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 Phosphorescence Of
Sea-Water Seems However To Be Augmented By Their Presence, Especially
Between 28 And 30 Degrees Of North Latitude, Which Indicates An Origin
Of Some Sort Of Animal Nature.
On the 27th we slowly approached the island of Orchila.
Like all the
small islands in the vicinity of the fertile coast of the continent it
has never been inhabited. I found the latitude of the northern cape 11
degrees 51 minutes 44 seconds and the longitude of the eastern cape 68
degrees 26 minutes 5 seconds (supposing Nueva Barcelona to be 67
degrees 4 minutes 48 seconds). Opposite the western cape there is a
small rock against which the waves beat turbulently. Some angles taken
with the sextant gave, for the length of the island from east to west,
8.4 miles (950 toises); and for the breadth scarcely three miles. The
island of Orchila which, from its name, I figured to myself as a bare
rock covered with lichens, was at that period beautifully verdant. The
hills of gneiss were covered with grasses. It appears that the
geological constitution of Orchila resembles, on a small scale, that
of Marguerita. It consists of two groups of rocks joined by a neck of
land; it is an isthmus covered with sand which seems to have issued
from the floods by the successive lowering of the level of the sea.
The rocks, like all those which are perpendicular and insulated in the
middle of the sea, appear much more elevated than they really are, for
they scarcely exceed from 80 to 90 toises.
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