Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America Volume Ii Part 3

We find at first, in the Sierra de Mariara, which belongs to the northern branch of the Cordillera of the coast, a coa.r.s.e-grained granite; then, in the valleys of Aragua, on the borders of the lake, and in the islands, it contains, as in the southern branch of the chain of the coast, gneiss and mica-slate. These last-named rocks are auriferous in the Quebrada del Oro, near Guigue; and between Villa de Cura and the Morros de San Juan, in the mountain of Chacao. The gold is contained in pyrites, which are found sometimes disseminated almost imperceptibly in the whole ma.s.s of the gneiss,* and sometimes united in small veins of quartz. (* The four metals, which are found disseminated in the granite rocks, as if they were of contemporaneous formation, are gold, tin, t.i.tanium, and cobalt.) Most of the torrents that traverse the mountains bear along with them grains of gold. The poor inhabitants of Villa de Cura and San Juan have sometimes gained thirty piastres a-day by was.h.i.+ng the sand; but most commonly, in spite of their industry, they do not in a week find particles of gold of the value of two piastres. Here, however, as in every place where native gold and auriferous pyrites are disseminated in the rock, or by the destruction of the rocks, are deposited in alluvial lands, the people conceive the most exaggerated ideas of the metallic riches of the soil. But the success of the workings, which depends less on the abundance of the ore in a vast s.p.a.ce of land than on its acc.u.mulation in one point, has not justified these favourable prepossessions. The mountain of Chacao, bordered by the ravine of Tucutunemo, rises seven hundred feet above the village of San Juan. It is formed of gneiss, which, especially in the superior strata, pa.s.ses into mica-slate. We saw the remains of an ancient mine, known by the name of Real de Santa Barbara. The works were directed to a stratum of cellular quartz,*

full of polyhedric cavities, mixed with iron-ore, containing auriferous pyrites and small grains of gold, sometimes, it is said, visible to the naked eye. (* This stratum of quartz, and the gneiss in which it is contained, lie hor 8 of the Freyberg compa.s.s, and dip 70 degrees to the south-west. At a hundred toises distance from the auriferous quartz, the gneiss resumes its ordinary situation, hor 3 to 4, with 60 degrees dip to the north-west. A few strata of gneiss abound in silvery mica, and contain, instead of garnets, an immense quant.i.ty of small octohedrons of pyrites. This silvery gneiss resembles that of the famous mine of Himmelsfurst, in Saxony.) It appears that the gneiss of the Cerro de Chacao also furnishes another metallic deposit, a mixture of copper and silver-ores. This deposit has been the object of works attempted with great ignorance by some Mexican miners under the superintendance of M. Avalo. The gallery*

directed to the north-east, is only twenty-five toises long. (* La Cueva de los Mexicanos.) We there found some fine specimens of blue carbonated copper mingled with sulphate of barytes and quartz; but we could not ourselves judge whether the ore contained any argentiferous fahlerz, and whether it occurred in a stratum, or, as the apothecary who was our guide a.s.serted, in real veins. This much is certain, that the attempt at working the mine cost more than twelve thousand piastres in two years. It would no doubt have been more prudent to have resumed the works on the auriferous stratum of the Real de Santa Barbara.

The zone of gneiss just mentioned is, in the coast-chain from the sea to the Villa de Cura, ten leagues broad. In this great extent of land, gneiss and mica-slate are found exclusively, and they const.i.tute one formation.* (* This formation, which we shall call gneiss-mica-slate, is peculiar to the chain of the coast of Caracas. Five formations must be distinguished, as MM. von Buch and Raumer have so ably demonstrated in their excellent papers on Landeck and the Riesengebirge, namely, granite, granite-gneiss, gneiss, gneiss-mica-slate, and mica-slate.

Geologists whose researches have been confined to a small tract of land, having confounded these formations which nature has separated in several countries in the most distinct manner, have admitted that the gneiss and mica-slate alternate everywhere in superimposed beds, or furnish insensible transitions from one rock to the other. These transitions and alternating superpositions take place no doubt in formations of granite-gneiss and gneiss-mica-slate; but because these phenomena are observed in one region, it does not follow that in other regions we may not find very distinct circ.u.mscribed formations of granite, gneiss, and mica-slate. The same considerations may be applied to the formations of serpentine, which are sometimes isolated, and sometimes belong to the eurite, mica-slate, and grunstein.) Beyond the town of Villa de Cura and the Cerro de Chacao the aspect of the country presents greater geognostic variety. There are still eight leagues of declivity from the table-land of Cura to the entry of the Llanos; and on the southern slope of the mountains of the coast, four different formations of rock cover the gneiss. We shall first give the description of the different strata, without grouping them systematically.

On the south of the Cerro de Chacao, between the ravine of Tucutunemo and Piedras Negras, the gneiss is concealed beneath a formation of serpentine, of which the composition varies in the different superimposed strata. Sometimes it is very pure, very h.o.m.ogeneous, of a dusky olive-green, and of a conchoidal fracture: sometimes it is veined, mixed with bluish steat.i.te, of an unequal fracture, and containing spangles of mica. In both these states I could not discover in it either garnets, hornblende, or diallage. Advancing farther to the south (and we always pa.s.sed over this ground in that direction) the green of the serpentine grows deeper, and feldspar and hornblende are recognised in it: it is difficult to determine whether it pa.s.ses into diabasis or alternates with it. There is, however, no doubt of its containing veins of copper-ore.* (* One of these veins, on which two shafts have been sunk, was directed hor. 2.1, and dipped 80 degrees east. The strata of the serpentine, where it is stratified with some regularity, run hor. 8, and dip almost perpendicularly. I found malachite disseminated in this serpentine, where it pa.s.ses into grunstein.) At the foot of this mountain two fine springs gush out from the serpentine. Near the village of San Juan, the granular diabasis appears alone uncovered, and takes a greenish black hue. The feldspar intimately mixed with the ma.s.s, may be separated into distinct crystals. The mica is very rare, and there is no quartz. The ma.s.s a.s.sumes at the surface a yellowish crust like dolerite and basalt.

