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Title: Views of nature: or Contemplations on the sublime phenomena of creation; with scientific illustrations
Author: Humboldt, Alexander von
Language: English
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[Illustration:
BAXTERS PATENT OIL COLOR PRINTING
XI, NORTHAMPTON SQUARE
CHIMBORAZO
]
VIEWS OF NATURE:
THE SUBLIME PHENOMENA OF CREATION;
WITH
SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS.
BY
ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY E. C. OTTÉ, AND HENRY G. BOHN.
WITH A FRONTISPIECE FROM A SKETCH BY THE AUTHOR, A FAC-SIMILE OF HIS
HAND-WRITING, AND A COMPREHENSIVE INDEX.
LONDON:
HENRY G. BOHN, YORK STREET, COVENT GARDEN.
1850.
PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SONS,
LONDON GAZETTE OFFICE, ST. MARTIN’s LANE.
PREFACE BY THE PUBLISHER.
Great pains have been taken with the present translation, as well in
regard to fidelity and style, as in what may be termed the accessories.
In addition to all that is contained in the original work, it comprises
an interesting view of Chimborazo, from a sketch by Humboldt himself; a
fac-simile of the author’s handwriting; head-lines of contents;
translations of the principal Latin, French, and Spanish quotations;[A]
a very complete index; and a conversion of all the foreign measurements.
It was at first intended to give both the foreign and English
measurements, in juxta-position; but this plan was abandoned on
perceiving that the pages would become overloaded with figures, and
present a perplexing and somewhat appalling aspect, without affording
any equivalent advantage to the English reader. In some few instances,
however, where it seemed desirable, and in all the parallel tables,
duplicate measurements have been inserted. The French _toises_ are
converted into their relative number of English feet; and German miles,
whether simple or square, are reduced to our own. The longitudes have
been calculated from Greenwich, conformably to English maps, in lieu of
those given by Humboldt, which are calculated from Paris. The degrees of
temperature, instead of Reaumur’s, are Fahrenheit’s, as now the most
generally recognised.
It here becomes necessary to say something of the translators, and the
cause of so much unexpected delay in producing this volume; the more so
as many of the subscribers to the Scientific Library have expressed an
interest in the subject, owing, in some measure, to a controversy which
arose out of my previous publication of _Cosmos_. The translation was
originally entrusted to E. C. Otté, with an agreement as to time,
according to which I had every reason to expect that I should fulfil my
engagement to publish it in October last, or at latest in November; but,
after much of the manuscript was prepared, the translator’s
indisposition and subsequent absence from London, occasioned a serious
suspension. In this dilemma I found it necessary to call in aid, as well
as to assist personally. The result of this “co-operation of forces”
will no doubt prove satisfactory to the reader, inasmuch as every sheet
has been at least trebly revised, and it is hoped proportionably
improved. In addition to the responsible translator, my principal
collaborateur has been Mr. E. H. Whitelocke, a gentleman well qualified
for the task.
All the measurements are calculated by the scientific friend, who
fulfilled this department so satisfactorily in my edition of _Cosmos_.
The translation of the pretty poem, _The Parrot of Atures_, (page 189,)
now first given in English, is contributed by Mr. Edgar A. Bowring.
For the additional notes subscribed “ED.” I am myself, in most
instances, responsible.
Much has been said, pro and con, about the sanction of the Author to the
several translations of his works. My answer has, I believe, been
generally considered satisfactory and conclusive. I have now only to
add, that when I wrote to Baron Humboldt, more than a year and a-half
ago, presenting him with my then unpublished edition of _Cosmos_, I
announced my intention of proceeding with his other works, and consulted
him on the subject. He replied in the kindest spirit, without intimating
any previous engagement, and honoured me with several valuable
suggestions. A portion of one of his letters is annexed in fac-simile.
In consequence of what I then presumed to be his recommendation, I
determined to make the _Ansichten_ my next volume, and announced it,
long before any one else, though not at first by its English name. At
that time I had reason to hope that I should receive the new German
edition at least as early as any one, but was disappointed. This
circumstance, added to the delay already alluded to, has brought me late
into the field. In now, however, presenting my subscribers with what I
have taken every available means to render a perfect book, I hope I
shall afford them ample atonement.
A few words respecting the work itself. The first edition was published
forty-three years ago, the second in 1826, and the third, of which the
present volume is a translation, in August last. The difference between
the three editions in respect to the text (if I may so distinguish the
more entertaining part of the work from the scientific “Illustrations”)
is not material, excepting that each has one or more new chapters. Thus
to the second edition was added the _Essay on Volcanos_ and the curious
allegory on vital force, entitled _The Rhodian Genius_, and to the third
_The Plateau of Caxamarca_.
The additions to the “Illustrations” however in the third edition are
considerable, and comprise a rapid sketch of whatever has been
contributed by modern science in illustration of the Author’s favourite
subjects.
No intellectual reader can peruse this masterly work without intense
interest and considerable instruction. After feasting on the highly
wrought and, it may be said, poetical descriptions, written in the
Author’s earlier years, he will turn with increased zest to the
elaborate illustrations, which, in a separate form, are brought to bear
on every subject of the text. This scientific portion, although not at
first the most attractive, presents many delightful episodes, which will
amply repay the perusal of even those who merely read for amusement.
HENRY G. BOHN.
_York Street, January, 1850._
AUTHOR’S PREFACE,
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
With some diffidence, I here present to the public a series of papers
which originated in the presence of the noblest objects of nature,—on
the Ocean,—in the forests of the Orinoco,—in the Savannahs of
Venezuela,—and in the solitudes of the Peruvian and Mexican Mountains.
Several detached fragments, written on the spot, have since been wrought
into a whole. A survey of nature at large,—proofs of the co-operation of
forces,—and a renewal of the enjoyment which the immediate aspect of the
tropical countries affords to the susceptible beholder,—are the objects
at which I aim. Each Essay was designed to be complete in itself; and
one and the same tendency pervades the whole. This æsthetic mode of
treating subjects of Natural History is fraught with great difficulties
in the execution, notwithstanding the marvellous vigour and flexibility
of my native language. The wonderful luxuriance of nature presents an
accumulation of separate images, and accumulation disturbs the harmony
and effect of a picture. When the feelings and the imagination are
excited, the style is apt to stray into poetical prose. But these ideas
require no amplification here, for the following pages afford but too
abundant examples of such deviations and of such want of unity.
Notwithstanding these defects, which I can more easily perceive than
amend, let me hope that these “Views” may afford the reader, at least
some portion of that enjoyment which a sensitive mind receives from the
immediate contemplation of nature. As this enjoyment is heightened by an
insight into the connection of the occult forces, I have subjoined to
each treatise scientific illustrations and additions.
Everywhere the reader’s attention is directed to the perpetual influence
which physical nature exercises on the moral condition and on the
destiny of man. It is to minds oppressed with care that these pages are
especially consecrated. He who has escaped from the stormy waves of life
will joyfully follow me into the depths of the forests, over the
boundless steppes and prairies, and to the lofty summits of the Andes.
To him are addressed the words of the chorus who preside over the
destinies of mankind:
On the mountains is freedom! the breath of decay
Never sullies the fresh flowing air;
Oh! nature is perfect wherever we stray;
’Tis man that deforms it with care.[B]
AUTHOR’S PREFACE,
TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS.
The twofold object of this work,—an anxious endeavour to heighten the
enjoyment of nature by vivid representations, and at the same time to
increase, according to the present state of science, the reader’s
insight into the harmonious co-operation of forces,—was pointed out by
me in the preface to the first edition, nearly half a century ago. I
there alluded to the several obstacles which oppose themselves to the
æsthetic treatment of the grand scenes of nature. The combination of a
literary and a purely scientific aim, the desire to engage the
imagination, and at the same time to enrich life with new ideas by the
increase of knowledge, render the due arrangement of the separate parts,
and what is required as unity of composition, difficult of attainment.
Notwithstanding these disadvantages, however, the public have continued
to receive with indulgent partiality, my imperfect performance.
The second edition of the _Views of Nature_, was published by me in
Paris in 1826. Two papers were then added, one, “An inquiry into the
structure and mode of action of Volcanos in different regions of the
earth;” the other, “Vital Force, or The Rhodian Genius.” Schiller, in
remembrance of his youthful medical studies, loved to converse with me,
during my long stay at Jena, on physiological subjects. The inquiries in
which I was then engaged, in preparing my work “On the condition of the
fibres of muscles and nerves, when irritated by contact with substances
chemically opposed,” often imparted a more serious direction to our
conversation. It was at this period that I wrote the little allegory on
Vital Force, called The Rhodian Genius. The predilection which Schiller
entertained for this piece, and which he admitted into his periodical,
_Die Horen_, gave me courage to introduce it here. My brother, in a
letter which has recently been published (William von Humboldt’s Letters
to a Female Friend, vol. ii. p. 39), delicately alludes to the subject,
but at the same time very justly adds; “The development of a
physiological idea is exclusively the object of the essay. Such
semi-poetical clothings of grave truths were more in vogue at the time
this was written than they are at present.”
In my eightieth year I have still the gratification of completing a
third edition of my work, and entirely remoulding it to meet the demands
of the age. Almost all the scientific illustrations are either enlarged
or replaced by new and more comprehensive ones.
I have indulged a hope of stimulating the study of nature, by
compressing into the smallest possible compass, the numerous results of
careful investigation on a variety of interesting subjects, with a view
of shewing the importance of accurate numerical data, and the necessity
of comparing them with each other, as well as to check the dogmatic
smattering and fashionable scepticism which have too long prevailed in
the so-called higher circles of society.
My expedition into northern Asia (to the Ural, the Altai, and the shores
of the Caspian Sea) in the year 1829, with Ehrenberg and Gustavus Rose,
at the command of the Emperor of Russia, took place between the second
and third editions of my work. This expedition has essentially
contributed to the enlargement of my views in all that concerns the
formation of the earth’s surface, the direction of mountain-chains, the
connexion of the Steppes and Deserts, and the geographical distribution
of plants according to ascertained influences of temperature. The
ignorance which has so long existed respecting the two great
snow-covered mountain-chains, the Thian-schan and the Kuen-lün, situated
between the Altai and Himalaya, has (owing to the injudicious neglect of
Chinese sources of information) obscured the geography of Central Asia,
and propagated fancies instead of facts, in works of extensive
circulation. Within the last few months the hypsometric comparisons of
the culminating points of both continents have unexpectedly received
important and corrective illustration, of which I am the first to avail
myself in the following pages. The measurement (now divested of former
errors) of the altitude of the two mountains, Sorata and Illimani, in
the eastern chain of the Andes of Bolivia, has not yet, with certainty,
restored the Chimborazo to its ancient pre-eminence among the snowy
mountains of the new world. In the Himalaya the recent barometric
measurement of the Kinchinjinga (26,438 Parisian, or 28,178 English
feet) places it next in height to the Dhawalagiri, which has also been
trigonometrically measured with greater accuracy.
To preserve uniformity with the two former editions of the _Views of
Nature_, the calculations of temperature, unless where the contrary is
stated, are given according to the eighty degrees thermometer of Reamur.
The lineal measurement is the old French, in which the _toise_ is
equivalent to six Parisian feet. The miles are geographical, fifteen to
a degree of the equator. The longitudes are calculated from the first
meridian of the Parisian Observatory.
_Berlin, March, 1849._
CONTENTS
Page
PUBLISHER’S PREFACE v
AUTHOR’S PREFACE, TO THE FIRST EDITION ix
AUTHOR’S PREFACE, TO THE SECOND AND THIRD EDITIONS xi
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS xvii
STEPPES AND DESERTS 1
Illustrations and Additions 22
CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO 153
Illustrations and Additions 174
NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST 191
Illustrations and Additions 202
Hypsometric Addenda 204
IDEAS FOR A PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS 210
Illustrations and Additions 232
ON THE STRUCTURE AND MODE OF ACTION OF VOLCANOS IN DIFFERENT PARTS
OF THE EARTH 353
Illustrations and Additions 376
VITAL FORCE, OR THE RHODIAN GENIUS 380
Illustration and Note 386
THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA, the Ancient Capital of the Inca
Atahuallpa, and First View of the Pacific from the Ridge of the
Andes 390
Illustrations and Additions 421
INDEX 437
[Illustration:
=FAC-SIMILE OF THE HAND-WRITING OF BARON HUMBOLDT.=
EXTRACTS OF A LETTER TO THE PUBLISHER.
