Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 192 of 406 - First - Home
It Must Be Observed That All These Phenomena Of Coloration Have
Hitherto Appeared In The Torrid Zone Only, In Rivers
That have
periodical overflowings, of which the habitual temperature is from
twenty-four to twenty-eight centesimal degrees, and which
Flow, not
over gritstone or calcareous rocks, but over granite, gneiss, and
hornblende rocks. Quartz and feldspar scarcely contain five or six
thousandths of oxide of iron and of manganese; but in mica and
hornblende these oxides, and particularly that of iron, amount,
according to Klaproth and Herrmann, to fifteen or twenty parts in a
hundred. The hornblende contains also some carbon, like the Lydian
stone and kieselschiefer. Now, if these black crusts were formed by a
slow decomposition of the granitic rock, under the double influence of
humidity and the tropical sun, how is it to be conceived that these
oxides are spread so uniformly over the whole surface of the stony
masses, and are not more abundant round a crystal of mica or
hornblende than on the feldspar and milky quartz? The ferruginous
sandstones, granites, and marbles, that become cinereous and sometimes
brown in damp air, have an aspect altogether different. In reflecting
upon the lustre and equal thickness of the crusts, we are rather
inclined to think that this matter is deposited by the Orinoco, and
that the water has penetrated even into the clefts of the rocks.
Adopting this hypothesis, it may be asked whether the river holds the
oxides suspended like sand and other earthy substances, or whether
they are found in a state of chemical solution. The first supposition
is less admissible, on account of the homogeneity of the crusts, which
contain neither grains of sand, nor spangles of mica, mixed with the
oxides. We must then recur to the idea of a chemical solution; and
this idea is no way at variance with the phenomena daily observable in
our laboratories. The waters of great rivers contain carbonic acid;
and, were they even entirely pure, they would still be capable, in
very great volumes, of dissolving some portions of oxide, or those
metallic hydrates which are regarded as the least soluble. The mud of
the Nile, which is the sediment of the matters which the river holds
suspended, is destitute of manganese; but it contains, according to
the analysis of M. Regnault, six parts in a hundred of oxide of iron;
and its colour, at first black, changes to yellowish brown by
desiccation and the contact of air. The mud consequently is not the
cause of the black crusts on the rocks of Syene. Berzelius, who, at my
request, examined these crusts, recognized in them, as in those of the
granites of the Orinoco and River Congo, the union of iron and
manganese. That celebrated chemist was of opinion that the rivers do
not take up these oxides from the soil over which they flow, but that
they derive them from their subterranean sources, and deposit them on
the rocks in the manner of cementation, by the action of particular
affinities, perhaps by that of the potash of the feldspar.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 192 of 406
Words from 99475 to 99990
of 211397