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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It Is The Real Porphyrschiefer Of Werner;
And It Would Be Difficult To Distinguish, In A Collection Of Stones,
The Phonolite Of Parapara From That Of Bilin, In Bohemia.
It does not,
however, here form rocks in grotesque shapes, but little hills covered
with tabular blocks, large plates extremely sonorous, translucid on
the edges, and wounding the hands when broken.
Such are the successions of rocks, which I described on the spot as I
progressively found them, from the lake of Tacarigua to the entrance
of the steppes. Few places in Europe display a geological arrangement
so well worthy of being studied. We saw there in succession six
formations: namely, mica-slate-gneiss, green transition-slate, black
transition-limestone, serpentine and grunstein, amygdaloid (with
pyroxene), and phonolite.
I must observe, in the first place, that the substance just described
under the name of grunstein, in every respect resembles that which
forms layers in the mica-slate of Cabo Blanco, and veins near Caracas.
It differs only by containing neither quartz, garnets, nor pyrites.
The close relations we observed near the Cerro de Chacao, between the
grunstein and the serpentine, cannot surprise these geologists who
have studied the mountains of Franconia and Silesia. Near Zobtenberg*
(* Between Tampadel and Silsterwiz.) a serpentine rock alternates also
with gabbro. In the district of Glatz the fissures of the gabbro are
filled with a steatite of a greenish white colour, and the rock which
was long thought to belong to the grunsteins* is a close mixture of
feldspar and diallage. (* In the mountains of Bareuth, in Franconia,
so abundant in grunstein and serpentine, these formations are not
connected together. The serpentine there belongs rather to the
schistose hornblende (hornblendschiefer), as in the island of Cuba.
Near Guanaxuato, in Mexico, I saw it alternating with syenite. These
phenomena of serpentine rocks forming layers in eurite (weisstein), in
schistose hornblende, in gabbro, and in syenite, are so much the more
remarkable, as the great mass of garnetiferous serpentines, which are
found in the mountains of gneiss and mica-slate, form little distinct
mounts, masses not covered by other formations. It is not the same in
the mixtures of serpentine and granulated limestone.)
The grunsteins of Tucutunemo, which we consider as constituting the
same formation as the serpentine rock, contain veins of malachite and
copper-pyrites. These same metalliferous combinations are found also
in Franconia, in the grunsteins of the mountains of Steben and
Lichtenberg. With respect to the green slates of Malpaso, which have
all the characters of transition-slates, they are identical with those
which M. von Buch has so well described, near Schonau, in Silesia.
They contain beds of grunstein, like the slates of the mountains of
Steben just mentioned.* (* On advancing into the adit for draining the
Friedrich-Wilhelmstollen mine, which I caused to be begun in 1794,
near Steben, and which is yet only 340 toises long, there have
successively been found, in the transition-slate subordinate strata of
pure and porphyritic grunstein, strata, of Lydian stone and ampelite
(alaunschiefer), and strata of fine-grained grunstein. All these
strata characterise the transition-slates.) The black limestone of the
Morros de San Juan is also a transition-limestone. It forms perhaps a
subordinate stratum in the slates of Malpaso. This situation would be
analogous to what is observed in several parts of Switzerland.* (* For
Instance, at the Glyshorn, at the Col de Balme, etc.) The slaty zone,
the centre of which is the ravine of Piedras Azules, appears divided
into two formations. On some points we think we observe one passing
into the other.
The grunsteins, which begin again to the south of these slates, appear
to me to differ little from those found north of the ravine of Piedras
Azules. 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. Here,
then, is a connexion sufficiently close established between the
phonolites and the green slates, between the pyroxenic amygdaloids and
the serpentines containing copper-ores, between volcanic substances
and others that are included under the vague name of transition-traps.
All these masses are destitute of quartz like the real
trap-porphyries, or volcanic trachytes. This phenomenon is the more
remarkable, as the grunsteins which are called primitive almost always
contain quartz in Europe. The most general dip of the slates of
Piedras Azules, of the grunsteins of Parapara, and of the pyroxenic
amygdaloids embedded in strata of grunstein, does not follow the slope
of the ground from north to south, but is pretty regular towards the
north.
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