In the midst of this tract of trap-formation, the Morros of San Juan rise like two castles in ruins. They appear linked to the mornes of St. Sebastian, and to La Galera which bounds the Llanos like a rocky wall. The Morros of San Juan are formed of limestone of a crystalline texture; sometimes very compact, sometimes spongy, of a greenish-grey, s.h.i.+ning, composed of small grains, and mixed with scattered spangles of mica. This limestone yields a strong effervescence with acids. I could not find in it any vestige of organized bodies. It contains in subordinate strata, ma.s.ses of hardened clay of a blackish blue, and carburetted. These ma.s.ses are fissile, very heavy, and loaded with iron; their streak is whitish, and they produce no effervescence with acids. They a.s.sume at their surface, by their decomposition in the air, a yellow colour. We seem to recognize in these argillaceous strata a tendency either to the transition-slates, or to the kieselschiefer (schistose jasper), which everywhere characterise the black transition-limestones. When in fragments, they might be taken at first sight for basalt or hornblende.* (* I had an opportunity of examining again, with the greatest care, the rocks of San Juan, of Chacao, of Parapara, and of Calabozo, during my stay at Mexico, where, conjointly with M. del Rio, one of the most distinguished pupils of the school of Freyberg, I formed a geognostical collection for the Colegio de Mineria of New Spain.) Another white limestone, compact, and containing some fragments of sh.e.l.ls, backs the Morros de San Juan.

I could not see the line of junction of these two limestones, or that of the calcareous formation and the diabasis.

The transverse valley which descends from Piedras Negras and the village of San Juan, towards Parapara and the Llanos, is filled with trap-rocks, displaying close affinity with the formation of green slates, which they cover. Sometimes we seem to see serpentine, sometimes grunstein, and sometimes dolerite and basalt. The arrangement of these problematical ma.s.ses is not less extraordinary.

Between San Juan, Malpaso, and Piedras Azules, they form strata parallel to each other; and dipping regularly northward at an angle of 40 or 50 degrees, they cover even the green slates in concordant stratification. Lower down, towards Parapara and Ortiz, where the amygdaloids and phonolites are connected with the grunstein, everything a.s.sumes a basaltic aspect. b.a.l.l.s of grunstein heaped one upon another, form those rounded cones, which are found so frequently in the Mittelgebirge in Bohemia, near Bilin, the country of phonolites. The following is the result of my partial observations.

The grunstein, which at first alternated with strata of serpentine, or was connected with that rock by insensible transitions, is seen alone, sometimes in strata considerably inclined, and sometimes in b.a.l.l.s with concentric strata, imbedded in strata of the same substance. It lies, near Malpaso, on green slates, steat.i.tic, mingled with hornblende, dest.i.tute of mica and grains of quartz, dipping, like the grunsteins, 45 degrees toward the north, and directed, like them, 75 degrees north-west.

A great sterility prevails where these green slates predominate, no doubt on account of the magnesia they contain, which (as is proved by the magnesian-limestone of England*) is very hurtful to vegetation. (*

Magnesian limestone is of a straw-yellow colour, and contains madrepores: it lies beneath red marl, or muriatiferous red sandstone.) The dip of the green slates continues the same; but by degrees the direction of their strata becomes parallel to the general direction of the primitive rocks of the chain of the coast. At Piedras Azules these slates, mingled with hornblende, cover in concordant stratification a blackish-blue slate, very fissile, and traversed by small veins of quartz. The green slates include some strata of grunstein, and even contain b.a.l.l.s of that substance. I nowhere saw the green slates alternate with the black slates of the ravine of Piedras Azules: at the line of junction these two slates appear rather to pa.s.s one into the other, the green slates becoming of a pearl-grey in proportion as they lose their hornblende.

Farther south, towards Parapara and Ortiz, the slates disappear. They are concealed under a trap-formation more varied in its aspect. The soil becomes more fertile; the rocky ma.s.ses alternate with strata of clay, which appear to be produced by the decomposition of the grunsteins, the amygdaloids, and the phonolites.

The grunstein, which farther north was less granulous, and pa.s.sed into serpentine, here a.s.sumes a very different character. It contains b.a.l.l.s of mandelstein, or amygdaloid, eight or ten inches in diameter. These b.a.l.l.s, sometimes a little flattened, are divided into concentric layers: this is the effect of decomposition. Their nucleus is almost as hard as basalt, and they are intermingled with little cavities, owing to bubbles of gas, filled with green earth, and crystals of pyroxene and mesotype. Their basis is greyish blue, rather soft, and showing small white spots which, by the regular form they present, I should conceive to be decomposed feldspar. M. von Buch examined with a powerful lens the species we brought. He discovered that each crystal of pyroxene, enveloped in the earthy ma.s.s, is separated from it by fissures parallel to the sides of the crystal. These fissures seem to be the effect of a contraction which the ma.s.s or basis of the mandelstein has undergone. I sometimes saw these b.a.l.l.s of mandelstein arranged in strata, and separated from each other by beds of grunstein of ten or fourteen inches thick; sometimes (and this situation is most common) the b.a.l.l.s of mandelstein, two or three feet in diameter, are found in heaps, and form little mounts with rounded summits, like spheroidal basalt. The clay which separates these amygdaloid concretions arises from the decomposition of their crust. They acquire by the contact of the air a very thin coating of yellow ochre.

South-west of the village of Parapara rises the little Cerro de Flores, which is discerned from afar in the steppes. Almost at its foot, and in the midst of the mandelstein tract we have just been describing, a porphyritic phonolite, a ma.s.s of compact feldspar of a greenish grey, or mountain-green, containing long crystals of vitreous feldspar, appears exposed. It is the real porphyrschiefer of Werner; and it would be difficult to distinguish, in a collection of stones, the phonolite of Parapara from that of Bilin, in Bohemia. It does not, however, here form rocks in grotesque shapes, but little hills covered with tabular blocks, large plates extremely sonorous, translucid on the edges, and wounding the hands when broken.

