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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The Junctions Of The Guarico, The Apure, The Cabullare, And The
Arauca With The Orinoco, Form, At A Hundred And Sixty Leagues From The
Coast Of Guiana, A Kind Of Interior Delta, Of Which Hydrography
Furnishes Few Examples In The Old World.
According to the height of
the mercury in the barometer, the waters of the Apure have only a fall
of thirty-four toises from San Fernando to the sea.
The fall from the
mouths of the Osage and the Missouri to the bar of the Mississippi is
not more considerable. The savannahs of Lower Louisiana everywhere
remind us of the savannahs of the Lower Orinoco.
During our stay of three days in the little town of San Fernando, we
lodged with the Capuchin missionary, who lived much at his ease. We
were recommended to him by the bishop of Caracas, and he showed us the
most obliging attention. He consulted me on the works that had been
undertaken to prevent the flood from undermining the shore on which
the town was built. The flowing of the Portuguesa into the Apure gives
the latter an impulse towards south-east; and, instead of procuring a
freer course for the river, attempts were made to confine it by dykes
and piers. It was easy to predict that these would be rapidly
destroyed by the swell of the waters, the shore having been weakened
by taking away the earth from behind the dyke to employ it in these
hydraulic constructions.
San Fernando is celebrated for the excessive heat which prevails there
the greater part of the year; and before I begin the recital of our
long navigation on the rivers, I shall relate some facts calculated to
throw light on the meteorology of the tropics.
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