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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These
Transitions And Alternating Superpositions Take Place No Doubt In
Formations Of Granite-Gneiss And Gneiss-Mica-Slate; But Because These
Phenomena Are Observed In One Region, It Does Not Follow That In Other
Regions We May Not Find Very Distinct Circumscribed Formations Of
Granite, Gneiss, And Mica-Slate.
The same considerations may be
applied to the formations of serpentine, which are sometimes isolated,
and sometimes belong to the eurite, mica-slate, and grunstein.) Beyond
the town of Villa de Cura and the Cerro de Chacao the aspect of the
country presents greater geognostic variety.
There are still eight
leagues of declivity from the table-land of Cura to the entry of the
Llanos; and on the southern slope of the mountains of the coast, four
different formations of rock cover the gneiss. We shall first give the
description of the different strata, without grouping them
systematically.
On the south of the Cerro de Chacao, between the ravine of Tucutunemo
and Piedras Negras, the gneiss is concealed beneath a formation of
serpentine, of which the composition varies in the different
superimposed strata. Sometimes it is very pure, very homogeneous, of a
dusky olive-green, and of a conchoidal fracture: sometimes it is
veined, mixed with bluish steatite, of an unequal fracture, and
containing spangles of mica. In both these states I could not discover
in it either garnets, hornblende, or diallage. Advancing farther to
the south (and we always passed over this ground in that direction)
the green of the serpentine grows deeper, and feldspar and hornblende
are recognised in it: it is difficult to determine whether it passes
into diabasis or alternates with it. There is, however, no doubt of
its containing veins of copper-ore.* (* One of these veins, on which
two shafts have been sunk, was directed hor. 2.1, and dipped 80
degrees east. The strata of the serpentine, where it is stratified
with some regularity, run hor. 8, and dip almost perpendicularly. I
found malachite disseminated in this serpentine, where it passes into
grunstein.) At the foot of this mountain two fine springs gush out
from the serpentine. Near the village of San Juan, the granular
diabasis appears alone uncovered, and takes a greenish black hue. The
feldspar intimately mixed with the mass, may be separated into
distinct crystals. The mica is very rare, and there is no quartz. The
mass assumes at the surface a yellowish crust like dolerite and
basalt.
In the midst of this tract of trap-formation, the Morros of San Juan
rise like two castles in ruins. They appear linked to the mornes of
St. Sebastian, and to La Galera which bounds the Llanos like a rocky
wall. The Morros of San Juan are formed of limestone of a crystalline
texture; sometimes very compact, sometimes spongy, of a greenish-grey,
shining, composed of small grains, and mixed with scattered spangles
of mica. This limestone yields a strong effervescence with acids. I
could not find in it any vestige of organized bodies.
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