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 Great Geologist, Leopold
Von Buch, Has Imparted New Interest To These Observations By Examining
Whether It Be Not Rather Some Parts Of The Continent Of Scandinavia
Which Insensibly Heaves Up.
An analogous supposition was entertained
by the inhabitants of Dutch Guiana.) When the coast is so low that the
Level of the soil, at a league within the island, does not change to
extent of a few inches, these swellings and diminution of the waters
strike the imagination of the inhabitants.
The Cayo bonito (Pretty Rock), which we first visited, fully merits
its name from the richness of its vegetation. Everything denotes that
it has been long above the surface of the ocean; and the central part
of the Cayo is not more depressed than the banks. On a layer of sand
and land shells, five to six inches thick, covered by a fragmentary
madreporic rock, rises a forest of mangroves (Rhizophora). From their
form and foliage they might at a distance be mistaken for laurel
trees. The Avicennia, the Batis, some small Euphorbia and grasses, by
the intertwining of their roots, fix the moving sands. But the
characteristic distinction of the Flora of these coral islands is the
magnificent Tournefortia gnaphalioides of Jacquin, with silvered
leaves, which we found here for the first time. This is a social plant
and is a shrub from four feet and a half to five feet high. Its
flowers emit an agreeable perfume; and it is the ornament of Cayo
Flamenco, Cayo Piedras and perhaps of the greater part of the low
lands of the Jardinillos.
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