]
SUMMARY OF CONTENTS.
ON STEPPES AND DESERTS pp. 1–21.
Coast-chain and mountain-valleys of Caracas. The Lake of Tacarigua.
Contrast between the luxuriant abundance of organic life and the
treeless plains. Impressions of space. The steppe as the bottom of an
ancient inland sea. Broken strata lying somewhat above the surface,
and called Banks. Uniformity of phenomena presented by plains. Heaths
of Europe, Pampas and Llanos of South America, African deserts, North
Asiatic Steppes. Diversified character of the vegetable covering.
Animal life. Pastoral tribes, who have convulsed the world—pp. 1–5.
Description of the South American plains and savannahs. Their extent
and climate, the latter dependant on the outline and hypsometrical
configuration of the New Continent. Comparison with plains and deserts
of Africa—pp. 5–10. Original absence of pastoral life in America.
Nutriment yielded by the Mauritia Palm. Pendant huts built in trees.
Guaranes—pp. 10–13.
The Llanos have become more habitable to man since the discovery of
America. Remarkable increase of wild Oxen, Horses, and Mules.
Description of the seasons of drought and rain. Aspect of the ground
and sky. Life of animals; their sufferings and combats. Adaptability
with which nature has endowed animals and plants. Jaguar, Crocodiles,
Electric Fishes. Unequal contest between gymnoti and horses—pp. 13–19.
Retrospective view of the districts which border steppes and deserts.
Wilderness of the forest-region between the Orinoco and Amazon rivers.
Native tribes separated by wonderful diversity both of language and
customs; a toiling and divided race. Figures graven on rocks prove
that even these solitudes were once the seat of a civilization now
extinct—pp. 19–21.
SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS pp. 22–152.
The island-studded Lake of Tacarigua. Its relation to the
mountain-chains. Geognostic tableau. Progress of civilization.
Varieties of the sugar-cane. Cacao plantations. Great fertility of
soil within the tropics accompanied by great atmospheric
insalubrity.—pp. 22–26.
Banks, or broken floetz-strata. General flatness. Land-slips—pp.
26–28.
Resemblance of the distant steppe to the ocean. Naked stony crust,
tabular masses of syenite; have they a detrimental effect on the
atmosphere?—pp. 28–29.
Modern views on the mountain systems of the two American peninsulas.
Chains, which have a direction from S.W. to N.E., in Brazil and in the
Atlantic portion of the United States of North America. Depression of
the Province of Chiquitos; ridges as watermarks between the Guaporé
and Aguapehi in 15° and 17° south lat., and between the fluvial
districts of the Orinoco and Rio Negro in 2° and 3° north lat.—pp.
29–31.
Continuation of the Andes-chain north of the isthmus of Panamá through
the territory of the Aztecs, (where the Popocatepetl, recently
ascended by Capt. Stone, rises to an altitude of 17,720 feet,) and
through the Crane and Rocky Mountains. Valuable scientific
investigations of Capt. Frémont. The greatest barometric levelling
ever accomplished, representing a profile of the ground over 28° of
longitude. Culminating point of the route from the coast of the
Atlantic to the South Sea. The South Pass southward of the Wind-River
Mountains. Swelling of the ground in the Great Basin. Long disputed
existence of Lake Timpanogos. Coast-chain, Maritime Alps, Sierra
Nevada of California. Volcanic eruptions. Cataracts of the Columbia
River—pp. 31–38.
General considerations on the contrast between the configuration of
the territorial spaces, presented by the two diverging coast-chains,
east and west of the central chain, called the Rocky Mountains.
Hypsometric constitution of the Eastern Lowland, which is only from
400 to somewhat more than 600 feet above the level of the sea, and of
the arid uninhabited plateau of the Great Basin, from 5000 to more
than 6000 feet high. Sources of the Mississippi in Lake Istaca
according to Nicollet, whose labours are most meritorious. Native land
of the Bisons; their ancient domestication in Northern Mexico asserted
by Gomara—pp. 38–42.
Retrospective view of the entire Andes-chain from the cliff of Diego
Ramirez to Behring’s Straits. Long prevalent errors concerning the
height of the eastern Andes-chain of Bolivia, especially of the Sorata
and Illimani. Four summits of the western chain, which, according to
Pentland’s latest determinations, surpass the Chimborazo in height,
but not the still-active volcano, Aconcagua, measured by Fitz-Roy—pp.
42–44.
The African mountain range of Harudje-el-Abiad. Oases of vegetation,
abounding in springs—pp. 44–46.
Westerly winds on the borders of the desert Sahara. Accumulation of
sea-weed; present and former position of the great fucus-bank, from
the time of Scylax of Caryanda to that of Columbus and to the present
period—pp. 46–50.
Tibbos and Tuaryks. The camel and its distribution—pp. 50–53.
Mountain-systems of Central Asia between Northern Siberia and India,
between the Altai and the Himalaya, which latter range is aggregated
with the Kuen-lün. Erroneous opinion as to the existence of one
immense plateau, the so-called “Plateau de la Tartarie”—pp. 53–56.
Chinese literature a rich source of orographic knowledge. Gradations
of the High Lands. Gobi and its direction. Probable mean height of
Thibet—pp. 56–63.
General review of the mountain systems of Asia. Meridian chains: the
Ural, which separates lower Europe from lower Asia or the Scythian
Europe of Pherecydes of Syros and Herodotus. Bolor, Khingan, and the
Chinese chains, which at the great bend of the Thibetan and
Assam-Burmese river, Dzangbo-tschu, stretch from north to south. The
meridian elevations alternate between the parallels of 66° and 77°
east long. from Cape Comorin to the Frozen Ocean, like displaced
veins. Thus the Ghauts, the Soliman chain, the Paralasa, the Bolor,
and the Ural follow from south to north. The Bolor gave rise, among
the ancients, to the idea respecting the Imaus, which Agathodæmon
considered to be prolonged northwards as far as the lowland or basin
of the lower Irtysch. Parallel chains, running east and west, the
Altai, Thian-schan with its active volcanos, which lie 1528 miles
from the frozen ocean at the mouth of the Obi, and 1512 from the
Indian Ocean at the mouth of the Ganges; Kuen-lün, already
recognized by Eratosthenes, Marinus of Tyre, Ptolemy, and Cosmas
Indicopleustes, as the greatest axis of elevation in the Old World,
between 35½° and 36° lat. in the direction of the diaphragm of
Dicæarchus. Himalaya. The Kuen-lün may be traced, when considered as
an axis of elevation, from the Chinese wall near Lung-tscheu,
through the somewhat more northerly chains of Nan-schan and
Kilian-schan, through the mountain node of the “Starry Sea,” the
Hindoo Cush (the Paropanisus and Indian Caucasus of the ancients),
and, lastly, through the chain of the Demavend and Persian Elburz,
as far as the Taurus in Lycia. Not far from the intersection of the
Kuen-lün by the Bolor, the corresponding direction of the axes of
elevation (inclining from east to west in the Kuen-lün and Hindoo
Cush, and on the other hand south-east and north-west in the
Himalaya) proves, that the Hindoo Cush is a prolongation of the
Kuen-lün, and not of the Himalaya which is associated to the latter
in the manner of a gang or vein. The point where the Himalaya
changes its direction, that is to say, where it leaves its former
east-westerly direction, lies not far from 81° east long. The
Djawahir is not, as has hitherto been supposed, the next in altitude
to the Dhawalagiri, which is the highest summit of the Himalaya;
for, according to Joseph Hooker, this rank is due to a mountain
lying in the meridian of Sikhim between Butan and Nepaul, called the
Kinchinjinga or Kintschin-Dschunga. This mountain (Kinchinjinga)
measured by Col. Waugh, Director of the Trigonometrical Survey of
India, has for its western summit an altitude of 28,178 feet, and
for its eastern 27,826 feet, according to the _Journal of the
Asiatic Soc. of Bengal_, November, 1848. The mountain, now
considered higher than the Dhawalagiri, is represented in the
engraving to the title-page of Joseph Hooker’s splendid work, _The
Rhododendrons of Sikkim Himalaya_, 1849. Determination of the
snow-limits on the northern and southern slopes of the Himalaya; the
former lies in the mean about 3620 up to 4900 feet higher. New
statements of Hodgson. But for the remarkable distribution of heat
in the upper strata of the air, the table-land of western Thibet
would be uninhabitable to millions of human beings—pp. 63–80.
The Hiongnu, whom Deguignes and John Müller considered to be a tribe
of Huns, appear rather to be one of the widely spread Turkish races of
the Altai and Tangnu mountains. The Huns, whose name was known even to
Dionysius Periegetes, and who are described by Ptolemy as Chuns (hence
the later territorial name of Chunigard!) are a Finnish tribe, from
the Ural mountains, which separate the two continents—pp. 80–81.
Representations of the sun, animals, and characters, graven on rocks
at Sierra Parime, as well as in North America, have frequently been
regarded as writing—p. 82.
Description of the cold mountain regions between 11,000 and 13,000
Parisian, or 11,720 and 13,850 English feet in height, which have been
designated Paramos. Character of their vegetation—p. 83.
Orographic remarks on the two mountain clusters (Pacaraima and Sierra
de Chiquitos) which separate the three plains of the lower Orinoco,
the Amazon, and La Plata rivers from each other—p. 84.
Concerning the Dogs of the New Continent, the aboriginal as well as
those from Europe, which have become wild. Sufferings of Cats at
heights surpassing 13,854 feet—pp. 85–88.
The Low Land of the Sahara and its relations to the Atlas range,
according to the latest reports of Daumas, Carette, and Renou. The
barometric measurements of Fournel render it very probable, that part
of the north African desert lies below the level of the sea. Oasis of
Biscara. Abundance of rock-salt in regions which extend from S.W. to
N.E. Causes of nocturnal cold in the desert, according to Melloni—pp.
88–92. Information respecting the River Wadi Dra (one-sixth longer
than the Rhine), which is dry during a great part of the year. Some
account of the territory of the Sheikh Beirouk, who is independent of
the Emperor of Morocco, according to manuscript communications of
Capt. Count Bouet Villaumez, of the French Marine. The mountains north
of Cape Nun (an Edrisian name, in which by a play of words a negation
has been assumed since the 15th century) attain an altitude of 9186
feet—pp. 92–94.
Gramineous vegetation of the American Llanos between the tropics,
compared with the herbaceous vegetation of the Steppes in Northern
Asia. In these, especially in the most fertile of them, a pleasing
effect is afforded in spring by the small snow-white and red flowering
Rosaceæ, Amygdaleæ, the species of Astragalus, Crown-imperial,
Cypripedias, and Tulips. Contrast with the desert of the salt-steppes
full of Chenopodiæ, and of species of Salsola and Atriplex. Numerical
considerations with respect to the predominant families. The plains
which skirt the Frozen Ocean (north of what Admiral Wrangel has
described as the boundary of Coniferæ and Amentaceæ), are the domain
of cryptogamic plants. Physiognomy of the Tundra on an ever-frozen
soil, covered with a thick coating of Sphagnum and other foliaceous
mosses, or with the snow-white Cenomyce and Stereocaulon paschale—pp.
94–96.
Chief causes of the very unequal distribution of heat in the European
and American continents. Direction and inflection of the isothermal
lines (equal mean-heat of the year, in winter and summer)—pp. 96–105.
Is there reason to believe that America emerged later from the chaotic
covering of waters?—pp. 105–107. Thermal comparison between the
northern and southern hemispheres in high latitudes—pp. 107–109.
Apparent connexion between the sand-seas of Africa, Persia, Kerman,
Beloochistan, and Central Asia. On the western portion of the Atlas,
and the connection of purely mythical ideas, with geographical
legends. Indefinite allusions to fiery eruptions. Triton Lake. Crater
forms, south of Hanno’s “Bay of the Gorilla Apes.” Singular
description of the Hollow Atlas, from the Dialexes of Maximus
Tyrius—pp. 110–11.
Explanations of the Mountains of the Moon (Djebel-al-Komr) in the
interior of Africa, according to Reinaud, Beke, and Ayrton. Werne’s
instructive report of the second expedition, which was undertaken by
command of Mehemet Ali. The Abyssinian high mountain chain, which,
according to Rüppell, attains nearly the height of Mont Blanc. The
earliest account of the snow between the tropics is contained in the
inscription of Adulis, which is of a somewhat later date than Juba.
