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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The Surface Of These
Sands, Heated By The Rays Of The Sun, Seems To Be Undulating Like The
Surface Of A Liquid.
The contact of layers of air of unequal
temperature produces the most varied phenomena of suspension and
mirage from ten in the morning till four in the afternoon.
Even in
those desert places the sun animates the landscape, and gives mobility
to the sandy plain, to the trunks of trees, and to the rocks that
project into the sea like promontories. When the sun appears these
inert masses seem suspended in air; and on the neighbouring beach the
sands present the appearance of a sheet of water gently agitated by
the winds. A train of clouds suffices to seat the trunks of trees and
the suspended rocks again on the soil; to render the undulating
surface of the plains motionless; and to dissipate the charm which the
Arabian, Persian, and Hindoo poets have celebrated as "the sweet
illusions of the solitary desert."
We doubled Cape Matahambre very slowly. The chronometer of Louis
Berthoud having kept time accurately at the Havannah, I availed myself
of this occasion to determine, on this and the following days, the
positions of Cayo de Don Cristoval, Cayo Flamenco, Cayo de Diego Perez
and Cayo de Piedras. I also employed myself in examining the influence
which the changes at the bottom of the sea produce on its temperature
at the surface. Sheltered by so many islands, the surface is calm as a
lake of fresh water, and the layers of different depths being distinct
and separate, the smallest change indicated by the lead acts on the
thermometer. I was surprised to see that on the east of the little
Cayo de Don Cristoval the high banks are only distinguished by the
milky colour of the water, like the bank of Vibora, south of Jamaica,
and many other banks, the existence of which I ascertained by means of
the thermometer. The bottom of the rock of Batabano is a sand composed
of coral detritus; it nourishes sea-weeds which scarcely ever appear
on the surface: the water, as I have already observed, is greenish;
and the absence of the milky tint is, no doubt, owing to the perfect
calm which pervades those regions. Whenever the agitation is
propagated to a certain depth, a very fine sand, or a mass of
calcareous particles suspended in the water, renders it troubled and
milky. There are shallows, however, which are distinguished neither by
the colour nor by the low temperature of the waters; and I believe
that phenomenon depends on the nature of a hard and rocky bottom,
destitute of sand and corals; on the form and declivity of the
shelvings; the swiftness of the currents; and the absence of the
propagation of motion towards the lower layers of the water. The cold
frequently indicated by the thermometer, at the surface of the high
banks, must be traced to the molecules of water which, owing to the
rays of heat and the nocturnal cooling, fall from the surface to the
bottom, and are stopped in their fall by the high banks; and also to
the mingling of the layers of very deep water that rise on the
shelvings of the banks as on an inclined plane, to mix with the layers
of the surface.
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