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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What Has
Been Here Effected On A Small Scale By The Hand Of Man, Nature Often
Performs, Either By Progressively Elevating The Level Of The Soil, Or
By Those Falls Of The Ground Occasioned By Violent Earthquakes.
It is
probable, that in the lapse of ages, several rivers of Soudan, and of
New Holland, which are now lost in the sands, or in inland basins,
will open for themselves a course to the shores of the ocean.
We
cannot at least doubt, that in both continents there are systems of
interior rivers, which may be considered as not entirely developed;
and which communicate with each other, either in the time of great
risings, or by permanent bifurcations.
The Rio Pao has scooped itself out a bed so deep and broad, that in
the season of rains, when the Cano Grande de Cambury inundates all the
land to the north-west of Guigue, the waters of this Cano, and those
of the lake of Valencia, flow back into the Rio Pao itself; so that
this river, instead of adding water to the lake, tends rather to carry
it away. We see something similar in North America, where geographers
have represented on their maps an imaginary chain of mountains,
between the great lakes of Canada and the country of the Miamis. At
the time of floods, the waters flowing into the lakes communicate with
those which run into the Mississippi; and it is practicable to proceed
by boats from the sources of the river St. Mary to the Wabash, as well
as from the Chicago to the Illinois. These analogous facts appear to
me well worthy of the attention of hydrographers.
The land that surrounds the lake of Valencia being entirely flat and
even, a diminution of a few inches in the level of the water exposes
to view a vast extent of ground covered with fertile mud and organic
remains.* (* This I observed daily in the Lake of Mexico.) In
proportion as the lake retires, cultivation advances towards the new
shore. These natural desiccations, so important to agriculture, have
been considerable during the last ten years, in which America has
suffered from great droughts. Instead of marking the sinuosities of
the present banks of the lake, I have advised the rich landholders in
these countries to fix columns of granite in the basin itself, in
order to observe from year to year the mean height of the waters. The
Marquis del Toro has undertaken to put this design into execution,
employing the fine granite of the Sierra de Mariara, and establishing
limnometers, on a bottom of gneiss rock, so common in the lake of
Valencia.
It is impossible to anticipate the limits, more or less narrow, to
which this basin of water will one day be confined, when an
equilibrium between the streams flowing in and the produce of
evaporation and filtration, shall be completely established. The idea
very generally spread, that the lake will soon entirely disappear,
seems to me chimerical. If in consequence of great earthquakes, or
other causes equally mysterious, ten very humid years should succeed
to long droughts; if the mountains should again become clothed with
forests, and great trees overshadow the shore and the plains of
Aragua, we should more probably see the volume of the waters augment,
and menace that beautiful cultivation which now trenches on the basin
of the lake.
While some of the cultivators of the valleys of Aragua fear the total
disappearance of the lake, and others its return to the banks it has
deserted, we hear the question gravely discussed at Caracas, whether
it would not be advisable, in order to give greater extent to
agriculture, to conduct the waters of the lake into the Llanos, by
digging a canal towards the Rio Pao. The possibility* of this
enterprise cannot be denied, particularly by having recourse to
tunnels, or subterranean canals. (The dividing ridge, namely, that
which divides the waters between the valleys of Aragua and the Llanos,
lowers so much towards the west of Guigue, as we have already
observed, that there are ravines which conduct the waters of the Cano
de Cambury, the Rio Valencia, and the Guataparo, in the time of
floods, to the Rio Pao; but it would be easier to open a navigable
canal from the lake of Valencia to the Orinoco, by the Pao, the
Portuguesa, and the Apure, than to dig a draining canal level with the
bottom of the lake. This bottom, according to the sounding, and my
barometric measurements, is 40 toises less than 222, or 182 above the
surface of the ocean. On the road from Guigue to the Llanos, by the
table-land of La Villa de Cura, I found, to the south of the dividing
ridge, and on its southern declivity, no point of level corresponding
to the 182 toises, except near San Juan. The absolute height of this
village is 194 toises. But, I repeat that, farther towards the west,
in the country between the Cano de Cambury and the sources of the Rio
Pao, which I was not able to visit, the point of level of the bottom
of the lake is much further north.) The progressive retreat of the
waters has given birth to the beautiful and luxuriant plains of
Maracay, Cura, Mocundo, Guigue, and Santa Cruz del Escoval, planted
with tobacco, sugar-canes, coffee, indigo, and cacao; but how can it
be doubted for a moment that the lake alone spreads fertility over
this country? If deprived of the enormous mass of vapour which the
surface of the waters sends forth daily into the atmosphere, the
valleys of Aragua would become as dry and barren as the surrounding
mountains.
The mean depth of the lake is from twelve to fifteen fathoms; the
deepest parts are not, as is generally admitted, eighty, but
thirty-five or forty deep. Such is the result of soundings made with
the greatest care by Don Antonio Manzano. When we reflect on the vast
depths of all the lakes of Switzerland, which, notwithstanding their
position in high valleys, almost reach the level of the Mediterranean,
it appears surprising that greater cavities are not found at the
bottom of the lake of Valencia, which is also an Alpine lake.
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