Such are the successions of rocks, which I described on the spot as I progressively found them, from the lake of Tacarigua to the entrance of the steppes. Few places in Europe display a geological arrangement so well worthy of being studied. We saw there in succession six formations: namely, mica-slate-gneiss, green transition-slate, black transition-limestone, serpentine and grunstein, amygdaloid (with pyroxene), and phonolite.

I must observe, in the first place, that the substance just described under the name of grunstein, in every respect resembles that which forms layers in the mica-slate of Cabo Blanco, and veins near Caracas.

It differs only by containing neither quartz, garnets, nor pyrites.

The close relations we observed near the Cerro de Chacao, between the grunstein and the serpentine, cannot surprise these geologists who have studied the mountains of Franconia and Silesia. Near Zobtenberg*

(* Between Tampadel and Silsterwiz.) a serpentine rock alternates also with gabbro. In the district of Glatz the fissures of the gabbro are filled with a steat.i.te of a greenish white colour, and the rock which was long thought to belong to the grunsteins* is a close mixture of feldspar and diallage. (* In the mountains of Bareuth, in Franconia, so abundant in grunstein and serpentine, these formations are not connected together. The serpentine there belongs rather to the schistose hornblende (hornblendschiefer), as in the island of Cuba.

Near Guanaxuato, in Mexico, I saw it alternating with syenite. These phenomena of serpentine rocks forming layers in eurite (weisstein), in schistose hornblende, in gabbro, and in syenite, are so much the more remarkable, as the great ma.s.s of garnetiferous serpentines, which are found in the mountains of gneiss and mica-slate, form little distinct mounts, ma.s.ses not covered by other formations. It is not the same in the mixtures of serpentine and granulated limestone.)

The grunsteins of Tucutunemo, which we consider as const.i.tuting the same formation as the serpentine rock, contain veins of malachite and copper-pyrites. These same metalliferous combinations are found also in Franconia, in the grunsteins of the mountains of Steben and Lichtenberg. With respect to the green slates of Malpaso, which have all the characters of transition-slates, they are identical with those which M. von Buch has so well described, near Schonau, in Silesia.

They contain beds of grunstein, like the slates of the mountains of Steben just mentioned.* (* On advancing into the adit for draining the Friedrich-Wilhelmstollen mine, which I caused to be begun in 1794, near Steben, and which is yet only 340 toises long, there have successively been found, in the transition-slate subordinate strata of pure and porphyritic grunstein, strata, of Lydian stone and ampelite (alaunschiefer), and strata of fine-grained grunstein. All these strata characterise the transition-slates.) The black limestone of the Morros de San Juan is also a transition-limestone. It forms perhaps a subordinate stratum in the slates of Malpaso. This situation would be a.n.a.logous to what is observed in several parts of Switzerland.* (* For Instance, at the Glyshorn, at the Col de Balme, etc.) The slaty zone, the centre of which is the ravine of Piedras Azules, appears divided into two formations. On some points we think we observe one pa.s.sing into the other.

The grunsteins, which begin again to the south of these slates, appear to me to differ little from those found north of the ravine of Piedras Azules. I did not see there any pyroxene; but on the very spot I recognized a number of crystals in the amygdaloid, which appears so strongly linked to the grunstein that they alternate several times.

The geologist may consider his task as fulfilled when he has traced with accuracy the positions of the diverse strata; and has pointed out the a.n.a.logies traceable between these positions and what has been observed in other countries. But how can he avoid being tempted to go back to the origin of so many different substances, and to inquire how far the dominion of fire has extended in the mountains that bound the great basin of the steppes? In researches on the position of rocks we have generally to complain of not sufficiently perceiving the connection between the ma.s.ses, which we believe to be superimposed on one another. Here the difficulty seems to arise from the too intimate and too numerous relations observed in rocks that are thought not to belong to the same family.

The phonolite (or leucostine compacte of Cordier) is pretty generally regarded by all who have at once examined burning and extinguished volcanoes, as a flow of lithoid lava. I found no real basalt or dolerite; but the presence of pyroxene in the amygdaloid of Parapara leaves little doubt of the igneous origin of those spheroidal ma.s.ses, fissured, and full of cavities. b.a.l.l.s of this amygdaloid are enclosed in the grunstein; and this grunstein alternates on one side with a green slate, on the other with the serpentine of Tucutunemo. Here, then, is a connexion sufficiently close established between the phonolites and the green slates, between the pyroxenic amygdaloids and the serpentines containing copper-ores, between volcanic substances and others that are included under the vague name of transition-traps.

All these ma.s.ses are dest.i.tute of quartz like the real trap-porphyries, or volcanic trachytes. This phenomenon is the more remarkable, as the grunsteins which are called primitive almost always contain quartz in Europe. The most general dip of the slates of Piedras Azules, of the grunsteins of Parapara, and of the pyroxenic amygdaloids embedded in strata of grunstein, does not follow the slope of the ground from north to south, but is pretty regular towards the north. The strata incline towards the chain of the coast, as substances which had not been in fusion might be supposed to do. Can we admit that so many alternating rocks, imbedded one in the other, have a common origin? The nature of the phonolites, which are lithoid lavas with a feldspar basis, and the nature of the green slates intermixed with hornblende, oppose this opinion. In this state of things we may choose between two solutions of the problem in question.

In one of these solutions the phonolite of the Cerro de Flores is to be regarded as the sole volcanic production of the tract; and we are forced to unite the pyroxenic amygdaloids with the rest of the grunsteins, in one single formation, that which is so common in the transition-mountains of Europe, considered hitherto as not volcanic.

In the other solution of the problem, the ma.s.ses of phonolite, amygdaloid, and grunstein, which are found in the south of the ravine of Piedras Azules, are separated from the grunsteins and serpentine rocks that cover the declivity of the mountains north of the ravine.

