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 May Assert That
This Reservoir Of Air Is More Fitted For Flying Than Swimming; For
The Experiments Made By
M. Provenzal and myself have proved, that,
even in the species which are provided with this organ, it is not
Indispensably necessary for the ascending movement to the surface
of the water. In a young flying-fish, 5.8 inches long, each of the
pectoral fins, which serve as wings, presented a surface to the air
of 3 7/16 square inches. We observed, that the nine branches of
nerves, which go to the twelve rays of these fins, are almost three
times the size of the nerves that belong to the ventral fins. When
the former of these nerves are excited by galvanic electricity, the
rays which support the membrane of the pectoral fin extend with
five times the force with which the other fins move when galvanised
by the same metals. Thus, the fish is capable of throwing itself
horizontally the distance of twenty feet before retouching the
water with the extremity of its fins. This motion has been aptly
compared to that of a flat stone, which, thrown horizontally,
bounds one or two feet above the water. Notwithstanding the extreme
rapidity of this motion, it is certain, that the animal beats the
air during the leap; that is, it alternately extends and closes its
pectoral fins. The same motion has been observed in the flying
scorpion of the rivers of Japan: they also contain a large
air-bladder, with which the great part of the scorpions that have
not the faculty of flying are unprovided. The flying-fish, like
almost all animals which have gills, enjoy the power of equal
respiration for a long time, both in water and in air, by the same
organs; that is, by extracting the oxygen from the atmosphere as
well as from the water in which it is dissolved. They pass a great
part of their life in the air; but if they escape from the sea to
avoid the voracity of the Dorado, they meet in the air the
Frigate-bird, the Albatross, and others, which seize them in their
flight. Thus, on the banks of the Orinoco, herds of the Cabiai,
which rush from the water to escape the crocodile, become the prey
of the jaguar, which awaits their arrival.
I doubt, however, whether the flying-fish spring out of the water
merely to escape the pursuit of their enemies. Like swallows, they
move by thousands in a right line, and in a direction constantly
opposite to that of the waves. In our own climates, on the brink of
a river, illumined by the rays of the sun, we often see solitary
fish fearlessly bound above the surface as if they felt pleasure in
breathing the air. Why should not these gambols be more frequent
with the flying-fish, which from the strength of their pectoral
fins, and the smallness of their specific gravity, can so easily
support themselves in the air? I invite naturalists to examine
whether other flying-fish, for instance the Exocoetus exiliens, the
Trigla volitans, amid the T. hirundo, have as capacious an
air-bladder as the flying-fish of the tropics. This last follows
the heated waters of the Gulf-stream when they flow northward. The
cabin-boys amuse themselves with cutting off a part of the pectoral
fins, and assert, that these wings grow again; which seems to me
not unlikely, from facts observed in other families of fishes.
At the time I left Paris, experiments made at Jamaica by Dr.
Brodbelt, on the air contained in the natatory bladder of the
sword-fish, had led some naturalists to think, that within the
tropics, in sea-fish, that organ must be filled with pure oxygen
gas. Full of this idea, I was surprised at finding in the
air-bladder of the flying-fish only 0.04 of oxygen to 0.94 of azote
and 0.02 of carbonic acid. The proportion of this last gas,
measured by the absorption of lime-water in graduated tubes,
appeared more uniform than that of the oxygen, of which some
individuals yielded almost double the quantity. From the curious
phenomena observed by MM. Biot, Configliachi, and Delaroche, we
might suppose, that the swordfish dissected by Dr. Brodbelt had
inhabited the lower strata of the ocean, where some fish* have as
much as 0.92 of oxygen in the air-bladder. (* Trigla cucullus.)
On the 3rd and 4th of July, we crossed that part of the Atlantic
where the charts indicate the bank of the Maal-stroom; and towards
night we altered our course to avoid the danger, the existence of
which is, however, as doubtful as that of the isles Fonseco and St.
Anne. It would have been perhaps as prudent to have continued our
course. The old charts are filled with rocks, some of which really
exist, though most of them are merely the offspring of those
optical illusions which are more frequent at sea than in inland
places. As we approached the supposed Maal-stroom, we observed no
other motion in the waters than the effect of a current which bore
to the north-west, and which hindered us from diminishing our
latitude as much as we wished. The force of this current augments
as we approach the new continent; it is modified by the
configuration of the coasts of Brazil and Guiana, and not by the
waters of the Orinoco and the Amazon, as some have supposed.
From the time we entered the torrid zone, we were never weary of
admiring, at night, the beauty of the southern sky, which, as we
advanced to the south, opened new constellations to our view. We
feel an indescribable sensation when, on approaching the equator,
and particularly on passing from one hemisphere to the other, we
see those stars, which we have contemplated from our infancy,
progressively sink, and finally disappear. Nothing awakens in the
traveller a livelier remembrance of the immense distance by which
he is separated from his country, than the aspect of an unknown
firmament.
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