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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Their Division Into Blocks Is The
Effect Of Decomposition.
What contributes above all to embellish the
scene at Encaramada is the luxuriance of vegetation that covers the
sides of the rocks, leaving bare only their rounded summits.
They look
like ancient ruins rising in the midst of a forest. The mountain
immediately at the back of the Mission, the Tepupano* of the Tamanac
Indians is terminated by three enormous granitic cylinders, two of
which are inclined, while the third, though worn at its base, and more
than eighty feet high, has preserved a vertical position. (*
Tepu-pano, place of stones, in which we recognize tepu stone, rock, as
in tepu-iri, mountain. We here perceive that Lesgian Oigour-Tartar
root tep, stone (found in America among the Americans, in teptl; among
the Caribs, in tebou; among the Tamanacs, in tepuiri); a striking
analogy between the languages of Caucasus and Upper Asia and those of
the banks of the Orinoco.) This rock, which calls to mind the form of
the Schnarcher in the Hartz mountains, or that of the Organs of
Actopan in Mexico,* composed formerly a part of the rounded summit of
the mountain. (* In Captain Tuckey's Voyage on the river Congo, we
find represented a granitic rock, Taddi Enzazi, which bears a striking
resemblance to the mountain of Encaramada.) In every climate,
unstratified granite separates by decomposition into blocks of
prismatic, cylindric, or columnar figures.
Opposite the shore of the Guaricotos, we drew near another heap of
rocks, which is very low, and three or four toises long.
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