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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On The 18th Of March At Noon We Found
Ourselves In Latitude 18 Degrees 17 Minutes 40 Seconds, And In 81
Degrees 50 Minutes Longitude.
The horizon, to the height of 50
degrees, was covered with those reddish vapours so common within the
tropics, and which never seem to affect the hygrometer at the surface
of the globe.
We passed fifty miles west of Cape Negril on the south,
nearly at the point where several charts indicate an insulated flat of
which the position is similar to that of Sancho Pardo, opposite to
Cape San Antonio de Cuba. We saw no change in the bottom. It appears
that the rocky shoal at a depth of four fathoms, near Cape Negril, has
no more existence than the rock (cascabel) itself, long believed to
mark the western extremity of La Vibora (Pedro Bank, Portland Rock or
la Sola), marking the eastern extremity. On the 19th of March, at four
in the afternoon, the muddy colour of the sea denoted that we had
reached that part of the bank of La Vibora where we no longer find
fifteen, and indeed scarcely nine or ten, fathoms of water. Our
chronometric longitude was 81 degrees 3 minutes; and our latitude
probably below 17 degrees. I was surprised that, at the noon
observation, at 17 degrees 7 minutes of latitude, we yet perceived no
change in the colour of the water. Spanish vessels going from Batabano
or Trinidad de Cuba to Carthagena, usually pass over the bank of La
Vibora, on its western side, at between fifteen and sixteen fathoms
water.
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