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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Considering La Vibora Not As A Submerged Land, But As A Heaved-Up Part
Of The Surface Of The Globe,
Which has not reached the level of the
sea, we are struck at finding on this great submarine island, as
On
the neighbouring land of Jamaica and Cuba, the loftiest heights
towards its eastern boundary. In that direction are situated Portland
Rock, Pedro Keys and South Key, all surrounded by dangerous breakers.
The depth is six or eight fathoms; but, in advancing to the middle of
the bank, along the line of the summit, first towards the west and
then towards the north-west, the depth becomes successively ten,
twelve, sixteen and nineteen fathoms. When we survey on the map the
proximity of the high lands of San Domingo, Cuba and Jamaica, in the
neighbourhood of the Windward Channel, the position of the island of
Navaza and the bank of Hormigas, between Capes Tiburon and Morant;
when we trace that chain of successive breakers, from the Vibora, by
Baxo Nuevo, Serranilla, and Quita Sueno, as far as the Mosquito Sound,
we cannot but recognize in this system of islands and shoals the
almost-continued line of a heaved-up ridge running from north-east to
south-west. This ridge, and the old dyke, which link, by the rock of
Sancho Pardo, Cape San Antonio to the peninsula of Yucatan, divide the
great sea of the West Indies into three partial basins, similar to
those observed in the Mediterranean.
The colour of the troubled waters on the shoal of La Vibora has not a
milky appearance like the waters in the Jardinillos and on the bank of
Bahama; but it is of a dirty grey colour. The striking differences of
tint on the bank of Newfoundland, in the archipelago of the Bahama
Islands and on La Vibora, the variable quantities of earthy matter
suspended in the more or less troubled waters of the soundings, may
all be the effects of the variable absorption of the rays of light,
contributing to modify to a certain point the temperature of the sea.
Where the shoals are 8 to 10 degrees colder at their surface than the
surrounding sea, it cannot be surprising that they should produce a
local change of climate. A great mass of very cold water, as on the
bank of Newfoundland, in the current of the Peruvian shore (between
the port of Callao and Punta Parina* (* I found the surface of the
Pacific ocean, in the month of October 1802 on the coast of Truxillo,
15.8 degrees centigrade; in the port of Callao, in November, 15.5;
between the parallel of Callao and Punta Parina, in December, 19
degrees; and progressively, when the current advanced towards the
equator and receded towards the west-north-west, 20.5 and 22.3
degrees)), or in the African current near Cape Verd, have necessarily
an influence on the atmosphere that covers the sea, and on the climate
of the neighbouring land; but it is less easy to conceive that those
slight changes of temperature (for instance, a centesimal degree on
the bank of La Vibora) can impart a peculiar character to the
atmosphere of the shoals.
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