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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It Is Nearly
Eighty Toises Lower Than The Canigou; But It Is Distinguished Among
All The Mountains I Have Visited By An Enormous Precipice On The
Side Next The Sea.
The coast forms only a narrow border; and
looking from the summit of the pyramid on the houses of
Caravalleda, this wall of rocks seems, by an optical illusion, to
be nearly perpendicular.
The real slope of the declivity appeared
to me, according to an exact calculation, 53 degrees 28 minutes.*
(* Observations of the latitude give for the horizontal distance
between the foot of the mountain near Caravalleda, and the vertical
line passing through its summit, scarcely 1000 toises.) The mean
slope of the peak of Teneriffe is scarcely 12 degrees 30 minutes. A
precipice of six or seven thousand feet, like that of the Silla of
Caracas, is a phenomenon far more rare than is generally believed
by those who cross mountains without measuring their height, their
bulk, and their slope. Since the experiments on the fall of bodies,
and on their deviation to the south-east, have been resumed in
several parts of Europe, a rock of two hundred and fifty toises of
perpendicular elevation has been in vain sought for among all the
Alps of Switzerland. The declivity of Mont Blanc towards the Allee
Blanche does not even reach an angle of 45 degrees; though in the
greater number of geological works, Mont Blanc is described as
perpendicular on the south side.
At the Silla of Caracas, the enormous northern cliff is partly
covered with vegetation, notwithstanding the extreme steepness of
its slope.
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