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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But At Vesuvius
And Etna A Lateral Eruption Constantly Terminates By Flashes Of
Flame And By Ashes Issuing From The Crater, That Is, From The
Summit Of The Mountain.
At the Peak this phenomenon has not been
witnessed for ages:
And yet recently, in the eruption of 1798, the
crater remained quite inactive. Its bottom did not sink in; while
at Vesuvius, as M. von Buch has observed, the greater or less depth
of the crater is an infallible indication of the proximity of a new
eruption.
I might terminate these geological sketches by enquiring into the
nature of the combustible which has fed for so many thousands of
years the fire of the peak of Teneriffe; - I might examine whether
it be sodium or potassium, the metallic basis of some earth,
carburet of hydrogen, or pure sulphur combined with iron, that
burns in the volcano; - but wishing to limit myself to what may be
the object of direct observation, I shall not take upon me to solve
a problem for which we have not yet sufficient data. We know not
whether we may conclude, from the enormous quantity of sulphur
contained in the crater of the Peak, that it is this substance
which keeps up the heat of the volcano; or whether the fire, fed by
some combustible of an unknown nature, effects merely the
sublimation of the sulphur. What we learn from observation is, that
in craters which are still burning, sulphur is very rare; while all
the ancient volcanoes end in becoming sulphur-pits. We might
presume that, in the former, the sulphur is combined with oxygen,
while, in the latter, it is merely sublimated; for nothing hitherto
authorises us to admit that it is formed in the interior of
volcanoes, like ammonia and the neutral salts. When we were yet
unacquainted with sulphur, except as disseminated in the
muriatiferous gypsum and in the Alpine limestone, we were almost
forced to the belief, that in every part of the globe the volcanic
fire acted on rocks of secondary formation; but recent observations
have proved that sulphur exists in great abundance in those
primitive rocks which so many phenomena indicate as the centre of
the volcanic action. Near Alausi, at the back of the Andes of
Quito, I found an immense quantity in a bed of quartz, which formed
a layer of mica-slate. This fact is the more important, as it is in
strict conformity with the conclusions deduced from the observation
of those fragments of ancient rocks which are thrown out intact by
volcanoes.
We have just considered the island of Teneriffe merely in a
geological point of view; we have seen the Peak towering amid
fractured strata of basalt and mandelstein; let us examine how
these fused masses have been gradually adorned with vegetable
clothing, what is the distribution of plants on the steep declivity
of the volcano, and what is the aspect or physiognomy of vegetation
in the Canary Islands.
In the northern part of the temperate zone, the cryptogamous plants
are the first that cover the stony crust of the globe. The lichens
and mosses, that develop their foliage beneath the snows, are
succeeded by grumina and other phanerogamous plants. This order of
vegetation differs on the borders of the torrid zone, and in the
countries between the tropics. We there find, it is true, whatever
some travellers may have asserted, not only on the mountains, but
also in humid and shady places, almost on a level with the sea,
Funaria, Dicranum, and Bryum; and these genera, among their
numerous species, exhibit several which are common to Lapland, to
the Peak of Teneriffe, and to the Blue Mountains of Jamaica. (This
extraordinary fact was first observed by M. Swarz. It was confirmed
by M. Willdenouw when he carefully examined our herbals, especially
the collection of cryptogamous plants, which we gathered on the
tops of the Andes, in a region of the world where organic life is
totally different from that of the old world.) Nevertheless, in
general, it is not by mosses and lichens that vegetation in the
countries near the tropics begins. In the Canary Islands, as well
as in Guinea, and on the rocky coasts of Peru, the first vegetation
which prepares the soil are the succulent plants; the leaves of
which, provided with an infinite number of orifices* (* The pores
corticaux of M. Decandolle, discovered by Gleichen, and figured by
Hedwig.) and cutaneous vessels, deprive the ambient air of the
water it holds in solution. Fixed in the crevices of volcanic
rocks, they form, as it were, that first layer of vegetable earth
with which the currents of lithoid lava are clothed. Wherever these
lavas are scorified, and where they have a shining surface, as in
the basaltic mounds to the north of Lancerota, the development of
vegetation is extremely slow, and many ages may pass away before
shrubs can take root. It is only when lavas are covered with tufa
and ashes, that the volcanic islands, losing that appearance of
nudity which marks their origin, bedeck themselves in rich and
brilliant vegetation.
In its present state, the island of Teneriffe, the Chinerfe* (* Of
Chinerfe the Europeans have formed, by corruption, Tchineriffe and
Teneriffe.) of the Guanches, exhibits five zones of plants, which
we may distinguish by the names - region of vines, region of
laurels, region of pines, region of the retama, and region of
grasses. These zones are ranged in stages, one above another, and
occupy, on the steep declivity of the Peak, a perpendicular height
of 1750 toises; while fifteen degrees farther north, on the
Pyrenees, snow descends to thirteen or fourteen hundred toises of
absolute elevation. If the plants of Teneriffe do not reach the
summit of the volcano, it is not because the perpetual snow and the
cold of the surrounding atmosphere mark limits which they cannot
pass; it is the scorified lava of the Malpays, the powdered and
barren pumice-stone of the Piton, which impede the migration of
plants towards the brink of the crater.
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