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 60 of 777 - First - Home
The Rock From Which The
Springs Gush, Is A Real Coarse-Grained Granite, Resembling That Of The
Rincon Del Diablo, In The Mountains Of Mariara.
Wherever the waters
evaporate in the air, they form sediments and incrustations of
carbonate of lime; possibly they traverse strata of primitive
limestone, so common in the mica-slate and gneiss of the coasts of
Caracas.
We were surprised at the luxuriant vegetation that surrounds
the basin; mimosas with slender pinnate leaves, clusias, and
fig-trees, have pushed their roots into the bottom of a pool, the
temperature of which is 85 degrees; and the branches of these trees
extended over the surface of the water, at two or three inches
distance. The foliage of the mimosas, though constantly enveloped in
the hot vapours, displayed the most beautiful verdure. An arum, with a
woody stem, and with large sagittate leaves, rose in the very middle
of a pool the temperature of which was 70 degrees. Plants of the same
species vegetate in other parts of those mountains at the brink of
torrents, the temperature of which is not 18 degrees. What is still
more singular, forty feet distant from the point whence the springs
gush out at a temperature of 90 degrees, other springs are found
perfectly cold. They all follow for some time a parallel direction;
and the natives showed us that, by digging a hole between the two
rivulets, they could procure a bath of any given temperature they
pleased. It seems remarkable, that in the hottest as well as the
coldest climates, people display the same predilection for heat.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 60 of 777
Words from 15998 to 16264
of 211397