Lofty mountains, which between 6° and 4°, and even more southerly,
approach the Bahr-el-Abiad. A considerable rise of ground separates
the White Nile from the basin of the Goschop. Line of separation
between the waters which flow towards the Mediterranean and Indian
seas, according to Carl Zimmermann’s map. Lupata chain, according to
the instructive researches of Wilhelm Peters—pp. 114–120.
Oceanic currents. In the northern part of the Atlantic the waters are
agitated in a true rotatory movement. That the first impulse to the
Gulf-stream is to be looked for at the southern apex of Africa, was a
fact already known to Sir Humphrey Gilbert in 1560. Influence of the
Gulf-stream on the climate of Scandinavia. How it contributed to the
discovery of America. Instances of Esquimaux, who, favoured by
north-west winds, have been carried, through the returning easterly
inclined portion of the warm gulf-stream, to the European coasts.
Information of Cornelius Nepos and Pomponius Mela respecting Indians,
whom a King of the Boii sent as a present to the Gallic Proconsul
Quintus Metellus Celer; and again of others in the times of the Othos,
Frederick Barbarossa, Columbus, and Cardinal Bembo. Again, in the
years 1682 and 1684, natives of Greenland appeared at the Orkney
Islands—pp. 120–125.
Effects of lichens and other cryptogamia in the frigid and temperate
zones, in promoting the growth of the larger phanerogamia. In the
tropics the preparatory ground-lichens often find substitutes in the
oleaginous plants. Lactiferous animals of the New Continent; the
Llama, Alpaca, and Guanaco—pp. 125–128. Culture of farinaceous
grasses—pp. 128–131. On the earliest population of America—pp.
131–134.
The coast-tribe the Guaranes (Warraus), and the littoral palm
Mauritia, according to Bembo, Raleigh, Hillhouse, Robert and Richard
Schomburgk—pp. 134–136.
Phenomena produced in the Steppe by a long drought. Sand-spouts, hot
winds, deceptive images by aërial refraction (mirage). The awaking of
crocodiles and tortoises after a long summer sleep—pp. 136–142.
Otomaks. General considerations respecting the earth-eating of certain
tribes. Unctuous and Infusorial earths—pp. 142–146.
Carved Figures on rocks, which form a belt running east and west from
the Rupunuri, Essequibo, and mountains of Pacaraima, to the solitudes
of the Cassiquiare. Earliest observation (April, 1749) of such traces
of an ancient civilization, in the unpublished travels of the Surgeon
Nicolas Hortsmann, of Hildesheim, found among d’Anville’s papers—pp.
147–151.
The vegetable poison Curare, or Urari—pp. 151–152.
ON THE CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO, NEAR ATURES AND MAYPURES pp. 153–173.
The Orinoco, general view of its course. Ideas excited in the mind of
Columbus on beholding its mouth. Its unknown sources lie to the east
of the lofty Duida and of the thickets of Bertholletia. Cause of the
principal bends of the river—pp. 153–162. The Falls. Raudal of
Maypures, bounded by four streams. Former state of the region. Insular
form of the rocks Keri and Oco. Grand spectacle displayed on
descending the hill Manimi. A foaming surface, several miles in
extent, suddenly presents itself to view. Iron-black masses of
tower-like rocks rise precipitately from the bed of the river; the
summits of the lofty palms pierce through the clouds of vapoury
spray—pp. 162–168.
Raudal of Atures, another island-world. Rock-dykes, connecting one
island with the other. They are the resort of the pugnacious,
golden-coloured rock manakin. Some parts of the river-bed in the
cataracts are dry, in consequence of the waters having formed for
themselves a channel through subterranean cavities. Visit to these
parts on the approach of night, during a heavy thunder-storm.
Unsuspected propinquity of crocodiles—pp. 168–171. The celebrated cave
of Ataruipe, the grave of an extinct tribe—pp. 171–173.
SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS pp. 174–190.
Abode of the river-cow (_Trichecus Manati_) in the sea, at the spot
where, in the Gulf of Xagua on the southern coast of the Island of
Cuba, springs of fresh water gush forth—pp. 174, 175.
Geographical illustration of the sources of the Orinoco—pp. 175–179.
Juvia (_Bertholletia_), a Lecythidea, remarkable as an instance of
lofty organic development. Haulm of an Arundinaria upwards of sixteen
feet from joint to joint—pp. 179–180.
On the fabulous Lake Parime—pp. 180–188.
The Parrot of Atures, a poem by Ernst Curtius. The bird lived in
Maypures, and the natives declared that he was not understood, because
he spoke the language of the extinct Aturian tribe—pp. 188–190.
NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS IN THE PRIMEVAL FOREST pp. 191–201.
Difference in the richness of languages as regards precise and
definite words for characterizing natural phenomena, such as the state
of vegetation and the forms of plants, the contour and grouping of
clouds, the appearance of the earth’s surface, and the shape of
mountains. Loss which languages sustain in such expressive words. The
misinterpretation of a Spanish word has enlarged mountain-chains on
maps, and created new ranges. PRIMEVAL FOREST. Frequent misuse of this
term. Want of uniformity in the association of the arboral species is
characteristic of the forests within the tropics. Causes of their
imperviousness. The Climbing plants (_Lianes_) often form but a very
inconsiderable portion of the underwood—pp. 191–196.
Aspect of the Rio Apure in its lower course. Margin of the forest
fenced like a garden by a low hedge of Sauso (_Hermesia_). The wild
animals of the forest issue with their young through solitary gaps, to
approach the river-side. Herds of large Capybaræ, or Cavies.
Fresh-water dolphins—pp. 196–199. The cries of wild animals resound
through the forest. Cause of the nocturnal noises—pp. 199–200.
Contrast to the repose which reigns at noontide on very hot days
within the tropics. Description of the rocky narrows of the Orinoco at
the Baraguan. Buzzing and humming of insects; in every shrub, in the
cracked bark of trees, in the perforated earth, furrowed by
hymenopterous insects, life is audible and manifest—pp. 200–201.
SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS pp. 202–203.
Characteristic denominations of the surface of the earth (Steppes,
Savannahs, Prairies, Deserts) in the Arabic and Persian. Richness of
the dialects of Old Castile for designating the forms of mountains.
Fresh-water rays and fresh-water dolphins. In the giant streams of
both continents some organic sea-forms are repeated. American
nocturnal apes with cat’s eyes; the tricoloured striped Douroucoali of
the Cassiquiare—pp. 202–203.
HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA pp. 204–209.
Pentland’s measurements in the eastern mountain-chain of Bolivia.
Volcano of Aconcagua, according to Fitz-Roy and Darwin. Western
mountain-chain of Bolivia—pp. 204–205. Mountain systems of North
America. Rocky Mountains and snowy chain of California. Laguna de
Timpanogos—pp. 205–207. Hypsometric profile of the Highland of Mexico
as far as Santa Fé—pp. 207–209.
IDEAS FOR A PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS pp. 210–231.
Universal profusion of life on the slopes of the highest mountain
summits, in the ocean and in the atmosphere. Subterranean Flora.
Siliceous-shelled polygastrica in masses of ice at the pole. Podurellæ
in the ice tubules of the glaciers of the Alps; the glacier-flea
(_Desoria glacialis_). Minute organisms of the dust fogs—pp. 210–213.
History of the vegetable covering. Gradual extension of vegetation
over the naked crust of rock. Lichens, mosses, oleaginous plants.
Cause of the present absence of vegetation in certain districts.—pp.
213–220.
Each zone has its peculiar character. All animal and vegetable
conformation is bound to fixed and ever-recurring types. Physiognomy
of Nature. Analysis of the combined effect produced by a region. The
individual elements of this impression. Outline of the mountain
ranges; azure of the sky; shape of the clouds. That which chiefly
determines the character is the vegetable covering. Animal
organizations are deficient in mass; the mobility of individual
species, and often their diminutiveness, conceals them from view—pp.
220–223.
Enumeration of the forms of Plants which principally determine the
physiognomy of Nature, and which increase or diminish from the equator
towards the Pole, in obedience to established laws—
Text. Illustrations.
Palms pp. 223–224 pp. 296–304
Banana form p. 224 p. 305
Malvaceæ p. 224 pp. 305–307
Mimosæ p. 225 pp. 307–308
Ericeæ p. 225 pp. 308–310
Cactus form p. 226 pp. 310–312
Form of Orchideæ p. 226 pp. 312–313
Casuarinæ p. 226 pp. 313–314
Acicular-leaved Trees p. 227 pp. 314–329
Pothos form, and that of the Aroideæ p. 227 pp. 329–331
Lianes and Climbing plants pp. 227–228 pp. 331–332
Aloes p. 228 pp. 332–334
Grass form p. 228 pp. 334–337
Ferns p. 229 pp. 337–341
Lilies p. 229 pp. 341–343
Willow form p. 229 p. 343
Myrtles p. 229 pp. 343–346
Melastomaceæ p. 229 p. 346
Laurel form p. 229 p. 346
Enjoyment resulting from the natural grouping and contrasts of these
plant-forms. Importance of the physiognomical study of plants to the
landscape-painter—pp. 229–231.
SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS pp. 232–352.
Organisms, both animal and vegetable, in the highest Alpine regions,
near the line of eternal snow, in the Andes chain, and the Alps;
insects are carried up involuntarily by the ascending current of air.
The small field-mouse (_Hypudæus nivalis_) of the Swiss Alps. On the
real height to which the Chinchilla laniger mounts in Chili—pp.
232–233.
Lecideæ, Parmeliæ on rocks not entirely covered with snow; but certain
phanerogamic plants also stray in the Cordilleras beyond the boundary
of perpetual snow, thus Saxifraga Boussingaulti to 15,773 feet above
the level of the sea. Groups of phanerogamic Alpine plants in the
Andes chain at from 13,700 to nearly 15,000 feet high. Species of
Culcitium, Espeletia, Ranunculus, and small moss-like umbellifera,
Myrrhis andicola, and Fragosa arctioides—pp. 233–234. Measurement of
Chimborazo, and etymology of the name—pp. 234–236. On the greatest
absolute height to which men in both continents, in the Cordilleras
and the Himalaya,—on the Chimborazo and Tarhigang—have as yet
ascended—p. 236.
Economy, habitat, and singular mode of capturing the Condor (_Cuntur_,
in the Inca language) by means of palisades—pp. 237–239. Use of the
Gallinazos (_Cathartes urubu_ and _C. aura_) in the economy of nature,
for purifying of the air in the neighbourhood of human dwellings;
their domestication—pp. 239–240.
On the so-called revivification of the rotifera, according to
Ehrenberg and Doyère; according to Payen, germs of Cryptogamia retain
their power of reproduction in the highest temperature—pp. 240–241.
Diminution, if not total suspension, of organic functions in the
winter-sleep of the higher classes of animals—p. 242. Summer-sleep of
animals in the tropics. Drought acts like the cold of winter. Tenrecs,
Crocodiles, Tortoises, and East-African Lepidosirens—pp. 242–244.
Pollen, Fructification of Plants. The experience of many years
concerning the Cœlebogyne; it brings forth mature seeds in England
without a trace of male organs—pp. 244–245.
The phosphorescence of the Ocean through luminous animals as well as
organic fibres and membranes of the decomposing animalculæ. Acalephæ
and siliceous-shelled luminous infusoria. Influence of nervous
irritability on the coruscation—pp. 245–250.
Pentastoma, inhabiting the lungs of the rattle-snake of Cumana—p. 251.
Rock-constructing Coral animals. The structure surviving the
architects. More correct views of the present period. Coast-reefs,
Reefs surrounding islands and Lagoon-islands. Atolls, Coral walls
inclosing a lagoon. The royal gardens of Christopher Columbus, The
Coral Islands south of Cuba. The living gelatinous coating of the
calcareous fabric of the coral-stems allures fishes in quest of food,
and also turtles. Singular mode of fishing with the Remora, _Echeneis
Naucrates_ (the little angling fish)—pp. 251–258.
Probable depth of the coralline structures—pp. 258–260. Besides a
great quantity of carbonate of lime and magnesia, the madrepores and
Astreæ contain also some fluoric and phosphoric acid—pp. 260–261.
Oscillating state of the sea-bottom according to Darwin—pp. 261–262.
Irruptions of the sea. Mediterranean Sea. Sluice-theory of Strato.
