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 Priest Juan Gonzales, And The Treasurer, Don
Manuel Navarete, Who Had Been Useful To Us From Our First Arrival On
This Coast, Accompanied Us In Our Little Excursion.
We disembarked
near Cape Caney and again visited the ancient salt-pit (which is
converted into a lake by
The irruption of the sea), the fine ruins of
the castle of Araya and the calcareous mountain of the Barigon, which,
from its steepness on the western side is somewhat difficult of
access. Muriatiferous clay mixed with bitumen and lenticular gypsum
and sometimes passing to a darkish brown clay, devoid of salt, is a
formation widely spread through this peninsula, in the island of
Margareta and on the opposite continent, near the castle of San
Antonio de Cumana. Probably the existence of this formation has
contributed to produce those ruptures and rents in the ground which
strike the eye of the geologist when he stands on one of the eminences
of the peninsula of Araya. The cordillera of this peninsula, composed
of mica-slate and clay-slate, is separated on the north from the chain
of mountains of the island of Margareta (which are of a similar
composition) by the channel of Cubagua; and on the south it is
separated from the lofty calcareous chain of the continent, by the
gulf of Cariaco. The whole intermediate space appears to have been
heretofore filled with muriatiferous clay; and no doubt the continual
erosions of the ocean have removed this formation and converted the
plain, first into lakes, then into gulfs, and finally into navigable
channels.
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