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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Towards Night The Sea Was Covered
With Great Bluish Clouds; And When They Disappeared We Saw, At An
Immense Height, Fleecy Clouds In Regular Spaces, And Ranged In
Convergent Bands.
Their direction was from north-north-west to
south-south-east, or more exactly, north 20 degrees west, consequently
contrary to the direction of the magnetic meridian.
On the 24th March we entered the gulf which is bounded on the east by
the coast of Santa Marta, and on the west by Costa Rica; for the mouth
of the Magdalena and that of the Rio San Juan de Nicaragua are on the
same parallel, nearly 11 degrees latitude. The proximity of the
Pacific Ocean, the configuration of the neighbouring lands, the
smallness of the isthmus of Panama, the lowering of the soil between
the gulf of Papagayo and the port of San Juan de Nicaragua, the
vicinity of the snowy mountains of Santa Marta, and many other
circumstances too numerous to mention, combine to create a peculiar
climate in this gulf. The atmosphere is agitated by violent gales
known in winter by the name of the brizotes de Santa Marta. When the
wind abates, the currents bear to north-east, and the conflict between
the slight breezes (from east and north-east) and the current renders
the sea rough and agitated. In calm weather, the vessels going from
Carthagena to Rio Sinu, at the mouth of the Atrato and at Portobello,
are impeded in their course by the currents of the coast. The heavy or
brizote winds, on the contrary, govern the movement of the waters,
which they impel in an opposite direction, towards west-south-west. It
is the latter movement which Major Rennell, in his great hydrographic
work, calls drift; and he distinguishes it from real currents, which
are not owing to the local action of the wind, but to differences of
level in the surface of the ocean; to the rising and accumulation of
waters in very distant latitudes. The observations which I have
collected on the force and direction of the winds, on the temperature
and rapidity of the currents, on the influence of the seasons, or the
variable declination of the sun, have thrown some light on the
complicated system of those pelagic floods that furrow the surface of
the ocean: but it is less easy to conceive the causes of the change in
the movement of the waters at the same season and with the same wind.
Why is the Gulf-stream sometimes borne on the coast of Florida,
sometimes on the border of the shoal of Bahama? Why do the waters
flow, for the space of whole weeks, from the Havannah to Matanzas, and
(to cite an example of the corriente por arriba, which is sometimes
observed in the most eastern part of the main land during the
prevalence of gentle winds) from La Guayra to Cape Codera and Cumana?
As we advanced, on the 25th of March, towards the coast of Darien, the
north-east wind increased with violence. We might have imagined
ourselves transported to another climate. The sea became very rough
during the night yet the temperature of the water kept up (from
latitude 10 degrees 30 minutes, to 9 degrees 47 minutes) at 25.8
degrees. We perceived at sunrise a part of the archipelago* of Saint
Bernard, which closes the gulf of Morrosquillo on the north. (* It is
composed of the islands Mucara, Ceycen, Maravilla, Tintipan, Panda,
Palma, Mangles, and Salamanquilla, which rise little above the sea.
Several of them have the form of a bastion. There are two passages in
the middle of this archipelago, from seventeen to twenty fathoms.
Large vessels can pass between the Isla Panda and Tintipan, and
between the Isla de Mangles and Palma.) A clear spot between the
clouds enabled me to take the horary angles. The chronometer, at the
little island of Mucara, gave longitude 78 degrees 13 minutes 54
seconds. We passed on the southern extremity of the Placer de San
Bernardo. The waters were milky, although a sounding of twenty-five
fathoms did not indicate the bottom; the cooling of the water was not
felt, doubtless owing to the rapidity of the current. Above the
archipelago of Saint Bernard and Cape Boqueron we saw in the distance
the mountains of Tigua. The stormy weather and the difficulty of going
up against the wind induced the captain of our frail vessel to seek
shelter in the Rio Sinu, or rather, near the Punta del Zapote,
situated on the eastern bank of the Ensenada de Cispata, into which
flows the river Sinu or the Zenu of the early Conquistadores. It
rained with violence, and I availed myself of that occasion to measure
the temperature of the rain-water: it was 26.3 degrees, while the
thermometer in the air kept up, in a place where the bulb was not wet,
at 24.8 degrees. This result differed much from that we had obtained
at Cumana, where the rain-water was often a degree colder than the
air.* (* As, within the tropics, it takes but little time to collect
some inches of water in a vase having a wide opening, and narrowing
towards the bottom, I do not think there can be any error in the
observation, when the heat of the rain-water differs from that of the
air. If the heat of the rain-water be less than that of the air it may
be presumed that only a part of the total effect is observed. I often
found at Mexico at the end of June, the rain at 19.2 or 19.4 degrees,
when the air was at 17.8 and 18 degrees. In general it appeared to me
that, within the torrid zone, either at the level of the sea, or on
table-lands from 1200 to 1500 toises high, there is no rain but that
during storms, which falls in large drops very distant from each
other, and is sensibly colder than the air.
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