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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(* These Legends Of Diamonds Are Very Ancient On The
Coast Of Paria.
Petrus Martyr relates that, at the beginning of the
sixteenth century, a Spaniard named Andres Morales bought of a young
Indian of the coast of Paria admantem mire pretiosum, duos infantis
digiti articulos longum, magni autem pollicis articulum aequantem
crassitudine, acutum utrobique et costis octo pulchre formatis
constantem.
[A diamond of marvellous value, as long as two joints of
an infant's finger, and as thick as one of the joints of its thumb,
sharp on both sides, and of a beautiful octagonal shape.] This
pretended adamas juvenis pariensis resisted the action of lime. Petrus
Martyr distinguishes it from topaz by adding offenderunt et topazios
in littore, [they pay no heed to topazes on the coast] that is of
Paria, Saint Marta and Veragua. See Oceanica Dec. 3 lib. 4 page 53.)
(b) GNEISS predominates along the littoral Cordillera of Venezuela,
with the appearance of an independent formation, in the northern chain
from Cerro del Chuao, and the meridian of Choroni, as far as Cape
Codera; and in the southern chain, from the meridian of Guigne to the
mouth of the Rio Tuy. Cape Codera, the great mass of the Silla of
Galipano, and the land between Guayra and Caracas, the table-land of
Buenavista, the islands of the lake of Valencia, the mountains between
Guigne, Maria Magdalena and the Cerro do Chacao are composed of
gneiss;* (* I have been assured that the islands Orchila and Los
Frailes are also composed of gneiss; Curacao and Bonaire are
calcareous.
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