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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In Treating Hereafter Of The
Great Number Of Warm Springs Which We Have Seen Issuing From
Granite, Gneiss, And Micaceous Schist, We Shall Have Occasion To
Return To This Subject, Which Is One Of The Most Important Of The
Physical History Of The Globe.
We re-embarked at sunset, and hoisted sail, but the breeze was too
feeble to permit us to continue our course to Teneriffe.
The sea
was calm; a reddish vapour covered the horizon, and seemed to
magnify every object. In this solitude, amidst so many uninhabited
islets, we enjoyed for a long time the view of rugged and wild
scenery. The black mountains of Graciosa appeared like
perpendicular walls five or six hundred feet high. Their shadows,
thrown over the surface of the ocean, gave a gloomy aspect to the
scenery. Rocks of basalt, emerging from the bosom of the waters,
wore the resemblance of the ruins of some vast edifice, and carried
our thoughts back to the remote period when submarine volcanoes
gave birth to new islands, or rent continents asunder. Every thing
which surrounded us seemed to indicate destruction and sterility;
but the back-ground of the picture, the coasts of Lancerota
presented a more smiling aspect. In a narrow pass between two
hills, crowned with scattered tufts of trees, marks of cultivation
were visible. The last rays of the sun gilded the corn ready for
the sickle. Even the desert is animated wherever we can discover a
trace of the industry of man.
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