In the present state of knowledge I find difficulties almost equally great in adopting either of these suppositions; but I have no doubt that, when the real grunsteins (not the hornblende-grunsteins) contained in the gneiss and mica-slates, shall have been more attentively examined in other places; when the basalts (with pyroxene) forming strata in primitive rocks* (* For instance, at Krobsdorf, in Silesia, a stratum of basalt has been recognized in the mica-slate by two celebrated geologists, MM. von Buch and Raumer. (Vom Granite des Riesengebirges, 1813.) and the diabases and amygdaloids in the transition mountains, shall have been carefully studied; when the texture of the ma.s.ses shall have been subjected to a kind of mechanical a.n.a.lysis, and the hornblendes better distinguished from the pyroxenes,* (* The grunsteins or diabases of the Fichtelgebirge, in Franconia, which belong to the transition-slate, sometimes contain pyroxenes.) and the grunsteins from the dolerites; a great number of phenomena which now appear isolated and obscure, will be ranged under general laws. The phonolite and other rocks of igneous origin at Parapara are so much the more interesting, as they indicate ancient eruptions in a granite zone; as they belong to the sh.o.r.e of the basin of the steppes, as the basalts of Harutsh belong to the sh.o.r.e of the desert of Sahara; and lastly, as they are the only rocks of the kind we observed in the mountains of the Capitania-General of Caracas, which are also dest.i.tute of trachytes or trap-porphyry, basalts, and volcanic productions.* (* From the Rio Negro to the coasts of c.u.mana and Caracas, to the east of the mountains of Merida, which we did not visit.)

The southern declivity of the western chain is tolerably steep; the steppes, according to my barometrical measurements, being a thousand feet lower than the bottom of the basin of Aragua. From the extensive table-land of the Villa de Cura we descended towards the banks of the Rio Tucutunemo, which has hollowed for itself, in a serpentine rock, a longitudinal valley running from east to west, at nearly the same level as La Victoria. A transverse valley, lying generally north and south, led us into the Llanos, by the villages of Parapara and Ortiz.

It grows very narrow in several parts. Basins, the bottoms of which are perfectly horizontal, communicate together by narrow pa.s.ses with steep declivities. They were, no doubt, formerly small lakes, which, owing to the acc.u.mulation of the waters, or some more violent catastrophe, have broken down the d.y.k.es by which they were separated.

This phenomenon is found in both continents, wherever we examine the longitudinal valleys forming the pa.s.sages of the Andes, the Alps,* (*

For example, the road from the valley of Ursern to the Hospice of St.

Gothard, and thence to Airolo.) or the Pyrenees. It is probable, that the irruption of the waters towards the Llanos have given, by extraordinary rents, the form of ruins to the Morros of San Juan and of San Sebastian. The volcanic tract of Parapara and Ortis is now only 30 or 40 toises above the Llanos. The eruptions consequently took place at the lowest point of the granitic chain.

In the Mesa de Paja, in the ninth degree of lat.i.tude, we entered the basin of the Llanos. The sun was almost at its zenith; the earth, wherever it appeared sterile and dest.i.tute of vegetation, was at the temperature of 48 or 50 degrees.* (* A thermometer, placed in the sand, rose to 38.4 and 40 degrees Reaumur.) Not a breath of air was felt at the height at which we were on our mules; yet, in the midst of this apparent calm, whirls of dust incessantly arose, driven on by those small currents of air which glide only over the surface of the ground, and are occasioned by the difference of temperature between the naked sand and the spots covered with gra.s.s. These sand-winds augment the suffocating heat of the air. Every grain of quartz, hotter than the surrounding air, radiates heat in every direction; and it is difficult to observe the temperature of the atmosphere, owing to these particles of sand striking against the bulb of the thermometer. All around us the plains seemed to ascend to the sky, and the vast and profound solitude appeared like an ocean covered with sea-weed.

According to the unequal ma.s.s of vapours diffused through the atmosphere, and the variable decrement in the temperature of the different strata of air, the horizon in some parts was clear and distinct; in other parts it appeared undulating, sinuous, and as if striped. The earth there was confounded with the sky. Through the dry mist and strata of vapour the trunks of palm-trees were seen from afar, stripped of their foliage and their verdant summits, and looking like the masts of a s.h.i.+p descried upon the horizon.

There is something awful, as well as sad and gloomy, in the uniform aspect of these steppes. Everything seems motionless; scarcely does a small cloud, pa.s.sing across the zenith, and denoting the approach of the rainy season, cast its shadow on the earth. I know not whether the first aspect of the Llanos excite less astonishment than that of the chain of the Andes. Mountainous countries, whatever may be the absolute elevation of the highest summits, have an a.n.a.logous physiognomy; but we accustom ourselves with difficulty to the view of the Llanos of Venezuela and Casanare, to that of the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and of Chaco, which recal to mind incessantly, and during journeys of twenty or thirty days, the smooth surface of the ocean. I had seen the plains or llanos of La Mancha in Spain, and the heaths (ericeta) that extend from the extremity of Jutland, through Luneburg and Westphalia, to Belgium. These last are really steppes, and, during several ages, only small portions of them have yielded to cultivation; but the plains of the west and north of Europe present only a feeble image of the immense llanos of South America. It is in the south-east of our continent, in Hungary, between the Danube and the Theiss; in Russia, between the Borysthenes, the Don, and the Volga, that we find those vast pastures, which seem to have been levelled by a long abode of the waters, and which meet the horizon on every side. The plains of Hungary, where I traversed them on the frontiers of Germany, between Presburg and Oedenburg, strike the imagination of the traveller by the constant mirage; but their greatest extent is more to the east, between Czegled, Debreczin, and t.i.ttel. There they present the appearance of a vast ocean of verdure, having only two outlets, one near Gran and Waitzen, the other between Belgrade and Widdin.

