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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Some Geologists Admit That The
Uninterrupted Chain Of Islands From Trinidad To Florida Exhibits
The Remains Of An Ancient Chain Of Mountains.
They connect this
chain sometimes with the granite of French Guiana, sometimes with
the calcareous mountains of Pari.
Others, struck with the
difference of geological constitution between the primitive
mountains of the Greater and the volcanic cones of the Lesser
Antilles, consider the latter as having risen from the bottom of
the sea.
If we recollect that volcanic upheavings, when they take place
through elongated crevices, usually take a straight direction, we
shall find it difficult to judge from the disposition of the
craters alone, whether the volcanoes have belonged to the same
chain, or have always been isolated. Supposing an irruption of the
ocean to take place either into the eastern part of the island of
Java* (* Raffles, History of Java, 1817, pages 23-28. The principal
line of the volcanoes of Java, on a distance of 160 leagues, runs
from west to east, through the mountains of Gagak, Gede,
Tankuban-Prahu, Ungarang Merapi, Lawu, Wilis, Arjuna, Dasar, and
Tashem.) or into the Cordilleras of Guatimala and Nicaragua, where
so many burning mountains form but one chain, that chain would be
divided into several islands, and would perfectly resemble the
Caribbean Archipelago. The union of primitive formations and
volcanic rocks in the same range of mountain is not extraordinary;
it is very distinctly seen in my geological sections of the
Cordillera of the Andes. The trachytes and basalts of Popayan are
separated from the system of the volcanoes of Quito by the
mica-slates of Almaguer; the volcanoes of Quito from the trachytes
of Assuay by the gneiss of Condorasta and Guasunto.
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