Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 295 of 332 - First - Home
The Preceding Section Has Developed The Geographical Limits Of The
Formations, The Extent Of The Direction Of The Zones Of
Gneiss-Granite, Mica-Slate-Gneiss, Clay-Slate, Sandstone And
Intermediary Limestone, Which Come Successively To Light.
We will now
indicate succinctly the nature and relative age of these formations.
To avoid confounding facts with geologic opinions I shall describe
these formations, without dividing them, according to the method
generally followed, into five groups - primitive, transition,
secondary, tertiary and volcanic rocks.
I was fortunate enough to
discover the types of each group in a region where, before I visited
it, no rock had been named. The great inconvenience of the old
classification is that of obliging the geologist to establish fixed
demarcations, while he is in doubt, if not respecting the spot or the
immediate superposition, at least respecting the number of the
formations which are not developed. How can we in many circumstances
determine the analogy existing between a limestone with but few
petrifactions and an intermediary limestone and zechstein, or between
a sandstone superposed on a primitive rock and a variegated sandstone
and quadersandstein, or finally, between muriatiferous clay and the
red marl of England, or the gem-salt of the tertiary strata of Italy?
When we reflect on the immense progress made within twenty-five years
in the knowledge of the superposition of rocks, it will not appear
surprising that my present opinion on the relative age of the
formations of Equinoctial America is not identically the same with
what I advanced in 1800. To boast of a stability of opinion in geology
is to boast of an extreme indolence of mind; it is to remain
stationary amidst those who go forward. What we observe in any one
part of the earth on the composition of rocks, their subordinate
strata and the order of their position are facts immutably true, and
independent of the progress of positive geology in other countries;
while the systematic names applied to any particular formation of
America are founded only on the supposed analogies between the
formations of America and those of Europe. Now those names cannot
remain the same if, after further examination, the objects of
comparison have not retained the same place in the geologic series; if
the most able geologists now take for transition-limestone and green
sandstone, what they took formerly for zechstein and variegated
sandstone. I believe the surest means by which geologic descriptions
may be made to survive the change which the science undergoes in
proportion to its progress, will be to substitute provisionally in the
description of formations, for the systematic names of red sandstone,
variegated sandstone, zechstein and Jura limestone, names derived from
American localities, as sandstone of the Llanos, limestone of
Cumanacoa and Caripe, and to separate the enumeration of facts
relative to the superposition of soils, from the discussion on the
analogy of those soils with those of the Old World.*
(* Positive geography being nothing but a question of the series or
succession (either simple or periodical) of certain terms represented
by the formations, it may be necessary, in order to understand the
discussions contained in the third section of this memoir, to
enumerate succinctly the table of formations considered in the most
general point of view.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 295 of 332
Words from 154943 to 155486
of 174507