Samothracian legends. The Myth of Lyctonia and the submerged
Atlantis—pp. 262–266. Concerning the precipitation of clouds—p. 266.
The indurating crust of the earth while giving out caloric. Heated
currents of air, which in the primordial period, during the frequent
corrugations of the mountainous strata, and the upheaval of lands,
have poured into the atmosphere through temporary fissures and
chasms—pp. 266–268.
Colossal size and great age of certain genera of trees, _e. g._, the
dragon-tree of Orotava of 13, the Adansonia digitata (Baobab) of 33
feet in diameter. Carved characters of the 15th century. Adanson
assigns to certain Baobab-stems of Senegambia an age of from 5000 to
6000 years—pp. 268–273.
According to an estimate based on the number of the annual rings,
there are yews (Taxus baccata) of from 2600 to 3000 years old. Whether
in the temperate northern zone that part of a tree which faces the
north has narrower rings, as Michael Montaigne asserted in 1581?
Gigantic trees, of which some individuals attain a diameter of above
20 feet and an age of several centuries, belong to the most opposite
natural families—pp. 273–274.
Diameter of the Mexican Schubertia disticha of Santa Maria del Tule
43, of the oak near Saintes (Dep. de la Charente inf.) 30 feet. The
age of this oak considered by its annual rings to be from 1800 to 2000
years. The main stem of the rose-tree (27 feet high) at the crypt of
the church of Hildesheim is 800 years old. A species of fucus,
Macrocystis pyrifera, attains a length of more than 350 feet, and
therefore exceeds all the conifera in length, not excepting the
Sequoia gigantea itself—pp. 274–276.
Investigations into the supposed number of the phanerogamic species of
plants, which have hitherto been described or are preserved in
herbariums. Numerical ratios of plant-forms. Discovered laws of the
geographical distribution of the families. Ratios of the great
divisions: of the Cryptogamia to the Cotyledons, and of the
Monocotyledons to the Dicotyledons, in the torrid, temperate, and
frigid zones. Outlines of arithmetical botany. Number of the
individuals, predominance of social plants. The forms of organic
beings stand in mutual dependence on each other. If once the number of
species in one of the great families of the Glumaceæ, Leguminosæ, or
Compositæ, on any one point of the earth, be known, an approximative
conclusion may be arrived at not only as to the number of all the
phanerogamia, but also of the species of all remaining plant-families
growing there. Connection of the numerical ratios here treated on in
the geographical distribution of the families, with the direction of
the isothermal lines. Primitive mystery in the distribution of types.
Absence of Roses in the southern, and of Calceolarias in the northern
zone. Why has our heath (Calluna vulgaris), and why have our Oaks not
progressed eastwards across the Ural into Asia? The vegetation-cycle
of each species requires a certain minimum heat for its due organic
development—pp. 273–287.
Analogy with the numeric laws in the distribution of animal forms. If
more than 35,000 species of phanerogamia are now cultivated in Europe,
and if from 160,000 to 212,000 phanerogamia are now contained,
described and undescribed, in our herbariums; it is probable that the
number of collected insects scarcely equals that number of
phanerogamia; whereas in individual European districts the insects
collected preponderate in a threefold ratio over the phanerogamia—pp.
287–291.
Considerations on the proportion borne by the number of the
phanerogamia actually ascertained, to the entire number existing on
the globe—pp. 291–295.
Influence of the pressure of atmospheric strata on the form and life
of plants, with reference to Alpine vegetation—pp. 295–296.
Specialities on the plant-forms already enumerated. Physiognomy of
plants discussed from three different points of view: the absolute
difference of the forms, their local preponderance in the sum total of
the phanerogamic Floras, and their geographical as well as climatic
dispersion—pp. 296–346. Greatest height of arboral plants; examples of
223 to 246 feet in Pinus Lambertiana and P. Douglasii, of 266 in P.
Strobus, of 300 feet in Sequoia gigantea and Pinus trigona. All these
examples are from the north-western part of the New Continent. The
Araucaria excelsa of Norfolk Island, accurately measured, rises only
from 182 to 223 feet; the Alpine palms of the Cordilleras (Ceroxylon
andicola), only 190 feet—pp. 322–324. A contrast to these gigantic
vegetable forms, presented not merely by the stem of the arctic willow
(Salix arctica, two inches in height,) stunted by cold and exposure on
the mountains, but also in the tropical plains by the Tristicha
hypnoides, a phanerogamic plant which is hardly three French lines
(quarter of an inch) in height, when fully developed—pp. 324–325.
Bursting forth of blossoms from the rough bark of the Crescentia
Cujete, of the Gustavia augusta, from the roots of the Cacao tree. The
largest blossoms borne by the Rafflesia Arnoldi, Aristolochia cordata,
Magnolia, Helianthus annuus—p. 348.
The different forms of plants determine the scenic character of
vegetation in the different zones. Physiognomic classification, or
distribution of the groups according to external facies, is from its
basis of arrangement entirely different from the classification
according to the system of natural families. The physiognomy of plants
is based principally on the so-called organs of vegetation, on which
the preservation of the individual depends; systematic botany bases
the classification of the natural families on the consideration of the
organs of reproduction, on which the preservation of the species
depends—pp. 348–352.
ON THE STRUCTURE AND MODE OF ACTION OF VOLCANOS IN
DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE EARTH— pp. 353–375.
Influence of travels in distant lands on the generalization of our
ideas and on the progress of physical orology. Influence of the
conformation of the Mediterranean on the earliest ideas respecting
volcanic phenomena.—COMPARATIVE GEOLOGY OF VOLCANOS. Periodical return
of certain revolutions in nature, the cause of which lies deep in the
interior of the globe. Proportion of the height of volcanos to that of
their cone of ashes in the Pichincha, Peak of Teneriffe, and Vesuvius.
Changes in the height of volcanic mountain summits. Measurements of
the margins of the crater of Vesuvius from 1773 to 1822; the author’s
measurements embrace the period from 1805 to 1822—pp. 353–365.
Circumstantial description of the eruption in the night between the
24th and 25th of October, 1822. Falling in of a cone of ashes more
than 400 feet high, which stood in the interior of the crater. The
eruption of ashes from the 24th to the 28th of October, was the most
memorable among those, of which authentic accounts are possessed,
since the time of the elder Pliny—pp. 365–371.
Difference between volcanos that are of very diverse forms, with
permanent craters, and the phenomena more rarely observed in historic
times, in which trachytic mountains suddenly open, eject lava and
ashes, and reclose, perhaps for ever. The latter phenomena are
peculiarly instructive for geognosy, because they remind us of the
earliest revolutions that occurred in the oscillating, upheaved,
fissured surface of the earth. In ancient times they led to the notion
of the Pyriphlegethon. Volcanos are intermittent earth-springs, the
result of a permanent or transitory connection between the interior
and exterior of our planet, the result of a reaction of the still
fluid interior against the crust of the earth; hence the question is
useless, as to what chemical substance burns in the volcanos, and
furnishes the material for combustion—pp. 371–373. The primary cause
of subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the formative process
itself, the separation of the conglomerating mass from a cosmic
vaporous fluid. Power and influence of the calorific radiation from
numerous deep fissures, unfilled veins in the primordial world. Great
independence, at that period, of the climate (atmospheric temperature)
in respect to geographical latitude, the position of the planet
towards the central body, the sun. Organisms of the present tropical
world buried in the icy north—pp. 373–375.
SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS pp. 376–379.
Barometric measurements on Vesuvius, comparison of the two
crater-margins and the Rocca del Palo—pp. 376–379. Increase of
temperature with depth, being 1° of Fahrenheit for every 54 feet.
Temperature of the Artesian well in Oeynhausen’s Bath (New Salt-works
near Minden), at the greatest depth yet reached below the level of the
sea. As early as the third century the thermal springs near Carthage
led Patricius, Bishop of Pertusa, to form correct suppositions
respecting the cause of calorific increase in the interior of the
earth—p. 379.
VITAL FORCE, OR THE RHODIAN GENIUS; AN ALLEGORY. pp. 380–385.
ILLUSTRATIONS AND NOTE pp. 386–389.
The Rhodian Genius is the development of a physiological idea in a
mythical garb. Difference of views concerning the necessity and
nonnecessity for the assumption of peculiar vital forces—pp. 386–387.
The difficulty of satisfactorily reducing the vital phenomena of the
organism to physical and chemical laws is, principally, based on the
complexity of the phenomena, on the multiplicity of forces acting
simultaneously, as well as on the varying conditions of their
activity. Definition of the expressions, _animate_ and _inanimate_
matter. Criteria of the miscent state ensuing upon separation, are the
simple enunciation of a fact—pp. 387–389.
THE PLATEAU OF CAXAMARCA, THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA
ATAHUALLPA, AND FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC FROM THE RIDGE
OF THE ANDES. pp. 390–420.
Cinchona, or Quina-woods in the valleys of Loxa. First use of the
fever-bark in Europe; the Vice-Queen Countess of Chinchon—pp. 390–392.
Alpine vegetation of the Paramos. Ruins of ancient Peruvian causeways;
they rise in the Paramo del Assuay almost to the height of Mont
Blanc—p. 394. Singular mode of communication, by a swimming courier—p.
399.
Descent to the Amazon River. Vegetation around Chamaya and Tomependa;
red groves of Bougainvillæa. Rocky ridges which cross the Amazon
River. Cataracts. Narrows of the Pongo de Manseriche, in which the
mighty stream, measured by La Condamine, is hardly 160 feet broad.
Fall of the rocky dam of Rentema, which for several hours, laid bare
the bed of the river, to the terror of the inhabitants on its banks—p.
401.
Passage across the Andes chain, where it is intersected by the
magnetic equator. Ammonites of nearly 15 inches, Echini and Isocardia
of the chalk-formation, collected between Guambos and Montan, nearly
12,800 feet above the sea. Rich silver-mines of Chota. The
picturesque, tower-like Cerro de Gualgayoc. An enormous mass of
filamentous virgin silver in the Pampa de Navar. A treasure of virgin
gold, twined round with filamentous silver, in the shell-field
(Choropampa), so named on account of the numerous fossils. Outbursts
of silver and gold ores in the chalk-formations. The little
mountain-town of Micuipampa lies 11,873 feet above the sea—pp.
402–405.
Across the mountain wilderness of the Paramo de Yanaguanga the
traveller descends into the beautiful embosomed valley or rather
Plateau of Caxamarca (almost at an equal altitude with the city of
Quito). Warm baths of the Inca. Ruins of Atahuallpa’s palace,
inhabited by his indigent descendants, the family of Astorpilca.
Belief entertained there, in the existence of subterranean golden
gardens of the Inca; said to be situated in the lovely valley of
Yucay, under the Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, and at many other points.
Conversation with the son of the Curaca Astorpilca. The room is still
shown in which the unfortunate Atahuallpa was kept prisoner for nine
months, from the November of 1532; also the wall on which he made a
mark to indicate the height to which he would cause the room to be
filled with gold, if his persecutors would set him free. Account of
the prince’s execution on the 29th of August, 1533, and remarks on the
so-called “indelible blood stain” on a stone slab before the altar in
the chapel of the city prison—pp. 406–414. How the hope in a
restoration of the Inca empire, also indulged in by Raleigh, has been
maintained among the natives. Causes of this fanciful belief—p. 414.
Journey from Caxamarca to the sea-coast. Passage across the
Cordilleras through the Altos de Guangamarca. The often disappointed
hope of enjoying the sight of the Pacific from the crest of the Andes,
at last gratified, at a height of 9380 feet—pp. 415–420.
SCIENTIFIC ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS pp. 421–436.
On the origin of the name borne by the Andes Chain p. 421.
Epoch of the introduction of Cinchona (Peruvian) bark into Europe—p.
422.
Ruins of the Inca’s causeways and fortified dwellings; Aposentos de
Mulalo, Fortaleza del Cañar, Inti-Guaycu—p. 423.
On the ancient civilization of the Chibchas or Muyscas of New
Granada—p. 425. Age of the culture of the potato and banana—p. 427.
Etymology of the word Cundinamarca, corrupted from Cundirumarca, and
which, in the first years of republican independence, designated the
whole country of New Granada—p. 427.
Chronometric connection of the city of Quito with Tomependa, on the
upper course of the Amazon River, and the Callao de Lima, the position
of which was accurately determined by the transit of Mercury on the
9th of November, 1802—p. 428.