The different quarters of the world have been supposed to be characterized by the remark, that Europe has its heaths, Asia its steppes, Africa its deserts, and America its savannahs; but by this distinction, contrasts are established that are not founded either on the nature of things, or the genius of languages. The existence of a heath always supposes an a.s.sociation of plants of the family of ericae; the steppes of Asia are not everywhere covered with saline plants; the savannahs of Venezuela furnish not only the gramina, but with them small herbaceous mimosas, legumina, and other dicotyledonous plants. The plains of Songaria, those which extend between the Don and the Volga, and the puszta of Hungary, are real savannahs, pasturages abounding in gra.s.ses;* (* These vast steppes of Hungary are elevated only thirty or forty toises above the level of the sea, which is more than eighty leagues distant from them. See Wahlenberg's Flora Carpathianica. Baron Podmanitzky, an Hungarian n.o.bleman, highly distinguished for his knowledge of the physical sciences, caused the level of these plains to be taken, to facilitate the formation of a ca.n.a.l then projected between the Danube and the Theiss. He found the line of division, or the convexity of the ground, which slopes on each side towards the beds of the two rivers, to be only thirteen toises above the height of the Danube. The widely extended pastures, which reach in every direction to the horizon, are called in the country, Puszta, and, over a distance of many leagues, are without any human habitation. Plains of this kind, intermingled with marshes and sandy tracts, are found on the western side of the Theiss, between Czegled, Csaba, Komloss, and Szarwa.s.s; and on the eastern side, between Debreczin, Karczag, and Szoboszlo. The area of these plains of the interior basin of Hungary has been estimated, by a pretty accurate calculation, to be between two thousand five hundred and three thousand square leagues (twenty to a degree). Between Czegled, Szolnok, and Ketskemet, the plain resembles a sea of sand.) while the savannahs to the east and west of the Rocky Mountains and of New Mexico produce chenopodiums containing carbonate and muriate of soda.

Asia has real deserts dest.i.tute of vegetation, in Arabia, in Gobi, and in Persia. Since we have become better acquainted with the deserts in the interior of Africa, so long and so vaguely confounded together under the name of desert of Sahara (Zahra); it has been observed, that in this continent, towards the east, savannahs and pastures are found, as in Arabia, situated in the midst of naked and barren tracts. It is these deserts, covered with gravel and dest.i.tute of plants, which are almost entirely wanting in the New World. I saw them only in that part of Peru, between Amotape and Coquimbo, on the sh.o.r.es of the Pacific.

These are called by the Spaniards, not llanos, but the desiertos of Sechura and Atacamez. This solitary tract is not broad, but it is four hundred and forty leagues long. The rock pierces everywhere through the quicksands. No drop of rain ever falls on it; and, like the desert of Sahara, north of Timbuctoo, the Peruvian desert affords, near Huaura, a rich mine of native salt. Everywhere else, in the New World, there are plains desert because not inhabited, but no real deserts.*

(* We are almost tempted, however, to give the name of desert to that vast and sandy table-land of Brazil, the Campos dos Parecis, which gives birth to the rivers Tapajos, Paraguay, and Madeira, and which reaches the summit of the highest mountains. Almost dest.i.tute of vegetation, it reminds us of Gobi, in Mongolia.)

The same phenomena are repeated in the most distant regions; and, instead of designating those vast treeless plains in accordance with the nature of the plants they produce, it seems natural to cla.s.s them into deserts, steppes, or savannahs; into bare lands without any appearance of vegetation, and lands covered with gramina or small plants of the dicotyledonous tribe. The savannahs of America, especially those of the temperate zone, have in many works been designated by the French term prairies; but this appears to me little applicable to pastures which are often very dry, though covered with gra.s.s of four or five feet in height. The Llanos and the Pampas of South America are really steppes. They are covered with beautiful verdure in the rainy season, but in the time of great drought they a.s.sume the aspect of a desert. The gra.s.s is then reduced to powder; the earth cracks; the alligators and the great serpents remain buried in the dried mud, till awakened from their long lethargy by the first showers of spring. These phenomena are observed on barren tracts of fifty or sixty leagues in length, wherever the savannahs are not traversed by rivers; for on the borders of rivulets, and around little pools of stagnant water, the traveller finds at certain distances, even during the period of the great droughts, thickets of mauritia, a palm, the leaves of which spread out like a fan, and preserve a brilliant verdure.

The steppes of Asia are all beyond the tropics, and form very elevated table-lands. America also has savannahs of considerable extent on the backs of the mountains of Mexico, Peru, and Quito; but its most extensive steppes, the Llanos of c.u.mana, Caracas, and Meta, are little raised above the level of the ocean, and all belong to the equinoctial zone. These circ.u.mstances give them a peculiar character. They have not, like the steppes of southern Asia, and the deserts of Persia, those lakes without issue, those small systems of rivers which lose themselves either in the sands, or by subterranean filtrations. The Llanos of America incline to the east and south; and their running waters are branches of the Orinoco.

The course of these rivers once led me to believe, that the plains formed table-lands, raised at least from one hundred to one hundred and fifty toises above the level of the ocean. I supposed that the deserts of interior Africa were also at a considerable height; and that they rose one above another as in tiers, from the coast to the interior of the continent. No barometer has yet been carried into the Sahara. With respect to the Llanos of America, I found by barometric heights observed at Calabozo, at the Villa del Pao, and at the mouth of the Meta, that their height is only forty or fifty toises above the level of the sea. The fall of the rivers is extremely gentle, often nearly imperceptible; and therefore the least wind, or the swelling of the Orinoco, causes a reflux in those rivers that flow into it. The Indians believe themselves to be descending during a whole day, when navigating from the mouths of these rivers to their sources. The descending waters are separated from those that flow back by a great body of stagnant water, in which, the equilibrium being disturbed, whirlpools are formed very dangerous for boats.

The chief characteristic of the savannahs or steppes of South America is the absolute want of hills and inequalities--the perfect level of every part of the soil. Accordingly the Spanish conquerors, who first penetrated from Coro to the banks of the Apure, did not call them deserts or savannahs, or meadows, but plains (llanos). Often within a distance of thirty square leagues there is not an eminence of a foot high. This resemblance to the surface of the sea strikes the imagination most powerfully where the plains are altogether dest.i.tute of palm-trees; and where the mountains of the sh.o.r.e and of the Orinoco are so distant that they cannot be seen, as in the Mesa de Pavones. A person would be tempted there to take the alt.i.tude of the sun with a quadrant, if the horizon of the land were not constantly misty on account of the variable effects of refraction. This equality of surface is still more perfect in the meridian of Calabozo, than towards the east, between Cari, La Villa del Pao, and Nueva Barcelona; but it extends without interruption from the mouths of the Orinoco to La Villa de Araure and to Ospinos, on a parallel of a hundred and eighty leagues in length; and from San Carlos to the savannahs of Caqueat, on a meridian of two hundred leagues. It particularly characterises the New Continent, as it does the low steppes of Asia, between the Borysthenes and the Volga, between the Irtish and the Obi.

