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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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. But
still farther (and this accident is regarded by the inhabitants as a
marvellous phenomenon) in 1796 three new islands appeared to the east
of the island Caiguira, in the same direction as the islands Burro,
Otama, and Zorro.
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