On the tedious court ceremonies. of the Incas. Atahuallpa’s
imprisonment and unavailing ransom—p. 429.
Free-thinking of the Inca Huayna Capac. Philosophical doubts on the
official worship of the sun, and obstacles to the diffusion of
knowledge among the lower and poorer classes of people, according to
the testimony of Padre Blas Valera—p. 431.
Raleigh’s project for the restoration of the Inca dynasty under
English protection, which should be granted for an annual tribute of
several hundred thousand pounds—p. 432.
Columbus’ earliest evidence of the existence of the Pacific. It was
first seen on the 25th of September, 1513, by Vasco Nunez de Balboa,
and first navigated by Alonso Martin de Don Benito—p. 432.
On the possibility of constructing an Oceanic canal through the
isthmus of Panama (with fewer locks than the Caledonian Canal).
Points, the exploration of which has been hitherto totally
neglected—p. 435.
Determination of the longitude of Lima—p. 435.
ON STEPPES AND DESERTS.
At the foot of the lofty granitic range which, in the early age of our
planet, resisted the irruption of the waters on the formation of the
Caribbean Gulf, extends a vast and boundless plain. When the traveller
turns from the Alpine valleys of Caracas, and the island-studded lake of
Tacarigua[1], whose waters reflect the forms of the neighbouring
bananas,—when he leaves the fields verdant with the light and tender
green of the Tahitian sugar-cane, or the sombre shade of the cacoa
groves,—his eye rests in the south on Steppes, whose seeming elevations
disappear in the distant horizon.
From the rich luxuriance of organic life the astonished traveller
suddenly finds himself on the dreary margin of a treeless waste. Nor
hill, nor cliff rears its head, like an island in the ocean, above the
boundless plain: only here and there broken strata of floetz, extending
over a surface of two hundred square miles, (more than three thousand
English square miles[C],) appear sensibly higher than the surrounding
district. The natives term them _banks_[2], as if the spirit of language
would convey some record of that ancient condition of the world, when
these elevations formed the shoals, and the Steppes themselves the
bottom, of some vast inland sea.
Even now, illusion often recalls, in the obscurity of night, these
images of a former age. For when the guiding constellations illumine the
margin of the plain with their rapidly rising and setting beams, or when
their flickering forms are reflected in the lower stratum of undulating
vapour, a shoreless ocean seems spread before us[3]. Like a limitless
expanse of waters, the Steppe fills the mind with a sense of the
infinite, and the soul, freed from the sensuous impressions of space,
expands with spiritual emotions of a higher order. But the aspect of the
ocean, its bright surface diversified with rippling or gently swelling
waves, is productive of pleasurable sensations,—while the Steppe lies
stretched before us, cold and monotonous, like the naked stony crust of
some desolate planet[4].
In all latitudes nature presents the phenomenon of these vast plains,
and each has some peculiar character or physiognomy, determined by
diversity of soil and climate, and by elevation above the level of the
sea.
In northern Europe the Heaths which, covered by one sole form of
vegetation, to the exclusion of all others, extend from the extremity of
Jutland to the mouth of the Scheldt, may be regarded as true Steppes.
They are, however, both hilly and of very inconsiderable extent when
compared with the Llanos and Pampas of South America, or even with the
Prairies on the Missouri[5] and Copper River, the resort of the shaggy
Bison and the small Musk Ox.
The plains in the interior of Africa present a grander and more imposing
spectacle. Like the wide expanse of the Pacific, they have remained
unexplored until recent times. They are portions of a sea of sand, which
towards the east separates fruitful regions from each other, or incloses
them like islands, as the desert near the basaltic mountains of
Harudsch[6], where, in the Oasis of Siwah, rich in date-trees, the ruins
of the temple of Ammon indicate the venerable seat of early
civilization. Neither dew nor rain refreshes these barren wastes, or
unfolds the germs of vegetation within the glowing depths of the earth;
for everywhere rising columns of hot air dissolve the vapours and
disperse the passing clouds.
Wherever the desert approaches the Atlantic Ocean, as between Wadi Nun
and the White Cape, the moist sea-air rushes in to fill the vacuum
caused by these vertically ascending currents of air. The navigator, in
steering towards the mouth of the river Gambia, through a sea thickly
carpeted with weeds, infers by the sudden cessation of the tropical east
wind[7], that he is near the far-spreading and radiating sandy desert.
Flocks of swift-looted ostriches and herds of gazelles wander over this
boundless space. With the exception of the newly discovered group of
Oases, rich in springs, whose verdant banks are frequented by nomadic
tribes of Tibbos and Tuarycks[8], the whole of the African deserts may
be regarded as uninhabitable by man. It is only periodically that the
neighbouring civilized nations venture to traverse them. On tracks whose
undeviating course was determined by commercial intercourse thousands of
years ago, the long line of caravans passes from Tafilet to Timbuctoo,
or from Mourzouk to Bornou; daring enterprises, the practicability of
which depends on the existence of the camel, _the ship of the
desert_[9], as it is termed in the ancient legends of the East.
These African plains cover an area which exceeds almost three times that
of the neighbouring Mediterranean. They are situated partly within and
partly near the tropics, a position on which depends their individual
natural character. On the other hand, in the eastern portion of the old
continent the same geognostic phenomenon is peculiar to the temperate
zone.
On the mountainous range of Central Asia, between the Gold or Altai
Mountain and the Kouen-lien[10], from the Chinese wall to the further
side of the Celestial Mountains, and towards the Sea of Aral, over a
space of several thousand miles, extend, if not the highest, certainly
the largest Steppes in the world. I myself enjoyed an opportunity, full
thirty years after my South American travels, of visiting that portion
of the Steppes which is occupied by Kalmuck-Kirghis tribes, and is
situated between the Don, the Volga, the Caspian Sea, and the Chinese
Lake of Dsaisang, and which consequently extends over an area of nearly
2,800 geographical miles. The vegetation of the Asiatic Steppes, which
are sometimes hilly and interspersed with pine forests, is in its
groupings far more varied than that of the Llanos and the Pampas of
Caracas and Buenos Ayres. The more beautiful portions of the plains,
inhabited by Asiatic pastoral tribes, are adorned with lowly shrubs of
luxuriant white-blossomed Rosaceæ, Crown Imperials (Fritillariæ),
Cypripedeæ, and Tulips. As the torrid zone is in general distinguished
by a tendency in the vegetable forms to become arborescent, so we also
find, that some of the Asiatic Steppes of the temperate zone are
characterized by the remarkable height to which flowering plants attain;
as, for instance, Saussureæ, and other Synanthereæ; all siliquose
plants, and particularly numerous species of Astragalus. On crossing the
trackless portions of the herb-covered Steppes in the low carriages of
the Tartars, it is necessary to stand upright in order to ascertain the
direction to be pursued through the copse-like and closely crowded
plants that bend under the wheels. Some of these Steppes are covered
with grass; others with succulent, evergreen, articulated alkaline
plants; while many are radiant with the effulgence of lichen-like tufts
of salt, scattered irregularly over the clayey soil like newly fallen
snow.
These Mongolian and Tartar Steppes, which are intersected by numerous
mountain chains, separate the ancient and long-civilized races of Thibet
and Hindostan from the rude nations of Northern Asia. They have also
exerted a manifold influence on the changing destinies of mankind. They
have inclined the current of population southward, impeded the
intercourse of nations more than the Himalayas, or the Snowy Mountains
of Sirinagur and Gorka, and placed permanent limits to the progress of
civilization and refinement in a northerly direction.
History cannot, however, regard the plains of Central Asia under the
character of obstructive barriers alone. They have frequently proved the
means of spreading misery and devastation over the face of the earth.
Some of the pastoral tribes inhabiting this Steppe,—the Mongols, Getæ,
Alani, and Usüni,—have convulsed the world. If in the course of earlier
ages, the dawn of civilization spread like the vivifying light of the
sun from east to west; so in subsequent ages and from the same quarter,
have barbarism and rudeness threatened to overcloud Europe.
A tawny tribe of herdsmen[11] of Tukiuish _i. e._, Turkish origin, the
Hiongnu, dwelt in tents of skins on the elevated Steppe of Gobi. A
portion of this race had been driven southward towards the interior of
Asia, after continuing for a long time formidable to the Chinese power.
This shock, (dislodgement of the tribes) was communicated
uninterruptedly as far as the ancient land of the Fins, near the sources
of the Ural.[D] From thence poured forth bands of Huns, Avars, Chasars,
and a numerous admixture of Asiatic races. Warlike bodies of Huns first
appeared on the Volga, next in Pannonia, then on the Marne and the banks
of the Po, laying waste those richly cultivated tracts, where, since the
age of Antenor, man’s creative art had piled monument on monument. Thus
swept a pestilential breath from the Mongolian deserts over the fair
Cisalpine soil, stifling the tender, long-cherished blossoms of art!
From the Salt-steppes of Asia,—from the European Heaths,—smiling in
summer with their scarlet, honey-yielding flowers,—and from the barren
deserts of Africa, we return to the plains of South America, the picture
of which I have already begun to sketch in rude outline.
But the interest yielded by the contemplation of such a picture must
arise from a pure love of nature. No Oasis here reminds the traveller of
former inhabitants, no hewn stone[12], no fruit-tree once cultivated and
now growing wild, bears witness to the industry of past races. As if a
stranger to the destinies of mankind, and bound to the present alone,
this region of the earth presents a wild domain to the free
manifestation of animal and vegetable life.
The Steppe extends from the littoral chain of Caracas to the forests of
Guiana, and from the snow-covered mountains of Merida, on whose
declivity lies the Natron lake of Urao,—the object of the religious
superstition of the natives,—to the vast delta formed by the mouth of
the Orinoco. To the south-west it stretches like an arm of the sea[13],
beyond the banks of the Meta and of the Vichada, to the unexplored
sources of the Guaviare, and to the solitary mountain group to which the
vivid imagination of the Spanish warriors gave the name of _Paramo de la
Suma Paz_, as though it were the beautiful seat of eternal repose.
This Steppe incloses an area of 256,000 square miles. Owing to
inaccurate geographical data, it has often been described as extending
in equal breadth to the Straits of Magellan, unmindful that it is
intersected by the wooded plain of the Amazon, which is bounded to the
north by the grassy Steppes of the Apure, and to the south by those of
the Rio de la Plata. The Andes of Cochabamba and the Brazilian mountains
approximate each other by means of separate transverse spurs, projecting
between the province of Chiquitos and the isthmus of Villabella[14]. A
narrow plain unites the _Hylæa_ of the Amazon with the Pampas of Buenos
Ayres. The area of the latter is three times larger than that of the
Llanos of Venezuela; indeed so vast in extent, that it is bounded on the
north by palms, while its southern extremity is almost covered with
perpetual ice. The Tuyu, which resembles the Cassowary, (Struthio Rhea,)
is peculiar to these Pampas, as are also those herds of wild dogs[15],
which dwell in social community in subterranean caverns, and often
ferociously attack man, for whose defence their progenitors fought.
Like the greater part of the desert of Sahara[16], the Llanos, the most
northern plains of South America, lie within the torrid zone. Twice in
every year they change their whole aspect, during one half of it
appearing waste and barren like the Lybian desert; during the other,
covered with verdure, like many of the elevated Steppes of Central
Asia[17].
The attempt to compare the natural characteristics of remote regions,
and to pourtray the results of this comparison in brief outline, though
a gratifying, is a somewhat difficult branch of physical geography.
A number of causes, many of them still but little understood[18],
diminish the dryness and heat of the New World. Among these are: the
narrowness of this extensively indented continent in the northern part
of the tropics, where the fluid basis on which the atmosphere rests,
occasions the ascent of a less warm current of air; its wide extension
towards both the icy poles; a broad ocean swept by cool tropical winds;
the flatness of the eastern shores; currents of cold sea-water from the
antarctic region, which, at first following a direction from south-west
to north-east, strike the coast of Chili below the parallel of 35° south
lat., and advance as far north on the coasts of Peru as Cape Pariña,
where they suddenly diverge towards the west; the numerous mountains
abounding in springs, whose snow-crowned summits soar above the strata
of clouds, and cause the descent of currents of air down their
declivities; the abundance of rivers of enormous breadth, which after
many windings invariably seek the most distant coast; Steppes, devoid of
sand, and therefore less readily acquiring heat; impenetrable forests,
which, protecting the earth from the sun’s rays, or radiating heat from
the surface of their leaves, cover the richly-watered plains of the
Equator, and exhale into the interior of the country, most remote from
mountains and the Ocean, prodigious quantities of moisture, partly
absorbed and partly generated—all these causes produce in the flat
portions of America a climate which presents a most striking contrast in
point of humidity and coolness with that of Africa. On these alone
depend the luxuriant and exuberant vegetation and that richness of
foliage which are so peculiarly characteristic of the New Continent.
