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 Common People Measure Only Time Directly; And
Then, By Arbitrary Hypotheses, Infer From The Time The Space Of Ground
Travelled Over.
In the course of my geographical researches, I have
had frequent opportunities of examining the real value of these
Leagues, by comparing the itinerary distances between points lying
under the same meridian with the difference of latitudes.) Oviedo, who
must so often have passed over the valleys of Aragua, asserts that the
town of Nueva Valencia del Rey was built in 1555, at the distance of
half a league from the lake; and that the proportion between the
length of the lake and its breadth, is as seven to three. At present,
the town of Valencia is separated from the lake by level ground of
more than two thousand seven hundred toises (which Oviedo would no
doubt have estimated as a space of a league and a half); and the
length of the basin of the lake is to its breadth as 10 to 2.3, or as
7 to 1.6. The appearance of the soil between Valencia and Guigue, the
little hills rising abruptly in the plain east of the Cano de Cambury,
some of which (el Islote and la Isla de la Negra or Caratapona) have
even preserved the name of islands, sufficiently prove that the waters
have retired considerably since the time of Oviedo. With respect to
the change in the general form of the lake, it appears to me
improbable that in the seventeenth century its breadth was nearly the
half of its length. The situation of the granite mountains of Mariara
and of Guigue, the slope of the ground which rises more rapidly
towards the north and south than towards the east and west, are alike
repugnant to this supposition.
In treating the long-discussed question of the diminution of the
waters, I conceive we must distinguish between the different periods
at which the sinking of their level has taken place. Wherever we
examine the valleys of rivers, or the basins of lakes, we see the
ancient shore at great distances. No doubt seems now to be
entertained, that our rivers and lakes have undergone immense
diminutions; but many geological facts remind us also, that these
great changes in the distribution of the waters have preceded all
historical times; and that for many thousand years most lakes have
attained a permanent equilibrium between the produce of the water
flowing in, and that of evaporation and filtration. Whenever we find
this equilibrium broken, it will be well rather to examine whether the
rupture be not owing to causes merely local, and of very recent date,
than to admit an uninterrupted diminution of the water. This reasoning
is conformable to the more circumspect method of modern science. At a
time when the physical history of the world, traced by the genius of
some eloquent writers, borrowed all its charms from the fictions of
imagination, the phenomenon of which we are treating would have been
adduced as a new proof of the contrast these writers sought to
establish between the two continents. To demonstrate that America rose
later than Asia and Europe from the bosom of the waters, the lake of
Tacarigua would have been described as one of those interior basins
which have not yet become dry by the effects of slow and gradual
evaporation. I have no doubt that, in very remote times, the whole
valley, from the foot of the mountains of Cocuyza to those of Torito
and Nirgua, and from La Sierra de Mariara to the chain of Guigue, of
Guacimo, and La Palma, was filled with water. Everywhere the form of
the promontories, and their steep declivities, seem to indicate the
shore of an alpine lake, similar to those of Styria and Tyrol. The
same little helicites, the same valvatae, which now live in the lake
of Valencia, are found in layers of three or four feet thick as far
inland as Turmero and La Concesion near La Victoria. These facts
undoubtedly prove a retreat of the waters; but nothing indicates that
this retreat has continued from a very remote period to our days. The
valleys of Aragua are among the portions of Venezuela most anciently
peopled; and yet there is no mention in Oviedo, or any other old
chronicler, of a sensible diminution of the lake. Must we suppose,
that this phenomenon escaped their observation, at a time when the
Indians far exceeded the white population, and when the banks of the
lake were less inhabited? Within half a century, and particularly
within these thirty years, the natural desiccation of this great basin
has excited general attention. We find vast tracts of land which were
formerly inundated, now dry, and already cultivated with plantains,
sugar-canes, or cotton. Wherever a hut is erected on the bank of the
lake, we see the shore receding from year to year. We discover
islands, which, in consequence of the retreat of the waters, are just
beginning to be joined to the continent, as for instance the rocky
island of Culebra, in the direction of Guigue; other islands already
form promontories, as the Morro, between Guigue and Nueva Valencia,
and La Cabrera, south-east of Mariara; others again are now rising in
the islands themselves like scattered hills. Among these last, so
easily recognised at a distance, some are only a quarter of a mile,
others a league from the present shore. I may cite as the most
remarkable three granite islands, thirty or forty toises high, on the
road from the Hacienda de Cura to Aguas Calientes; and at the western
extremity of the lake, the Serrito de Don Pedro, Islote, and
Caratapona. On visiting two islands entirely surrounded by water, we
found in the midst of brushwood, on small flats (four, six, and even
eight toises height above the surface of the lake,) fine sand mixed
with helicites, anciently deposited by the waters. (Isla de Cura and
Cabo Blanco. The promontory of Cabrera has been connected with the
shore ever since the year 1750 or 1760 by a little valley, which bears
the name of Portachuelo.) In each of these islands may be perceived
the most certain traces of the gradual sinking of the waters.
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