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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Our Friends At
Caracas Had Been Able To Distinguish Us With Glasses On The Summit
Of The Eastern Peak.
They felt interested in hearing the account of
our expedition, but they were not satisfied with the result of
Our
measurement, which did not assign to the Silla even the elevation
of the highest summit of the Pyrenees.* (* It was formerly believed
that the height of the Silla of Caracas scarcely differed from that
of the peak of Teneriffe.) One cannot blame the national feeling
which suggests exaggerated ideas of the monuments of nature, in a
country in which the monuments of art are nothing; nor can we
wonder that the inhabitants of Quito and Riobamba, who have prided
themselves for ages on the height of Chimborazo, mistrust those
measurements which elevate the mountains of Himalaya above all the
colossal Cordilleras?
During our journey to the Silla, and in all our excursions in the
valley of Caracas, we were very attentive to the lodes and
indications of ore which we found in the strata of gneiss. No
regular diggings having been made, we could only examine the
fissures, the ravines, and the land-slips occasioned by torrents in
the rainy season. The rock of gneiss, passing sometimes into a
granite of new formation, sometimes into mica-slate,* (* Especially
at great elevations.) belongs in Germany to the most metalliferous
rocks; but in the New Continent, the gneiss has not hitherto been
remarked as very rich in ores worth working. The most celebrated
mines of Mexico and Peru are found in the primitive and transition
schists, in the trap-porphyries, the grauwakke, and the alpine
limestones.
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