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 Globe
Has Undergone Great Revolutions Between The Periods When These Two
Soils Were Formed; The One Containing The Great Caverns Of Matanzas,
The Other Daily Augmenting By The Agglutination Of Fragments Of Coral
And Quartzose Sand.
On the south of the island of Cuba, the latter
soil seems to repose sometimes on the Jura limestone of Guines, as in
the Jardinillos, and sometimes (towards Cape Cruz) immediately over
primitive rocks.
In the lesser Antilles the corals are covered with
volcanic productions. Several of the Cayos of the island of Cuba
contain fresh water; and I found this water very good in the middle of
the Cayo de Piedras. When we reflect on the extreme smallness of these
islands we can scarcely believe that the fresh-water wells are filled
with rain-water not evaporated. Do they prove a submarine
communication between the limestone of the coast with the limestone
serving as the basis of lithophyte polypi, and is the fresh water of
Cuba raised up by hydrostatic pressure across the coral rocks of
Cayos, as it is in the bay of Xagua, where, in the middle of the sea,
it forms springs frequented by the lamantins?
The secondary formations on the east of the Havannah are pierced in a
singular manner by syenitic and euphotide rocks united in groups. The
southern bottom of the bay as well as the northern part (the hills of
the Morro and the Cabana) are of Jura limestone; but on the eastern
bank of the two Ensenadas de Regla and Guanabacoa, the whole is
transition soil.
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