Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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After The Paramo Of Las Rosas, Which Is More
Elevated Than The Two Preceding, There Is A Great Depression, And We
No Longer See A Distinct Chain Or Ridge, But Merely Hills, And High
Table-Lands Surrounding The Towns Of Tocuyo And Barquisimeto.
We know
not the height even of Cerro del Altar, between Tocuyo and Caranacatu;
but we know by recent measures that the most inhabited spots are from
300 to 350 toises above sea-level.
The limits of the mountainous land
between Tocuyo and the valleys of Aragua are, the plains of San Carlos
on the south, and the Rio Tocuyo on the north; the Rio Siquisique
flows into that river. From the Cerro del Altar on the north-east
towards Guigue and Valencia, succeed, as culminant points, the
mountains of Santa Maria (between Buria and Nirgua); then the Picacho
de Nirgua, supposed to be 600 toises high; and finally Las Palomeras
and El Torito (between Valencia and Nirgua). The line of
water-partition runs from west to east, from Quibor to the lofty
savannahs of London, near Santa Rosa. The waters flow on the north,
towards the Golfo triste of the Caribbean Sea; and on the south,
towards the basins of the Apure and the Orinoco. The whole of this
mountainous country, by which the littoral chain of Caracas is linked
to the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca, was celebrated in Europe in the
middle of the nineteenth century; for that part of the territory
formed of gneiss-granite, and lying between the Rio Tocuyo and the Rio
Yaracui, contains the auriferous veins of Buria, and the copper-mine
of Aroa which is worked at the present day. If, across the knot of the
mountains of Barquisimeto, we trace the meridians of Aroa, Nirgua and
San Carlos, we find that on the north-west that knot is linked with
the Sierra de Coro, and on the north-east with the mountains of
Capadare, Porto Cabello and the Villa de Cura. It may be said to form
the eastern wall of that vast circular depression of which the lake of
Maracaybo is the centre and which is bounded on the south and west by
the mountains of Merida, Ocana, Perija and Santa Marta.
The littoral chain of Venezuela presents towards the centre and the
east the same phenomena of structure as those observed in the Andes of
Peru and New Grenada; namely, the division into several parallel
ranges and the frequency of longitudinal basins or valleys. But the
irruptions of the Caribbean Sea having apparently overwhelmed, at a
very remote period, a part of the mountains of the shore, the ranges
or partial chains are interrupted and some basins have become oceanic
gulfs. To comprehend the Cordillera of Venezuela in mass we must
carefully study the direction and windings of the coast from Punta
Tucacas (west of Porto Cabello) as far as Punta de la Galera of the
island of Trinidad. That island, those of Los Testigos, Marguerita and
Tortuga constitute, with the mica-slates of the peninsula of Araya,
one and the same system of mountains. The granitic rocks which appear
between Buria, Duaca and Aroa cross the valley of the Rio Yaracui and
draw near the shore, whence they extend, like a continuous wall, from
Porto Cabello to Cape Codera. This prolongation forms the northern
chain of the Cordillera of Venezuela and is traversed in going from
south to north, either from Valencia and the valleys of Aragua, to
Burburata and Turiamo, or from Caracas to La Guayra. Hot springs*
issue from those mountains (* The other hot springs of the Cordillera
of the shore are those of San Juan, Provisor, Brigantin, the gulf of
Cariaco, Cumucatar and Irapa. MM. Rivero and Boussingault, who visited
the thermal waters of Mariara in February, 1823, during their journey
from Caracas to Santa Fe de Bogota, found their maximum to be 64
degrees centigrade. I found it at the same season only 59.2 degrees.
Has the great earthquake of the 26th March, 1812, had an influence on
the temperature of these springs? The able chemists above mentioned
were, like myself, struck with the extreme purity of the hot waters
that issue from the primitive rocks of the basin of Aragua. Those of
Onoto, which flow at the height of 360 toises above the level of the
sea, have no smell of sulphuretted hydrogen; they are without taste,
and cannot be precipitated, either by nitrate of silver or any other
re-agent. When evaporated they have an inappreciable residue which
consists of a little silica and a trace of alkali; their temperature
is only 44.5 degrees, and the bubbles of air which are disengaged at
intervals are at Onoto, as well as in the thermal waters of Mariara,
pure nitrogen. The waters of Mariara (244 toises) have a faint smell
of sulphuretted hydrogen; they leave, by evaporation, a slight
residuum, that yields carbonic acid, sulphuric acid, soda, magnesia
and lime. The quantities are so small that the water is altogether
without taste. In the course of my journey I found only the springs of
Cumangillas hotter than the thermal waters of Las Trincheras: they are
situated on the south of Porto Cabello. The waters of Comangillas are
at the height of 1040 toises and are alike remarkable for their purity
and their temperature of 96.3 degrees centigrade.), those of Las
Trincheras (90.4 degrees) on its southern slope and those of Onoto and
Mariara on its southern slope. The former issue from a granite with
large grains, very regularly stratified; the latter from a rock of
gneiss. What especially characterizes the northern chain is a summit
which is not only the loftiest of the system of the mountains of
Venezuela, but of all South America, on the east of the Andes. The
eastern summit of the Silla of Caracas, according to my barometric
measurement made in 1800, is 1350 toises high,* (* The Silla of
Caracas is only 80 toises lower than the Canigou in the Pyrenees.) and
notwithstanding the commotion which took place on the Silla during the
great earthquake of Caracas, that mountain did not sink 50 or 60
toises, as some North American journals asserted.
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