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 Of Our Geological Collections Taken In The Pacific
Were, However, More Fortunate.
We were indebted for their
preservation to the generous activity of Sir Joseph Banks,
President of the Royal Society of London, who, amidst the political
agitations of Europe, unceasingly laboured to strengthen the bonds
of union between scientific men of all nations.
In our investigations we have considered each phenomenon under
different aspects, and classed our remarks according to the
relations they bear to each other. To afford an idea of the method
we have followed, I will here add a succinct enumeration of the
materials with which we were furnished for describing the volcanoes
of Antisana and Pichincha, as well as that of Jorullo: the latter,
during the night of the 20th of September, 1759, rose from the
earth one thousand five hundred and seventy-eight French feet above
the surrounding plains of Mexico. The position of these singular
mountains in longitude and latitude was ascertained by astronomical
observations. We took the heights of the different parts by the aid
of the barometer, and determined the dip of the needle and the
intensity of the magnetic forces. Our collections contain the
plants which are spread over the flanks of these volcanoes, and
specimens of different rocks which, superposed one upon another,
constitute their external coat. We are enabled to indicate, by
measures sufficiently exact, the height above the level of the
ocean, at which we found each group of plants, and each volcanic
rock. Our journals furnish us with a series of observations on the
humidity, the temperature, the electricity, and the degree of
transparency of the air on the brinks of the craters of Pichincha
and Jorullo; they also contain topographical plans and geological
profiles of these mountains, founded in part on the measure of
vertical bases, and on angles of altitude. Each observation has
been calculated according to the tables and the methods which are
considered most exact in the present state of our knowledge; and in
order to judge of the degree of confidence which the results may
claim, we have preserved the whole detail of our partial
operations.
It would have been possible to blend these different materials in a
work devoted wholly to the description of the volcanoes of Peru and
New Spain. Had I given the physical description of a single
province, I could have treated separately everything relating to
its geography, mineralogy, and botany; but how could I interrupt
the narrative of a journey, a disquisition on the manners of a
people, or the great phenomena of nature, by an enumeration of the
productions of the country, the description of new species of
animals and plants, or the detail of astronomical observations. Had
I adopted a mode of composition which would have included in one
and the same chapter all that has been observed on one particular
point of the globe, I should have prepared a work of cumbrous
length, and devoid of that clearness which arises in a great
measure from the methodical distribution of matter.
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