If, therefore, the atmosphere on one side of our planet be more humid
than on the other, a consideration of the actual condition of things
will be sufficient to solve the problem of this inequality. The natural
philosopher need not shroud the explanation of such phenomena in the
garb of geological myths. It is not necessary to assume that the
destructive conflict of the elements raged at different epochs in the
eastern and western hemispheres, during the early condition of our
planet; or that America emerged subsequently to the other quarters of
the world from the chaotic covering of waters, as a swampy island, the
abode of crocodiles and serpents[19].
South America presents indeed a remarkable similarity to the
south-western peninsula of the old continent, in the form of its
outlines and the direction of its coast-line. But the internal structure
of the soil, and its relative position with respect to the contiguous
masses of land, occasion in Africa that remarkable aridity which over a
vast area checks the development of organic life. Four-fifths of South
America lie beyond the Equator, and therefore in a region which, on
account of its abundant waters, as well as from many other causes, is
cooler and moister than our northern hemisphere[20]. To this,
nevertheless, the most considerable portion of Africa belongs.
The extent from east to west of the South American Steppes or Llanos, is
only one third that of the African Desert. The former are refreshed by
the tropical sea wind, while the latter, situated in the same parallel
of latitude as Arabia and Southern Persia, are visited by currents of
air which have passed over heat-radiating continents. The venerable
father of history, Herodotus, so long insufficiently appreciated, has in
the true spirit of a comprehensive observer of nature, described all the
deserts of Northern Africa, Yemen, Kerman, and Mekran (the Gedrosia of
the Greeks), as far even as Mooltan in Western India, as one sole
connected sea of sand[21].
To the action of hot land winds, may be associated in Africa, as far as
we know, a deficiency of large rivers, of forests that generate cold by
exhaling aqueous vapour, and of lofty mountains. The only spot covered
with perpetual snow is the western portion of Mount Atlas[22], whose
narrow ridge, seen laterally, appeared to the ancient navigators when
coasting the shore, as one solitary and aërial pillar of heaven. This
mountain range extends eastward to Dakul, where the famed Carthage, once
mistress of the seas, lies in crumbling ruins. This range forms a far
extended coast-line or Gætulian rampart, which repels the cool north
winds and with them the vapours rising from the Mediterranean.
The Mountains of the Moon, Djebel-al-Komr[23], fabulously represented as
forming a mountainous parallel between the elevated plain of Habesch—an
African Quito—and the sources of the Senegal, were supposed to rise
above the lower sea line. Even the Cordilleras of Lupata, which skirt
the eastern coast of Mozambique and Monomotapa, in the same manner as
the Andes bound the western shores of Peru, are covered with eternal
snow in the gold districts of Machinga and Mocanga. But these mountains,
abundantly watered, are situated at a considerable distance from the
vast desert which extends from the southern declivity of the chain of
Atlas to the Niger, whose waters flow in an easterly direction.
Possibly, these combined causes of aridity and heat would have proved
insufficient to convert such large portions of the African plains into a
dreary waste, had not some convulsion of nature—as for instance the
irruption of the ocean—on some occasion deprived these flat regions of
their nutrient soil, as well as of the vegetation which it supported.
The epoch when this occurred, and the nature of the forces which
determined the irruption, are alike shrouded in the obscurity of the
past. Perhaps it may have been the result of the great rotatory
current[24], which drives the warmer waters of the Gulf of Mexico over
the bank of Newfoundland to the old continent, and by which the
cocoa-nut of the West Indies and other tropical fruits have been borne
to the shores of Ireland and Norway. One branch of this oceanic current,
after it leaves the Azores, has still, at the present time, a
south-easterly course, striking the low range of the sandy coasts of
Africa with a force that is frequently fraught with danger to the
mariner. All sea-coasts—but I refer here more particularly to the
Peruvian shore between Amotape and Coquimbo—afford evidence of the
hundreds, or even thousands of years, which must pass before the moving
sand can yield a firm basis for the roots of herbaceous plants, in those
hot and rainless regions where neither Lecideæ nor other lichens can
grow[25].
These considerations suffice to explain why, notwithstanding their
external similarity of form, the continents of Africa and South America
present the most widely different climatic relations and characters of
vegetation. Although the South American Steppe is covered with a thin
crust of fruitful earth, is periodically refreshed by rains, and adorned
with luxuriant herbage, its attractions were not sufficient to induce
the neighbouring nations to exchange the beautiful mountain valleys of
Caracas, the sea-girt districts, and the richly watered plains of the
Orinoco, for this treeless and springless desert. Hence on the arrival
of the first European and African settlers, the Steppe was found to be
almost without inhabitants.
The Llanos are, it is true, adapted for the breeding of cattle, but the
primitive inhabitants of the new continent were almost wholly
unacquainted with the management of animals yielding milk[26]. Scarcely
one of the American tribes knew how to avail themselves of the
advantages which nature, in this respect, had placed before them. The
American aborigines, who, from 65° north lat. to 55° south lat.,
constitute (with the exception, perhaps, of the Esquimaux,) but one sole
race, passed directly from a hunting to an agricultural life without
going through the intermediate stage of a pastoral life. Two species of
indigenous homed cattle (the Buffalo and the Musk Ox) graze on the
pasture lands of Western Canada and Quivira, as well as in the
neighbourhood of the colossal ruins of the Aztek fortress, which rises
like some American Palmyra on the desert solitudes of the river Gila. A
long-horned _Mouflon_, resembling the so-called progenitor of the sheep,
roams over the parched and barren limestone rocks of California; while
the camel-like Vicunas, Huanacos, Alpacas, and Llamas, are natives of
the southern peninsula. But of these useful animals the two first only
(viz. the Buffalo and the Musk Ox) have preserved their natural freedom
for thousands of years. The use of milk and cheese, like the possession
and culture of farinaceous grasses, is a distinctive characteristic of
the nations of the old world[27].
If some few tribes have passed through Northern Asia to the western
coast of America, and preferring to keep within a temperate climate,
have followed the course of the ridges of the Andes southward[28], such
migrations must have been made by routes on which the settlers were
unable to transport either flocks or grain. The question here arises,
whether on the downfall of the long-declining empire of the Hiongnu, the
consequent migration of this powerful race may not have been the means
of drawing from the north-east of China and Korea, bands of settlers, by
whom Asiatic civilisation was transported to the new continent? If the
primitive colonists had been natives of those Steppes in which
agriculture was unknown, this bold hypothesis (which as yet is but
little warranted by etymological comparisons) would at all events
explain the remarkable absence of the Cereals in America. Perhaps
contrary winds may have driven to the shores of New California one of
those Asiatic Priest-colonies who were instigated by their mystic
dreameries to undertake distant voyages, and of which the history of the
peopling of Japan, at the time of the _Thsinschihuang-ti_, affords a
memorable instance.[29]
If a pastoral life—that beneficent intermediate stage which binds
nomadic bands of hunters to fruitful pasture lands, and at the same time
promotes agriculture—was unknown to the primitive races of America, it
is to the very ignorance of such a mode of life that we must attribute
the scantiness of population in the South American Steppes. But this
circumstance allowed freer scope for the forces of nature to develop
themselves in the most varied forms of animal life; a freedom only
circumscribed by themselves, like vegetable life in the forests of the
Orinoco, where the Hymenæa and the giant laurel, exempt from the ravages
of man, are only in danger of a too luxuriant embrace of the plants
which surround them.
Agoutis, small spotted antelopes, the shielded Armadillo, which,
rat-like, terrifies the hare in its subterranean retreat; herds of
slothful Chiguires, beautifully striped Viverræ, whose pestilential
odour infects the air; the great maneless Lion; the variegated Jaguar
(commonly known as the tiger), whose strength enables it to drag to the
summit of a hill the body of the young bull it has slain—these, and many
other forms of animal life[30] roam over the treeless plain.
This region, which may be regarded as peculiarly the habitation of wild
animals, would not have been chosen as a place of settlement by nomadic
hordes, who like the Indo-Asiatics generally prefer a vegetable diet,
had it not possessed some few fan-palms (_Mauritia_) scattered here and
there. The beneficent qualities of this tree of life have been
universally celebrated.[31] Upon this alone subsist the unsubdued tribe
of the Guaranes, at the mouth of the Orinoco northward of the Sierra de
Imataca. When they increased in numbers and became over-crowded, it is
said that, besides the huts which they built on horizontal platforms
supported by the stumps of felled palm-trees, they also ingeniously
suspended from stem to stem spreading mats or hammocks woven of the
leaf-stalk of the Mauritia, which enabled them, during the rainy season,
when the Delta was overflowed, to live in trees in the manner of apes.
These pendent huts were partly covered with clay. The women kindled the
fire necessary for their culinary occupations on the humid flooring. As
the traveller passed by night along the river, his attention was
attracted by a long line of flame suspended high in the air, and
apparently unconnected with the earth. The Guaranes owe the preservation
of their physical, and perhaps even of their moral independence, to the
loose marshy soil, over which they move with fleet and buoyant foot, and
to their lofty sylvan domiciles; a sanctuary whither religious
enthusiasm would hardly lead an American Stylite.[32]
The Mauritia not only affords a secure habitation, but likewise yields
numerous articles of food. Before the tender spathe unfolds its blossoms
on the male palm, and only at that peculiar period of vegetable
metamorphosis, the medullary portion of the trunk is found to contain a
sago-like meal, which like that of the Jatropha root, is dried in thin
breadlike slices. The sap of the tree when fermented constitutes the
sweet inebriating palm-wine of the Guaranes. The narrow-scaled fruit,
which resembles reddish pine-cones, yields, like the banana and almost
all tropical fruits, different articles of food, according to the
periods at which it is gathered, whether its saccharine properties are
fully matured, or whether it is still in a farinaceous condition. Thus
in the lowest grades of man’s development, we find the existence of an
entire race dependent upon almost a single tree; like certain insects
which are confined to particular portions of a flower.
Since the discovery of the new continent, its plains (Llanos) have
become habitable to man. Here and there towns[33] have sprung up on the
shores of the Steppe-rivers, built to facilitate the intercourse between
the coasts and Guiana (the Orinoco district). Everywhere throughout
these vast districts the inhabitants have begun to rear cattle. At
distances of a day’s journey from each other, we see detached huts,
woven together with reeds and thongs, and covered with ox-hides.
Innumerable herds of oxen, horses, and mules (estimated at the peaceful
period of my travels at a million and a half) roam over the Steppe in a
state of wildness. The prodigious increase of these animals of the old
world is the more remarkable, from the numerous perils with which, in
these regions, they have to contend.
When, beneath the vertical rays of the bright and cloudless sun of the
tropics, the parched sward crumbles into dust, then the indurated soil
cracks and bursts as if rent asunder by some mighty earthquake. And if,
at such a time, two opposite currents of air, by conflict moving in
rapid gyrations, come in contact with the earth, a singular spectacle
presents itself. Like funnel-shaped clouds,[34] their apexes touching
the earth, the sands rise in vapoury form through the rarefied air in
the electrically-charged centre of the whirling current, sweeping on
like the rushing water-spout, which strikes such terror into the heart
of the mariner. A dim and sallow light gleams from the lowering sky over
the dreary plain. The horizon suddenly contracts, and the heart of the
traveller sinks with dismay as the wide Steppe seems to close upon him
on all sides. The hot and dusty earth forms a cloudy veil which shrouds
the heavens from view, and increases the stifling oppression of the
atmosphere[35]; while the east wind, when it blows over the long-heated
soil, instead of cooling, adds to the burning glow.
Gradually, too, the pools of water, which had been protected from
evaporation by the now seared foliage of the fan-palm, disappear. As in
the icy north animals become torpid from cold, so here the crocodile and
the boa-constrictor lie wrapt in unbroken sleep, deeply buried in the
dried soil. Everywhere the drought announces death, yet everywhere the
thirsting wanderer is deluded by the phantom of a moving, undulating,
watery surface, created by the deceptive play of the reflected rays of
light (the mirage[36]). A narrow stratum separates the ground from the
distant palm-trees, which seem to hover aloft, owing to the contact of
currents of air having different degrees of heat and therefore of
density[E]. Shrouded in dark clouds of dust, and tortured by hunger and
burning thirst, oxen and horses scour the plain, the one bellowing
dismally, the other with outstretched necks snuffing the wind, in the
endeavour to detect, by the moisture in the air, the vicinity of some
pool of water not yet wholly evaporated.