The deserts of central Africa, of Arabia, Syria, and Persia, Gobi, and Casna, present, on the contrary, many inequalities, ranges of hills, ravines without water, and rocks which pierce the sands.

The Llanos, however, notwithstanding the apparent uniformity of their surface, present two kinds of inequalities, which cannot escape the observation of the traveller. The first is known by the name of banks (bancos); they are in reality shoals in the basin of the steppes, fractured strata of sandstone, or compact limestone, standing four or five feet higher than the rest of the plain. These banks are sometimes three or four leagues in length; they are entirely smooth, with a horizontal surface; their existence is perceived only by examining their margins. The second species of inequality can be recognised only by geodesical or barometric levellings, or by the course of rivers. It is called a mesa or table, and is composed of small flats, or rather convex eminences, that rise insensibly to the height of a few toises.

Such are, towards the east, in the province of c.u.mana, on the north of the Villa de la Merced and Candelaria, the Mesas of Amana, of Guanipa, and of Jonoro, the direction of which is south-west and north-east; and which, in spite of their inconsiderable elevation, divide the waters between the Orinoco and the northern coast of Terra Firma. The convexity of the savannah alone occasions this part.i.tion: we there find the dividing of the waters (divortia aquarum* (* "C. Manlium prope jugis [Tauri] ad divortia aquarum castra posuisse." Livy lib. 38 c. 75.)), as in Poland, where, far from the Carpathian mountains, the plain itself divides the waters between the Baltic and the Black Sea.

Geographers, who suppose the existence of a chain of mountains wherever there is a line of division, have not failed to mark one in the maps, at the sources of the Rio Neveri, the Unare, the Guarapiche, and the Pao. Thus the priests of Mongol race, according to ancient and superst.i.tious custom, erect oboes, or little mounds of stone, on every point where the rivers flow in an opposite direction.

The uniform landscape of the Llanos; the extremely small number of their inhabitants; the fatigue of travelling beneath a burning sky, and an atmosphere darkened by dust; the view of that horizon, which seems for ever to fly before us; those lonely trunks of palm-trees, which have all the same aspect, and which we despair of reaching, because they are confounded with other trunks that rise by degrees on the visual horizon; all these causes combine to make the steppes appear far more extensive than they are in reality. The planters who inhabit the southern declivity of the chain of the coast see the steppes extend towards the south, as far as the eye can reach, like an ocean of verdure. They know that from the Delta of the Orinoco to the province of Varinas, and thence, by traversing the banks of the Meta, the Guaviare, and the Caguan, they can advance three hundred and eighty leagues* (* This is the distance from Timbuctoo to the northern coast of Africa.) into the plains, first from east to west, and then from north-east to south-east beyond the Equator, to the foot of the Andes of Pasto. They know by the accounts of travellers the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, which are also Llanos covered with fine gra.s.s, dest.i.tute of trees, and filled with oxen and horses become wild. They suppose that, according to the greater part of our maps of America, this continent has only one chain of mountains, that of the Andes, which stretches from south to north; and they form a vague idea of the contiguity of all the plains from the Orinoco and the Apure to the Rio de la Plata and the Straits of Magellan.

Without stopping here to give a mineralogical description of the transverse chains which divide America from east to west, it will be sufficient to notice the general structure of a continent, the extremities of which, though situated in climates little a.n.a.logous, nevertheless present several features of resemblance. In order to have an exact idea of the plains, their configuration, and their limits, we must know the chains of mountains that form their boundaries. We have already described the Cordillera of the coast, of which the highest summit is the Silla de Caraccas, and which is linked by the Paramo de las Rosas to the Nevada de Merida, and the Andes of New Grenada. We have seen that, in the tenth degree of north lat.i.tude, it stretches from Quibor and Barquesimeto as far as the point of Paria. A second chain of mountains, or rather a less elevated but much larger group, extends between the parallels of 3 and 7 degrees from the mouths of the Guaviare and the Meta to the sources of the Orinoco, the Marony, and the Essequibo, towards French and Dutch Guiana. I call this chain the Cordillera of Parime, or of the great cataracts of the Orinoco. It may be followed for a length of two hundred and fifty leagues; but it is less a chain, than a collection of granitic mountains, separated by small plains, without being everywhere disposed in lines. The group of the mountains of Parime narrows considerably between the sources of the Orinoco and the mountains of Demerara, in the Sierras of Quimiropaca and Pacaraimo, which divide the waters between the Carony and the Rio Parime, or Rio de Aguas Blancas. This is the scene of the expeditions which were undertaken in search of El Dorado, and the great city of Manoa, the Timbuctoo of the New Continent. The Cordillera of Parime does not join the Andes of New Grenada, but is separated from them by a s.p.a.ce eighty leagues broad. If we suppose it to have been destroyed in this s.p.a.ce by some great revolution of the globe (which is scarcely probable) we must admit that it anciently branched off from the Andes between Santa Fe de Bogota and Pamplona.

This remark serves to fix more easily in the memory of the reader the geographical position of a Cordillera till now very imperfectly known.

A third chain of mountains unites in 16 and 18 degrees south lat.i.tude (by Santa Cruz de la Sierra, the Serranias of Aguapehy, and the famous Campos dos Parecis) the Andes of Peru, to the mountains of Brazil. It is the Cordillera of Chiquitos which widens in the Capitania de Minas Geraes, and divides the rivers flowing into the Amazon from those of the Rio de la Plata,* (* There is only a portage or carrying-place of 5322 bracas between the Guapore (a branch of the Marmore and of the Madeira), and the Rio Aguapehy (a branch of the Jaura and of the Paraguay).) not only in the interior of the country, in the meridian of Villa Boa, but also at a few leagues from the coast, between Rio Janeiro and Bahia.* (* The Cordillera of Chiquitos and of Brazil stretches toward the south-east, in the government of the Rio Grande, beyond the lat.i.tude of 30 degrees south.)

