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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In
The Present Sketch I Confine Myself To The Mere Enumeration Of The
Phenomena Of Position, Indicating, At The Same Time, Some Theoretic
Views, By Which Observers In More Advantageous Circumstances Than I
Was Myself May Direct Their Researches.
12. AGGLOMERATE LIMESTONE OF THE BARIGON, OF THE CASTLE OF CUMANA, AND
OF THE VICINITY OF PORTO CABELLO.
This is a very complex formation, presenting that mixture and that
periodical return of compact limestone, quartzose sandstone and
conglomerates (limestone breccia) which in every zone peculiarly
characterises the tertiary strata. It forms the mountain of the castle
of San Antonio near the town of Cumana, the south-west extremity of
the peninsula of Araya, the Cerro Meapire, south of Caraco and the
vicinity of Porto Cabello. It contains (1) a compact limestone,
generally of a whitish grey, or yellowish white (Cerro del Barigon),
some very thin layers of which are entirely destitute of
petrifactions, while others are filled with cardites, ostracites,
pectens and vestiges of lithophyte polypi: (2) a breccia in which an
innumerable number of pelagic shells are found mixed with grains of
quartz agglutinated by a cement of carbonate of lime: (3) a calcareous
sandstone with very fine rounded grains of quartz (Punta Arenas, west
of the village of Maniquarez) and containing masses of brown iron ore:
(4) banks of marl and slaty clay, containing no spangles of mica, but
enclosing selenite and lamellar gypsum. These banks of clay appeared
to me constantly to form the lower strata. There also belongs to this
tertiary stratum the limestone tufa (fresh-water formation) of the
valleys of Aragua near Vittoria, and the fragmentary rock of Cabo
Blanco, westward of the port of La Guayra.
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