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 Its Western Slope Lies The Famous
Auriferous And Platiniferous Land,* Which Has During Ages Yielded More
Than 13,000 Marks Of Gold Annually.
(* Choco, Barbacoas and Brazil are
the only countries in which the existence of grains of platinum and
palladium has hitherto been fully ascertained.
The small town of
Barbacoas is situated on the left bank of the Rio Telembi (a tributary
of Patias or the Rio del Castigo) a little above the confluence of
Telembi and the Guagi or Guaxi, nearly in latitude 1 degree 48
minutes. The ancient Provincia, or rather the Partido del Raposo,
comprehends the insalubrious land extending from the Rio Dagua, or San
Buenaventura, to the Rio Iscuande, the southern limit of Choco.) This
alluvial zone is from ten to twelve leagues broad; its maximum of
productiveness lies between the parallels of 2 and 6 degrees latitude;
it sensibly impoverishes towards the north and south, and almost
entirely disappears between 1 1/4 degree north latitude and the
equator. The auriferous soil fills the basin of Cauca, as well as the
ravines and plains west of the Cordillera of Choco; it rises sometimes
nearly 600 toises above the level of the sea, and descends at least 40
toises.* (* M. Caldas assigns to the upper limit of the zone of
gold-washings, only the height of 350 toises. Semanario tome 1 page
18; but I found the Seraderos[?] of Quilichao, on the north of
Popayan, to be 565 toises high.) Platinum (and this fact is worthy of
attention) has hitherto been found only on the west of the Cordillera
of Choco, and not on the east, notwithstanding the analogy of the
fragments of rocks of greenstone, phonolite, trachyte, and ferruginous
quartz, of which the soil of the two slopes is composed.
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