These three transverse chains, or rather these three groups of mountains stretching from west to east, within the limits of the torrid zone, are separated by tracts entirely level, the plains of Caracas, or of the Lower Orinoco; the plains of the Amazon and the Rio Negro; and the plains of Buenos Ayres, or of La Plata. I use the term plains, because the Lower Orinoco and the Amazon, far from flowing in a valley, form but a little furrow in the midst of a vast level. The two basins, placed at the extremities of South America, are savannahs or steppes, pasturage without trees; the intermediate basin, which receives the equatorial rains during the whole year, is almost entirely one vast forest, through which no other roads are known save the rivers. The strong vegetation which conceals the soil, renders also the uniformity of its level less perceptible; and the plains of Caracas and La Plata bear no other name. The three basins we have just described are called, in the language of the colonists, the Llanos of Varinas and of Caracas, the bosques or selvas (forests) of the Amazon, and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. The trees not only for the most part cover the plains of the Amazon, from the Cordillera de Chiquitos, as far as that of Parime; they also crown these two chains of mountains, which rarely attain the height of the Pyrenees.* (* We must except the most western part of the Cordillera of Chiquitos, between Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de la Sierra where the summits are covered with snow; but this colossal group almost belongs to the Andes de la Paz, of which it forms a promontory or spur, directed toward the east.) On this account, the vast plains of the Amazon, the Madeira, and the Rio Negro, are not so distinctly bounded as the Llanos of Caracas, and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres. As the region of forests comprises at once the plains and the mountains, it extends from 18 degrees south to 7 and 8 degrees north,* (* To the west, in consequence of the Llanos of Manso, and the Pampas de Huanacos, the forests do not extend generally beyond the parallels of 18 or 19 degrees south lat.i.tude; but to the east, in Brazil (in the capitanias of San Pablo and Rio Grande) as well as in Paraguay, on the borders of the Parana, they advance as far as 25 degrees south.) and occupies an extent of near a hundred and twenty thousand square leagues. This forest of South America, for in fact there is only one, is six times larger than France. It is known to Europeans only on the sh.o.r.es of a few rivers, by which it is traversed; and has its openings, the extent of which is in proportion to that of the forests. We shall soon skirt the marshy savannahs, between the Upper Orinoco, the Conorichite, and the Ca.s.siquiare, in the lat.i.tude of 3 and 4 degrees. There are other openings, or as they are called, clear savannahs,* (* Savannas limpias, that is to say, clear of trees.) in the same parallel, between the sources of the Mao and the Rio de Aguas Blancas, south of the Sierra de Pacaraima. These last savannahs, which are inhabited by Caribs, and nomad Macusis, lie near the frontiers of Dutch and French Guiana.

Having noticed the geological const.i.tution of South America, we shall now mark its princ.i.p.al features. The western coasts are bordered by an enormous wall of mountains, rich in precious metals wherever volcanic fire has not pierced through the eternal snow. This is the Cordillera of the Andes. Summits of trap-porphyry rise beyond three thousand three hundred toises, and the mean height of the chain* is one thousand eight hundred and fifty toises. (* In New Grenada, Quito, and Peru, according to measurements taken by Bouguer, La Condamine, and myself.) It stretches in the direction of a meridian, and sends into each hemisphere a lateral branch, in the lat.i.tudes of 10 degrees north, and 16 and 18 degrees south. The first of these two branches, that of the coast of Caracas, is of considerable length, and forms in fact a chain. The second branch, the Cordillera of Chiquitos and of the sources of the Guapore, is very rich in gold, and widens toward the east, in Brazil, into vast tablelands, having a mild and temperate climate. Between these two transverse chains, contiguous to the Andes, an isolated group of granitic mountains is situated, from 3 to 7 degrees north lat.i.tude; which also runs parallel to the Equator, but, not pa.s.sing the meridian of 71 degrees, terminates abruptly towards the west, and is not united to the Andes of New Grenada. These three transverse chains have no active volcanoes; we know not whether the most southern, like the two others, be dest.i.tute of trachytes or trap-porphyry. None of their summits enter the limit of perpetual snow; and the mean height of the Cordillera of La Parime, and of the littoral chain of Caracas, does not reach six hundred toises, though some of its summits rise fourteen hundred toises above the level of the sea.* (* We do not reckon here, as belonging to the chain of the coast, the Nevados and Paramos of Merida and of Truxillo, which are a prolongation of the Andes of New Grenada.) The three transverse chains are separated by plains entirely closed towards the west, and open towards the east and south-east. When we reflect on their small elevation above the surface of the ocean, we are tempted to consider them as gulfs stretching in the direction of the current of rotation.

If, from the effect of some peculiar attraction, the waters of the Atlantic were to rise fifty toises at the mouth of the Orinoco, and two hundred toises at the mouth of the Amazon, the flood would submerge more than the half of South America. The eastern declivity, or the foot of the Andes, now six hundred leagues distant from the coast of Brazil, would become a sh.o.r.e beaten by the waves. This consideration is the result of a barometric measurement, taken in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, where the river Amazon issues from the Cordilleras. I found the mean height of this immense river only one hundred and ninety-four toises above the present level of the Atlantic. The intermediate plains, however, covered with forests, are still five times higher than the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and the gra.s.s-covered Llanos of Caracas and the Meta.

Those Llanos which form the basin of the Orinoco, and which we crossed twice in one year, in the months of March and July, communicate with the basin of the Amazon and the Rio Negro, bounded on one side by the Cordillera of Chiquitos, and on the other by the mountains of Parime.

