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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That Spring, However,
Fixed The Attention Of Ocampo On The Port Of The Havannah, Where He
Gave It The Name Of Puerto De Carenas.
It is said that abundant
springs of petroleum are also found in the eastern part of the island
(Manantialis
De betun y chapapote) between Holguin and Mayari, and on
the coast of Santiago de Cuba.) Springs of water are frequent; they
contain a little sulphuretted hydrogen, and deposit oxide of iron. The
Baths of Bareto are agreeable, but of nearly the same temperature as
the atmosphere. The geologic constitution of this group of serpentine
rocks, from its insulated position, its veins, its connection with
syenite and the fact of its rising up across shell-formations, merits
particular attention. Feldspar with a basis of souda (compact
feldspar) forms, with diallage, the euphotide and serpentine; with
pyroxene, dolerite and basalt; and with garnet, eclogyte. These five
rocks, dispersed over the whole globe, charged with oxidulated and
titanious iron, are probably of similar origin. It is easy to
distinguish two formations in the euphotide; one is destitute of
amphibole, even when it alternates with amphibolic rocks (Joria in
Piedmont, Regla in the island of Cuba) rich in pure serpentine, in
metalloid diallage and sometimes in jasper (Tuscany, Saxony); the
other, strongly charged with amphibole, often passing to diorite,* has
no jasper in layers, and sometimes contains rich veins of copper;
(Silesia, Mussinet in Piedmont, the Pyrenees, Parapara in Venezuela,
Copper Mountains of North America). (* On a serpentine that flows like
a penombre, veins of greenstone (diorite) near Lake Clunie in
Perthshire. See MacCulloch in Edinburgh Journal of Science 1824 July
pages 3 to 16. On a vein of serpentine, and the alterations it
produces on the banks of Carity, near West-Balloch in Forfarshire see
Charles Lyell l.c. volume 3 page 43.) It is the latter formation of
euphotide which, by its mixture with diorite, is itself linked with
hyperthenite, in which real beds of serpentine are sometimes developed
in Scotland and in Norway. No volcanic rocks of a more recent period
have hitherto been discovered in the island of Cuba; for instance,
neither trachytes, dolerites, nor basalts. I know not whether they are
found in the rest of the Great Antilles, of which the geologic
constitution differs essentially from that of the series of calcareous
and volcanic islands which stretch from Trinidad to the Virgin
Islands. Earthquakes, which are in general less fatal at Cuba than at
Porto Rico and Hayti, are most felt in the eastern part, between Cape
Maysi, Santiago de Cuba and La Ciudad de Puerto Principe. Perhaps
towards those regions the action of the crevice extends laterally,
which is believed to cross the neck of granitic land between
Port-au-Prince and Cape Tiburon and on which whole mountains were
overthrown in 1770.
The cavernous texture of the limestone formations (soboruco) just
described, the great inclination of the shelvings, the smallness of
the island, the nakedness of the plains and the proximity of the
mountains that form a lofty chain on the southern coast, may be
considered as among the principal causes of the want of rivers and the
drought which is felt, especially in the western part of Cuba.
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