The mule, more cautious and cunning, adopts another method of allaying
his thirst. There is a globular and articulated plant, the
Melocactus[37], which encloses under its prickly integument an aqueous
pulp. After carefully striking away the prickles with his forefeet, the
mule cautiously ventures to apply his lips to imbibe the cooling thistle
juice. But the draught from this living vegetable spring is not always
unattended by danger, and these animals are often observed to have been
lamed by the puncture of the cactus thorn.
Even if the burning heat of day be succeeded by the cool freshness of
the night, here always of equal length, the wearied ox and horse enjoy
no repose. Huge bats now attack the animals during sleep, and
vampyre-like suck their blood;[F] or, fastening on their backs, raise
festering wounds, in which mosquitoes, hippobosces, and a host of other
stinging insects, burrow and nestle. Such is the miserable existence of
these poor animals when the heat of the sun has absorbed the waters from
the surface of the earth.
When, after a long drought, the genial season of rain arrives, the scene
suddenly changes[38]. The deep azure of the hitherto cloudless sky
assumes a lighter hue. Scarcely can the dark space in the constellation
of the Southern Cross be distinguished at night. The mild
phosphorescence of the Magellanic clouds fades away. Even the vertical
stars of the constellations Aquila and Ophiuchus shine with a flickering
and less planetary light. Like some distant mountain, a single cloud is
seen rising perpendicularly on the southern horizon. Misty vapours
collect and gradually overspread the heavens, while distant thunder
proclaims the approach of the vivifying rain.
Scarcely is the surface of the earth moistened before the teeming Steppe
becomes covered with Kyllingiæ, with the many-panicled Paspalum, and a
variety of grasses. Excited by the power of light, the herbaceous Mimosa
unfolds its dormant, drooping leaves, hailing, as it were, the rising
sun in chorus with the matin song of the birds and the opening flowers
of aquatics. Horses and oxen, buoyant with life and enjoyment, roam over
and crop the plains. The luxuriant grass hides the beautifully spotted
Jaguar, who, lurking in safe concealment, and carefully measuring the
extent of the leap, darts, like the Asiatic tiger, with a cat-like bound
on his passing prey.
At times, according to the account of the natives, the humid clay on the
banks of the morasses[39], is seen to rise slowly in broad flakes.
Accompanied by a violent noise, as on the eruption of a small
mud-volcano, the upheaved earth is hurled high into the air. Those who
are familiar with the phenomenon fly from it; for a colossal water-snake
or a mailed and scaly crocodile, awakened from its trance by the first
fall of rain, is about to burst from his tomb.
When the rivers bounding the plain to the south, as the Arauca, the
Apure, and the Payara, gradually overflow their banks, nature compels
those creatures to live as amphibious animals, which, during the first
half of the year, were perishing with thirst on the waterless and dusty
plain. A part of the steppe now presents the appearance of a vast inland
sea[40]. The mares retreat with their foals to the higher banks, which
project, like islands, above the spreading waters. Day by day the dry
surface diminishes in extent. The cattle, crowded together, and deprived
of pasturage, swim for hours about the inundated plain, seeking a scanty
nourishment from the flowering panicles of the grasses which rise above
the lurid and bubbling waters. Many foals are drowned, many are seized
by crocodiles, crushed by their serrated tails, and devoured. Horses and
oxen may not unfrequently be seen which have escaped from the fury of
this blood-thirsty and gigantic lizard, bearing on their legs the marks
of its pointed teeth.
This spectacle involuntarily reminds the contemplative observer of the
adaptability granted by an all-provident nature to certain animals and
plants. Like the farinaceous fruits of Ceres, the ox and horse have
followed man over the whole surface of the earth—from the Ganges to the
Rio de la Plata, and from the sea-coast of Africa to the mountainous
plain of Antisana, which lies higher than the Peak of Teneriffe[41]. In
the one region the northern birch, in the other the date-palm, protects
the wearied ox from the noonday sun. The same species of animal which
contends in eastern Europe with bears and wolves, is exposed, in a
different latitude, to the attacks of tigers and crocodiles!
The crocodile and the jaguar are not, however, the only enemies that
threaten the South American horse; for even among the fishes it has a
dangerous foe. The marshy waters of Bera and Rastro[42] are filled with
innumerable electric eels, who can at pleasure discharge from every part
of their slimy, yellow-speckled bodies a deadening shock. This species
of gymnotus is about five or six feet in length. It is powerful enough
to kill the largest animals when it discharges its nervous organs at one
shock in a favourable direction. It was once found necessary to change
the line of road from Uritucu across the Steppe, owing to the number of
horses which, in fording a certain rivulet, annually fell a sacrifice to
these gymnoti, which had accumulated there in great numbers. All other
species of fish shun the vicinity of these formidable creatures. Even
the angler, when fishing from the high bank, is in dread lest an
electric shock should be conveyed to him along the moistened line. Thus,
in these regions, the electric fire breaks forth from the lowest depths
of the waters.
The mode of capturing the gymnotus affords a picturesque spectacle. A
number of mules and horses are driven into a swamp, which is closely
surrounded by Indians, until the unusual noise excites the daring fish
to venture on an attack. Serpent-like they are seen swimming along the
surface of the water, striving cunningly to glide under the bellies of
the horses. By the force of their invisible blows numbers of the poor
animals are suddenly prostrated; others, snorting and panting, their
manes erect, their eyes wildly flashing with terror, rush madly from the
raging storm; but the Indians, armed with long bamboo staves, drive them
back into the midst of the pool.
By degrees the fury of this unequal contest begins to slacken. Like
clouds that have discharged their electricity, the wearied eels
disperse. They require long rest and nourishing food to repair the
galvanic force which they have so lavishly expended. Their shocks
gradually become weaker and weaker. Terrified by the noise of the
trampling horses, they timidly approach the brink of the morass, where
they are wounded by harpoons, and drawn on shore by non-conducting poles
of dry wood.
Such is the remarkable contest between horses and fish. That which
constitutes the invisible but living weapon of these inhabitants of the
water—that, which awakened by the contact of moist and dissimilar
particles[43], circulates through all the organs of animals and
plants—that which flashing amid the roar of thunder illuminates the wide
canopy of heaven—which binds iron to iron, and directs the silent
recurring course of the magnetic needle—all, like the varied hues of the
refracted ray of light, flow from one common source, and all blend
together into one eternal all-pervading power.
I might here close my bold attempt of delineating the natural picture of
the Steppe; but, as on the ocean, fancy delights in dwelling on the
recollections of distant shores, so will we, ere the vast plain vanishes
from our view, cast a rapid glance over the regions by which the Steppe
is bounded.
The northern desert of Africa separates two races of men which
originally belonged to the same portion of the globe, and whose
inextinguishable feuds appear as old as the myth of Osiris and
Typhon[44]. To the north of Mount Atlas there dwells a race
characterised by long and straight hair, a sallow complexion, and
Caucasian features; while to the south of Senegal, in the direction of
Soudan, we find hordes of Negroes occupying various grades in the scale
of civilization. In Central Asia the Mongolian Steppe divides Siberian
barbarism from the ancient civilization of the peninsula of Hindostan.
In like manner, the South American Steppes are the boundaries of a
European semi-civilization[45]. To the north, between the mountain chain
of Venezuela and the Caribbean Sea, lie, crowded together, industrial
cities, clean and neat villages, and carefully tilled fields. Even a
taste for arts, scientific culture, and a noble love of civil freedom,
have long since been awakened within these regions.
To the south, a drear and savage wilderness bounds the Steppe. Forests,
the growth of thousands of years, in one impenetrable thicket,
overspread the marshy region between the rivers Orinoco and Amazon. Huge
masses of lead-coloured granite[46] contract the beds of the foaming
rivers. Mountains and forests re-echo with the thunder of rushing
waters, the roar of the tiger-like jaguar, and the dull rain-foreboding
howl of the bearded ape[47].
Where the shallower parts of the river disclose a sandbank, the
crocodile may be seen, with open jaws, and motionless as a rock, its
uncouth body often covered with birds[48]; while the chequered
boa-constrictor, its tail lashed round the trunk of a tree, lies coiled
in ambush near the bank, ready to dart with certain aim on its prey.
Rapidly uncoiling, it stretches forth its body to seize the young bull,
or some feebler prey, as it fords the stream, and moistening its victim
with a viscid secretion, laboriously forces it down its dilating
throat[49].
In this grand and wild condition of nature dwell numerous races of men.
Separated by a remarkable diversity of languages, some are nomadic,
unacquainted with agriculture, and living on ants, gums, and earth, mere
outcasts of humanity[50], such as the Ottomaks and Jarures: others, for
instance the Maquiritares and Macos, have settled habitations, live on
fruits cultivated by themselves, are intelligent, and of gentler
manners. Extensive tracts between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo are
inhabited solely by the Tapir and social apes; not by man. Figures
graven on the rocks[51] attest that even these deserts were once the
seat of a higher civilization. They bear testimony, as do also the
unequally developed and varying languages (which are amongst the oldest
and most imperishable of the historical records of man), to the changing
destinies of nations.
While on the Steppe tigers and crocodiles contend with horses and
cattle, so on the forest borders and in the wilds of Guiana the hand of
man is ever raised against his fellow man. With revolting eagerness,
some tribes drink the flowing blood of their foes, whilst others,
seemingly unarmed, yet prepared for murder, deal certain death with a
poisoned thumb-nail[52]. The feebler tribes, when they tread the sandy
shores, carefully efface with their hands the traces of their trembling
steps.
Thus does man, everywhere alike, on the lowest scale of brutish
debasement, and in the false glitter of his higher culture, perpetually
create for himself a life of care. And thus, too, the traveller,
wandering over the wide world by sea and land, and the historian who
searches the records of bygone ages, are everywhere met by the unvarying
and melancholy spectacle of man opposed to man.
He, therefore, who amid the discordant strife of nations, would seek
intellectual repose, turns with delight to contemplate the silent life
of plants, and to study the hidden forces of nature in her sacred
sanctuaries; or yielding to that inherent impulse, which for thousands
of years has glowed in the breast of man, directs his mind, by a
mysterious presentiment of his destiny, towards the celestial orbs,
which, in undisturbed harmony, pursue their ancient and eternal
course.[G]
ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
Footnote 1:
p. 1—“_The Lake of Tacarigua_.”
On advancing through the interior of South America, from the coast of
Caracas or of Venezuela towards the Brazilian frontier (from the 10th
degree of north latitude to the equator), the traveller first passes a
lofty chain of mountains (the littoral chain of Caracas) inclining
from west to east; next vast treeless Steppes or plains (_Los
Llanos_), which extend from the foot of the littoral chain to the left
bank of the Orinoco; and, lastly, the mountain range which gives rise
to the cataracts of Atures and Maypure. This mountain chain, which I
have named the Sierra Parime, passes in an easterly direction between
the sources of the Rio Branco and Rio Esquibo, in the direction of
Dutch and French Guiana. This region, which is the seat of the
marvellous myths of the Dorado, and is composed of a mountain mass,
divided into numerous gridiron-like ridges, is bounded on the south by
the woody plain through which the Rio Negro and the Amazon have formed
themselves a channel. Those who would seek further instruction
regarding these geographical relations, may compare the large chart of
La Cruz Olmedilla (1775), which has served as the basis of nearly all
the more modern maps of South America, with that of Columbia, which I
drew up in accordance with my own astronomical determinations of
place, and published in the year 1825.
The littoral chain of Venezuela is, geographically considered, a
portion of the Peruvian Andes. These are divided at the great mountain
node of the sources of the Magdalena (lat. 1° 55′ to 2° 20′) into
three chains, running to the south of Popayan, the easternmost of
which extends into the snowy mountains of Merida. These mountains
gradually decline towards the Paramo de las Rosas into the hilly
district of Quibor and Tocuyo, which connects the littoral chain of
Venezuela with the Cordilleras of Cundinamarca.
