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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They
Are The Capparis Tenuisiliqua, Jacq., C. Ferruginea, C. Emarginata,
C. Elliptica, C. Reticulata, C. Racemosa.) On Leaving Cumana We
Enjoyed during the short duration of the twilight, from the top of
the hill of San Francisco, an extensive view
Over the sea, the
plain covered with bera* and its golden flowers (* Palo sano,
Zygophyllum arboreum, Jacq. The flowers have the smell of vanilla.
It is cultivated in the gardens of the Havannah under the strange
name of the dictanno real (royal dittany).), and the mountains of
the Brigantine. We were struck by the great proximity in which the
Cordillera appeared before the disk of the rising sun had reached
the horizon. The tint of the summits is of a deeper blue, their
outline is more strongly marked, and their masses are more
detached, as long as the transparency of the air is undisturbed by
the vapours, which, after accumulating during the night in the
valleys, rise in proportion as the atmosphere acquires warmth.
At the hospital of the Divina Pastora the path turns to north-east,
and stretches for two leagues over a soil without trees, and
formerly levelled by the waters. We there found not only cactuses,
tufts of cistus-leaved tribulus, and the beautiful purple
euphorbia,* (* Euphorbia tithymaloides.) but also the avicennia,
the allionia, the sesuvium, the thalinum, and most of the
portulaceous plants which grow on the banks of the gulf of Cariaco.
This geographical distribution of plants appears to designate the
limits of the ancient coast, and to prove that the hills along the
southern side of which we were passing, formed heretofore a small
island, separated from the continent by an arm of the sea.
After walking two hours, we arrived at the foot of the high chain
of the interior mountains, which stretches from east to west; from
the Brigantine to the Cerro de San Lorenzo. There, new rocks
appear, and with them another aspect of vegetation. Every object
assumes a more majestic and picturesque character; the soil,
watered by springs, is furrowed in every direction; trees of
gigantic height, covered with lianas, rise from the ravines; their
bark, black and burnt by the double action of the light and the
oxygen of the atmosphere, contrasts with the fresh verdure of the
pothos and dracontium, the tough and shining leaves of which are
sometimes several feet long. The parasite monocotyledons take
between the tropics the place of the moss and lichens of our
northern zone. As we advanced, the forms and grouping of the rocks
reminded us of Switzerland and the Tyrol. The heliconia, costus,
maranta, and other plants of the family of the balisiers (Canna
indica), which near the coasts vegetate only in damp and low
places, flourish in the American Alps at considerable height. Thus,
by a singular similitude, in the torrid zone, under the influence
of an atmosphere continually loaded with vapours the mountain
vegetation presents the same features as the vegetation of the
marshes in the north of Europe on soil moistened by melting snow.*
(* Wahlenberg, de Vegetatione Helvetiae et summi Septentrionis
pages 47, 59.)
Before we leave the plains of Cumana, and the breccia, or
calcareous sandstone, which constitutes the soil of the seaside, we
will describe the different strata of which this very recent
formation is composed, as we observed it on the back of the hills
that surround the castle of San Antonio.
This breccia, or calcareous sandstone, is a local and partial
formation, peculiar to the peninsula of Araya, the coasts of
Cumana, and Caracas. We again found it at Cabo Blanco, to the west
of the port of Guayra, where it contains, besides broken shells and
madrepores, fragments, often angular, of quartz and gneiss. This
circumstance assimilates the breccia to that recent sandstone
called by the German mineralogists nagelfluhe, which covers so
great a part of Switzerland to the height of a thousand toises,
without presenting any trace of marine productions. Near Cumana the
formation of the calcareous breccia contains: - first, a compact
whitish grey limestone, the strata of which, sometimes horizontal,
sometimes irregularly inclined, are from five to six inches thick;
some beds are almost unmixed with petrifactions, but in the
greatest part the cardites, the turbinites, the ostracites, and
shells of small dimension, are found so closely connected, that the
calcareous matter forms only a cement, by which the grains of
quartz and the organized bodies are united: second, a calcareous
sandstone, in which the grains of sand are much more frequent than
the petrified shells; other strata form a sandstone entirely free
from organic fragments, yielding but a small effervescence with
acids, and enclosing not lamellae of mica, but nodules of compact
brown iron-ore: third, beds of indurated clay containing selenite
and lamellar gypsum.
The breccia, or agglomerate of the sea-coast, just described, has a
white tint, and it lies immediately on the calcareous formation of
Cumanacoa, which is of a bluish grey. These two rocks form a
contrast no less striking than the molasse (bur-stone) of the Pays
de Vaud, with the calcareous limestone of the Jura. It must be
observed, that, by contact of the two formations lying upon each
other, the beds of the limestone of Cumanacoa, which I consider as
an Alpine limestone, are always largely mixed with clay and marl.
Lying, like the mica-slate of Araya, north-east and south-west,
they are inclined, near Punta Delgada, under an angle of 60
degrees to south-east.
We traversed the forest by a narrow path, along a rivulet, which
rolls foaming over a bed of rocks. We observed, that the vegetation
was more brilliant, wherever the Alpine limestone was covered by a
quartzose sandstone without petrifactions, and very different from
the breccia of the sea-coast. The cause of this phenomenon depends
probably not so much on the nature of the ground, as on the greater
humidity of the soil. The quartzose sandstone contains thin strata
of a blackish clay-slate,* (* Schieferthon.) which might easily be
confounded with the secondary thonschiefer; and these strata hinder
the water from filtering into the crevices, of which the Alpine
limestone is full.
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