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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If The Apertures, Which Throw Up Vapours And Water With
Violent Noise, Be Sometimes Called Volcancitos, It Is Only By Such
Of The Inhabitants As Persuade Themselves That Volcanoes Must
Necessarily Exist In Countries So Frequently Exposed To
Earthquakes.
Advancing from the burning crater of St. Vincent in
the directions of south, west and south-west, first by
The chain of
the Caribbee Islands, then by the littoral chain of Cumana and
Venezuela, and finally by the Cordilleras of New Grenada, along a
distance of three hundred and eighty leagues, we find no active
volcano before we arrive at Purace, near Popayan. The total absence
of apertures, through which melted substances can issue, in that
part of the continent, which stretches eastward of the Cordillera
of the Andes, and eastward of the Rocky Mountains, is a most
remarkable geological fact.
In this chapter we have examined the great commotions which from
time to time convulse the stony crust of the globe, and scatter
desolation in regions favoured by the most precious gifts of
nature. An uninterrupted calm prevails in the upper atmosphere;
but, to use an expression of Franklin, more ingenious than
accurate, thunder often rolls in the subterranean atmosphere,
amidst that mixture of elastic fluids, the impetuous movements of
which are frequently felt at the surface of the earth. The
destruction of so many populous cities presents a picture of the
greatest calamities which afflict mankind. A people struggling for
independence are suddenly exposed to the want of subsistence, and
of all the necessaries of life.
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