; and that
the basalts of the Peak might perhaps conceal a secondary
calcareous stone. These conjectures exposed me to severe
animadversions from M. G.A. de Luc, who is of opinion that every
volcanic island is only an accumulation of lavas and scoriae. M. de
Luc declares it is impossible that real lava should contain
fragments of vegetable substances. Our collections, however,
contain pieces of trunks of palm-trees, enclosed and penetrated by
the very liquid lava of the isle of Bourbon.
Though Teneriffe belongs to a group of islands of considerable
extent, the Peak exhibits nevertheless all the characteristics of a
mountain rising on a solitary islet.
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