The opening which is left between the latter and the Andes of New Grenada, occasions this communication. The aspect of the country here reminds us, but on a much larger scale, of the plains of Lombardy, which also are only fifty or sixty toises above the level of the ocean; and are directed first from La Brenta to Turin, east and west; and then from Turin to Coni, north and south. If we were authorized, from other geological facts, to regard the three great plains of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la Plata as basins of ancient lakes,* (* In Siberia, the great steppes between the Irtish and the Obi, especially that of Baraba, full of salt lakes (Tchabakly, Tchany, Karasouk, and Topolony), appear to have been, according to the Chinese traditions, even within historical times, an inland sea.) we should imagine we perceived in the plains of the Rio Vichada and the Meta, a channel by which the waters of the upper lake (those of the plains of the Amazon) forced their way towards the lower basin, (that of the Llanos of Caracas,) separating the Cordillera of La Parime from that of the Andes. This channel is a kind of land-strait. The ground, which is perfectly level between the Guaviare, the Meta, and the Apure, displays no vestige of a violent irruption of the waters; but on the edge of the Cordillera of Parime, between the lat.i.tudes of 4 and 7 degrees, the Orinoco, flowing in a westerly direction from its source to the mouth of the Guaviare, has forced its way through the rocks, directing its course from south to north. All the great cataracts, as we shall soon see, are within the lat.i.tudes just named.

When the river has reached the mouth of the Apure in that very low ground where the slope towards the north is met by the counter-slope towards the south-east, that is to say, by the inclination of the plains which rise imperceptibly towards the mountains of Caracas, the river turns anew and flows eastward. It appeared to me, that it was proper to fix the attention of the reader on these singular inflexions of the Orinoco because, belonging at once to two basins, its course marks, in some sort, even on the most imperfect maps, the direction of that part of the plains intervening between New Grenada and the western border of the mountains of La Parime.

The Llanos or steppes of the Lower Orinoco and of the Meta, like the deserts of Africa, bear different names in different parts. From the mouths of the Dragon the Llanos of c.u.mana, of Barcelona, and of Caracas or Venezuela,* follow, running from east to west. (* The following are subdivisions of these three great Llanos, as I marked them down on the spot. The Llanos of c.u.mana and New Andalusia include those of Maturin and Terecen, of Amana, Guanipa, Jonoro, and Cari. The Llanos of Nueva Barcelona comprise those of Aragua, Pariaguan, and Villa del Pao. We distinguish in the Llanos of Caracas those of Chaguaramas, Uritucu, Calabozo or Guarico, La Portuguesa, San Carlos, and Araure.) Where the steppes turn towards the south and south-south-west, from the lat.i.tude of 8 degrees, between the meridians of 70 and 73 degrees, we find from north to south, the Llanos of Varinas, Casanare, the Meta, Guaviare, Caguau, and Caqueta.*

(* The inhabitants of these plains distinguish as subdivisions, from the Rio Portuguesa to Caqueta, the Llanos of Guanare, Bocono, Nutrius or the Apure, Palmerito near Quintero, Guardalito and Arauca, the Meta, Apiay near the port of Pachaquiaro, Vichada, Guaviare, Arriari, Inirida, the Rio Hacha, and Caguan. The limits between the savannahs and the forests, in the plains that extend from the sources of the Rio Negro to Putumayo, are not sufficiently known.) The plains of Varinas contain some few monuments of the industry of a nation that has disappeared. Between Mijagual and the Cano de la Hacha, we find some real tumuli, called in the country the Serillos de los Indios. They are hillocks in the shape of cones, artificially formed of earth, and probably contain bones, like the tumuli in the steppes of Asia. A fine road is also discovered near Hato de la Calzada, between Varinas and Canagua, five leagues long, made before the conquest, in the most remote times, by the natives. It is a causeway of earth fifteen feet high, crossing a plain often overflowed. Did nations farther advanced in civilization descend from the mountains of Truxillo and Merido to the plains of the Rio Apure? The Indians whom we now find between this river and the Meta, are in too rude a state to think of making roads or raising tumuli.

I calculated the area of these Llanos from the Caqueta to the Apure, and from the Apure to the Delta of the Orinoco, and found it to be seventeen thousand square leagues twenty to a degree. The part running from north to south is almost double that which stretches from east to west, between the Lower Orinoco and the littoral chain of Caracas. The Pampas on the north and north-west of Buenos Ayres, between this city and Cordova, Jujuy, and the Tuc.u.man, are of nearly the same extent as the Llanos; but the Pampas stretch still farther on to the length of 18 degrees southward; and the land they occupy is so vast, that they produce palm-trees at one of their extremities, while the other, equally low and level, is covered with eternal frost.

The Llanos of America, where they extend in the direction of a parallel of the equator, are three-fourths narrower then the great desert of Africa. This circ.u.mstance is very important in a region where the winds constantly blow from east to west. The farther the plains stretch in this direction, the more ardent is their climate.

The great ocean of sand in Africa communicates by Yemen* with Gedrosia and Beloochistan, as far as the right bank of the Indus. (* We cannot be surprised that the Arabic should be richer than any other language of the East in words expressing the ideas of desert, uninhabited plains, and plains covered with gramina. I could give a list of thirty-five of these words, which the Arabian authors employ without always distinguis.h.i.+ng them by the shades of meaning which each separate word expresses. Makadh and kaah indicate, in preference, plains; bakaak, a table-land; kafr, mikfar, smlis, mahk, and habaucer, a naked desert, covered with sand and gravel; tanufah, a steppe. Zahra means at once a naked desert and a savannah. The word steppe, or step, is Russian, and not Tartarian. In the Turco-Tartar dialect a heath is called tala or tschol. The word gobi, which Europeans have corrupted into cobi, signifies in the Mongol tongue a naked desert. It is equivalent to the scha-mo or khan-hai of the Chinese. A steppe, or plain covered with herbs, is in Mongol, kudah; in Chinese, kouana.) It is from the effect of winds that have pa.s.sed over the deserts situated to the east, that the little basin of the Red Sea, surrounded by plains which send forth from all sides radiant caloric, is one of the hottest regions of the globe. The unfortunate captain Tuckey relates,*

(* Expedition to explore the river Zahir, 1818.) that the centigrade thermometer keeps there generally in the night at 34 degrees, and by day from 40 to 44 degrees. We shall soon see that, even in the westernmost part of the steppes of Caracas, we seldom found the temperature of the air, in the shade, above 37 degrees.