Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 3 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
- Page 90 of 332 - First - Home
We Sailed On The 4th Of November, At One O'clock In The Morning, In
Search Of The Mine Of Native Alum.
I took with me the chronometer and
my large Dollond telescope, intending to observe at the Laguna Chica
(Small Lake), east of the village of Maniquarez, the immersion of the
first satellite of Jupiter; this design, however, was not
accomplished, contrary winds having prevented our arrival before
daylight.
The spectacle of the phosphorescence of the ocean and the
sports of the porpoises which surrounded our canoe somewhat atoned for
this disappointment. We again passed those spots where springs of
petroleum gush from mica-slate at the bottom of the sea and the smell
of which is perceptible from a considerable distance. When it is
recollected that farther eastward, near Cariaco, the hot and submarine
waters are sufficiently abundant to change the temperature of the gulf
at its surface, we cannot doubt that the petroleum is the effect of
distillation at an immense depth, issuing from those primitive rocks
beneath which lies the focus of all volcanic commotion.
The Laguna Chica is a cove surrounded by perpendicular mountains, and
connected with the gulf of Cariaco only by a narrow channel
twenty-five fathoms deep. It seems, like the fine port of Acapulco, to
owe its existence to the effect of an earthquake. A beach shows that
the sea is here receding from the land, as on the opposite coast of
Cumana. The peninsula of Araya, which narrows between Cape Mero and
Cape las Minas to one thousand four hundred toises, is little more
than four thousand toises in breadth near the Laguna Chica, reckoning
from one sea to the other. We had to cross this distance in order to
find the native alum and to reach the cape called the Punta de
Chuparuparu. The road is difficult only because no path is traced; and
between precipices of some depth we were obliged to step over ridges
of bare rock, the strata of which are much inclined. The principal
point is nearly two hundred and twenty toises high; but the mountains,
as it often happens in a rocky isthmus, display very singular forms.
The Paps (tetas) of Chacopata and Cariaco, midway between the Laguna
Chica and the town of Cariaco, are peaks which appear isolated when
viewed from the platform of the castle of Cumana. The vegetable earth
in this country is only thirty toises above sea level. Sometimes there
is no rain for the space of fifteen months; if, however, a few drops
fall immediately after the flowering of the melons and gourds, they
yield fruit weighing from sixty to seventy pounds, notwithstanding the
apparent dryness of the air. I say apparent dryness, for my
hygrometric observations prove that the atmosphere of Cumana and Araya
contains nearly nine-tenths of the quantity of watery vapour necessary
to its perfect saturation. It is this air, at once hot and humid, that
nourishes those vegetable reservoirs, the cucurbitaceous plants, the
agaves and melocactuses half-buried in the sand.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 90 of 332
Words from 46827 to 47332
of 174507