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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I Am Rather Inclined To Consider Them As Islands
Heaved Up By Fire, And Ranged In That Regular Line, Of Which We
Find Striking Examples In So Many Volcanic Hills In Auvergne, In
Mexico, And In Peru.
The geological constitution of the Archipelago
appears, from the little we know respecting it, to be very similar
to that of the Azores and the Canary Islands.
Primitive formations
are nowhere seen above ground; we find only what belongs
unquestionably to volcanoes: feldspar-lava, dolerite, basalt,
conglomerated scoriae, tufa, and pumice-stone. Among the limestone
formations we must distinguish those which are essentially
subordinate to volcanic tufas* from those which appear to be the
work of madrepores and other zoophytes. (* We have noticed some of
the above, following Von Buch, at Lancerote, and at Fortaventura,
in the system of the Canary Islands. Among the smaller islands of
the West Indies, the following islets are entirely calcareous,
according to M. Cortes: Mariegalante, La Desirade, the Grande Terre
of Guadaloupe, and the Grenadillas. According to the observations
of that naturalist, Curacoa and Buenos Ayres present only
calcareous formations. M. Cortes divides the West India Islands
into, 1st, those containing at once primitive, secondary, and
volcanic formations, like the greater islands; 2nd, those entirely
calcareous, (or at least so considered) as Mariegalante and
Curacoa; 3rd, those at once volcanic and calcareous, as Antigua,
St. Bartholomew, St. Martin, and St. Thomas; 4th, those which have
volcanic rocks only, as St. Vincent, St. Lucia, and St. Eustache.)
The latter, according to M. Moreau de Jonnes, seem to lie on shoals
of a volcanic nature.
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