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 Beds, Over A Vast Extent
Of Land, Make The Same Angle With The Meridian Of The Place; They
Present A Parallelism, Which May Be Considered As One Of The Great
Geologic Laws Capable Of Being Verified By Precise Measures.
Advancing
toward Cape Chuparuparu, the veins of quartz that cross the mica-slate
increase in size.
We found some from one to two toises broad, full of
small fasciculated crystals of rutile titanite. We sought in vain for
cyanite, which we had discovered in some blocks near Maniquarez.
Farther on the mica-state presents not veins, but little beds of
graphite or carburetted iron. They are from two to three inches thick
and have precisely the same direction and inclination as the rock.
Graphite, in primitive soils, marks the first appearance of carbon on
the globe - that of carbon uncombined with hydrogen. It is anterior to
the period when the surface of the earth became covered with
monocotyledonous plants. From the summit of those wild mountains there
is a majestic view of the island of Margareta. Two groups of mountains
already mentioned, those of Macanao and La Vega de San Juan, rise from
the bosom of the waters. The capital of the island, La Asuncion, the
port of Pampatar, and the villages of Pueblo de la Mar, Pueblo del
Norte and San Juan belong to the second and most easterly of these
groups. The western group, the Macanao, is almost entirely
uninhabited. The isthmus that divides these large masses of mica-slate
was scarcely visible; its form appeared changed by the effect of the
mirage and we recognized the intermediate part, through which runs the
Laguna Grande, only by two small hills of a sugarloaf form, in the
meridian of the Punta de Piedras.
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