Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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I Did Not See There Any Pyroxene; But On The Very Spot I
Recognized A Number Of Crystals In The Amygdaloid, Which Appears So
Strongly Linked To The Grunstein That They Alternate Several Times.
The geologist may consider his task as fulfilled when he has traced
with accuracy the positions of the diverse strata; and has pointed out
the analogies traceable between these positions and what has been
observed in other countries.
But how can he avoid being tempted to go
back to the origin of so many different substances, and to inquire how
far the dominion of fire has extended in the mountains that bound the
great basin of the steppes? In researches on the position of rocks we
have generally to complain of not sufficiently perceiving the
connection between the masses, which we believe to be superimposed on
one another. Here the difficulty seems to arise from the too intimate
and too numerous relations observed in rocks that are thought not to
belong to the same family.
The phonolite (or leucostine compacte of Cordier) is pretty generally
regarded by all who have at once examined burning and extinguished
volcanoes, as a flow of lithoid lava. I found no real basalt or
dolerite; but the presence of pyroxene in the amygdaloid of Parapara
leaves little doubt of the igneous origin of those spheroidal masses,
fissured, and full of cavities. Balls of this amygdaloid are enclosed
in the grunstein; and this grunstein alternates on one side with a
green slate, on the other with the serpentine of Tucutunemo.
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