This littoral chain extends murally and uninterruptedly from
Portocabello to the promontory of Paria. Its mean elevation is
scarcely 750 toises, or 4796 English feet; but some few summits, like
the Silla de Caracas (also called the Cerro de Avila), which is
adorned with the purple-flowering Befaria (the red-blossomed American
Alpine rose), rise 1350 toises, or 8633 English feet above the level
of the sea. The coast of the Terra Firma everywhere bears traces of
devastation, giving evidence of the action of the great current which
runs from east to west, and which, after the disintegration of the
Caribbean Islands, formed the present Sea of the Antilles. The tongues
of land of Araya and Chuparipari, and more especially the coasts of
Cumana and New Barcelona, present to the geologist a remarkable
aspect. The rocky islands of Boracha, Caracas, and Chimanas rise like
beacon-towers from the sea, affording evidence of the fearful
irruption of the waters against the shattered mountain chain. The Sea
of the Antilles may once have been an inland sea, like the
Mediterranean, which has suddenly been connected with the ocean. The
islands of Cuba, Hayti, and Jamaica still exhibit the remains of the
mountains of micaceous schist which formed the northern boundary of
this lake. It is a remarkable fact that the highest peaks are situated
at the very point where these islands approach one another the
closest. It may be conjectured that the principal nucleus of the chain
was situated between Cape Tiburon and Morant Point. The height of the
copper mountains (montañas de cobre) near Saint Iago de Cuba has not
yet been measured, but this range is probably higher than the Blue
Mountains of Jamaica (1138 toises, or 7277 English feet), whose
elevation somewhat exceeds that of the Pass of St. Gothard. I have
already expressed my conjectures more fully regarding the valley-like
form of the Atlantic Ocean, and the ancient connection of the
continents, in a treatise written at Cumana, entitled _Fragment d’un
Tableau géologique de l’Amérique méridionale_, which appeared in the
_Journal de Physique, Messidor, an_ IX. It is remarkable that Columbus
himself makes mention, in his official report, of the connection
between the course of the equinoctial current and the form of the
coast-line of the Greater Antilles.[H]
The northern and more cultivated portion of the province of Caracas is
a mountainous region. The marginal chain is divided, like that of the
Swiss Alps, into many ranges, enclosing longitudinal valleys. The most
remarkable among these is the charming valley of Aragua, which
produces an abundance of indigo, sugar, and cotton, and, what is
perhaps the most singular of all, even European wheat. The southern
margin of this valley is bounded by the beautiful Lake of Valencia,
the ancient Indian name of which was Tacarigua. The contrast presented
by its opposite shores gives it a striking resemblance to the Lake of
Geneva. The barren mountains of Guigue and Guiripa have indeed less
grandeur and solemnity of character than the Savoy Alps; but, on the
other hand, the opposite shore, which is covered with bananas, mimosæ,
and triplaris, far surpasses in picturesque beauty the vineyards of
the Pays de Vaud. The lake is 10 leagues, (of which 20 form a degree
of the Equator), _i.e._, about 30 geographical miles, in length, and
is thickly studded with small islands, which continually increase in
size, owing to the evaporation being greater than the influx of fresh
water. Within the last few years several sandbanks have even become
true islands, and have acquired the significant name of _Las
Aparecidas_, or the “_Newly Appeared_.” On the island of Cura the
remarkable species of solanum is cultivated, which has edible fruit,
and has been described by Willdenow (in his _Hortus Berolinensis_,
1816, Tab. xxvii.). The elevation of the Lake of Tacarigua above the
level of the sea is almost 1400 French feet (according to my
measurement, exactly 230 toises, _i.e._, 1471 English feet) less than
the mean height of the valley of Caracas. This lake has several
species of fish peculiar to itself,[I] and ranks among the most
beautiful and attractive natural scenes that I am acquainted with in
any part of the earth. When bathing, Bonpland and myself were often
terrified by the appearance of the _Bava_, a species of
crocodile-lizard (_Dragonne?_), hitherto undescribed, from three to
four feet in length, of repulsive aspect, but harmless to man. We
found in the Lake of Valencia a _Typha_, perfectly identical with the
European bulrush, the _Typha angustifolia_—a singular and highly
important fact in reference to the geography of plants.
In the valleys of Aragua, skirting the lake, both varieties of the
sugar-cane are cultivated, viz., the common _Caña criolla_, and the
species newly introduced from the South Sea, the _Caña de Otaheiti_.
The latter variety is of a far lighter and more beautiful green, and a
field of it may be distinguished from the common sugar-cane at a great
distance. Cook and George Forster were the first to describe it; but
it would appear, from Forster’s treatise on the edible plants of the
South Sea Islands, that they were but little acquainted with the true
value of this important product. Bougainville brought it to the Isle
of France, whence it passed to Cayenne and (subsequently to the year
1792) to Martinique, Saint Domingo or Haiti, and many of the Lesser
Antilles. The enterprising but unfortunate Captain Bligh transported
it, together with the bread-fruit tree, to Jamaica. From Trinidad, an
island contiguous to the continent, the new sugar-cane of the South
Sea passed to the neighbouring coasts of Caracas. Here it has become
of greater importance than the bread-fruit tree, which will probably
never supersede so valuable and nutritious a plant as the banana. The
Tahitian sugar-cane is more succulent than the common species, which
is generally supposed to be a native of Eastern Asia. It likewise
yields one-third more sugar on the same area than the _Caña criolla_,
which is thinner in its stalk, and more crowded with joints. As,
moreover, the West Indian Islands are beginning to suffer great
scarcity of fuel (on the island of Cuba the sugar-pans are heated with
orange-wood), the new plant acquires additional value from the fact of
its yielding a thicker and more ligneous cane (_bagaso_). If the
introduction of this new product had not been nearly simultaneous with
the outbreak of the sanguinary Negro war in St. Domingo, the prices of
sugar in Europe would have risen even higher than they did, owing to
the interruption occasioned to agriculture and trade. The important
question which here arises, whether the sugar-cane of Otaheiti, when
removed from its indigenous soil, will not gradually degenerate and
merge into the common sugar-cane, has been decided in the negative,
from the experience hitherto obtained on this subject. In the island
of Cuba a _caballeria_, that is to say, an area of 34,969 square
toises (nearly 33 English acres), produces 870 cwt. of sugar, if it be
planted with the Tahitian sugar-cane. It is remarkable enough that
this important product of the South Sea Islands should be cultivated
precisely in that portion of the Spanish colonies which is most remote
from the South Sea. The voyage from the Peruvian shore to Otaheiti may
be made in twenty-five days, and yet, at the period of my travels in
Peru and Chili, the Tahitian sugar-cane was not yet known in those
provinces. The natives of Easter Island, who suffer great distress
from want of fresh water, drink the juice of the sugar-cane, and, what
is very remarkable in a physiological point of view, likewise
sea-water. On the Society, Friendly, and Sandwich Islands, the light
green and thick stemmed sugar-cane is everywhere cultivated.
In addition to the _Caña de Otaheiti_ and the _Caña criolla_, a
reddish African sugar-cane is cultivated in the West Indies, which is
known as the _Caña de Guinea_. It is less succulent than the common
Asiatic variety, but its juice is esteemed especially well adapted for
the preparation of rum.
In the province of Caracas the light green of the Tahitian sugar-cane
forms a beautiful contrast with the dark shade of the cacao
plantations. Few tropical trees have so thick a foliage as the
_Theobroma Cacao_. This noble tree thrives best in hot and humid
valleys. Extreme fertility of soil and insalubrity of atmosphere are
as inseparably connected in South America as in Southern Asia. Nay, it
has even been observed that in proportion as the cultivation of the
land increases, and the woods are removed, the soil and the climate
become less humid, and the cacao plantations thrive less luxuriantly.
But while they diminish in numbers in the province of Caracas, they
spread rapidly in the eastern provinces of New Barcelona and Cumana,
more especially in the humid woody region lying between Cariaco and
the Golfo Triste.
Footnote 2:
p. 1—“_The natives term this phenomenon ‘banks.’_”
The Llanos of Caracas are covered with a widely-extended formation of
ancient conglomerate. On passing from the valleys of Aragua over the
most southern range of the coast chain of Guigue and Villa de Cura,
descending towards Parapara, the traveller meets successively with
strata of gneiss and micaceous schist, a probably _Silurian_
transition rock of argillaceous schist and black limestone; serpentine
and greenstone in detached spheroidal masses; and lastly, on the
margin of the great plain, small elevations of augitic amygdaloid and
porphyritic schist. These hills between Parapara and Ortiz appear to
me to be produced by volcanic eruptions on the old sea-shore of the
Llanos. Further to the north, rise the far-famed cavernous and
grotesquely-shaped elevations known as the Morros de San Juan, which
form a species of devil’s dyke, the grain of which is crystalline,
like upheaved dolomite. They are, therefore, to be regarded rather as
portions of the shore than as islands in the ancient gulf. I consider
the Llanos to have been a gulf, for when their inconsiderable
elevation above the present sea level, the adaptation of their form to
the rotation current, running from east to west, and the lowness of
the eastern shore between the mouth of the Orinoco and the Essequibo
are taken into account, it can scarcely be doubted that the sea once
overflowed the whole of this basin between the coast chain and the
Sierra de la Parime, extending westward to the mountains of Merida and
Pamplona (in the same manner as it probably passed through the plains
of Lombardy to the Cottian and Pennine Alps). Moreover, the
inclination or line of strike of these Llanos is directed from west to
east. Their elevation at Calabozo, a distance of 100 geographical (400
English) miles from the sea, scarcely amounts to 30 toises, or 192
English feet; consequently 15 toises (96 English feet) less than the
elevation of Pavia, and 45 toises (288 English feet) less than that of
Milan in the plain of Lombardy between the Swiss Lepontine Alps and
the Ligurian Apennines. This conformation of the land reminds us of
Claudian’s expression, “curvata tumore parvo planities.” The surface
of the Llanos is so perfectly horizontal that in many parts over an
area of some 480 English square miles, not a single point appears
elevated one foot above the surrounding level. When it is further
borne in mind that there is a total absence of all shrubs, and that in
some parts, as in the Mesa de Pavones, there is not even a solitary
palm-tree to be seen, it may easily be supposed that this sea-like and
dreary plain presents a most singular aspect. Far as the eye can
range, it scarcely rests on any object elevated many inches above the
general level. If the boundary of the horizon did not continually
present an undefined flickering and undulating outline, owing to the
condition of the lower strata of air, and the refraction of light,
solar elevations might be determined by the sextant above the margin
of the plain as above the horizon of the sea. This perfect flatness of
the ancient sea-bottom renders the _banks_ even more striking. They
are composed of broken floetz-strata, which rise abruptly about two or
three feet above the surrounding level, and extend uniformly over a
length of from 10 to 12 geographical (_i.e._, 40 to 48 English) miles.
It is here that the small rivers of the Steppe take their origin.
On our return from the Rio Negro, we frequently met with traces of
landslips in passing over the Llanos of Barcelona. We here found in
the place of elevated banks, isolated strata of gypsum lying from 3 to
4 toises, or 19 to 25 English feet, below the contiguous rock. Further
westward, near the confluence of the River Caura and the Orinoco, a
large tract of thickly grown forest land to the east of the Mission of
San Pedro de Alcantara, fell in after an earthquake in the year 1790.
A lake was immediately formed in the plain, which measured upwards of
300 toises (1919 feet) in diameter. The lofty trees, as the
Desmanthus, Hymenæa, and Malpighia, retained their verdure and foliage
for a long time after their submersion.
Footnote 3:
p. 2—“_A shoreless ocean seems spread before us_.”
The distant aspect of the Steppe is the more striking when the
traveller emerges from dense forests, where his eye has been
familiarised to a limited prospect and luxuriant natural scenery. I
shall ever retain an indelible impression of the effect produced on my
mind by the Llanos, when, on our return from the Upper Orinoco, they
first broke on our view from a distant mountain, opposite the mouth of
the Rio Apure, near the Hato del Capuchino. The last rays of the
setting sun illumined the Steppe, which seemed to swell before us like
some vast hemisphere, while the rising stars were refracted by the
lower stratum of the atmosphere. When the plain has been excessively
heated by the vertical rays of the sun, the evolution of the radiating
heat, the ascent of currents of air, and the contact of atmospheric
strata of unequal density, continue throughout the night.
Footnote 4:
p. 2—“_The naked stony crust_.”
The deserts of Africa and Asia acquire a peculiar character from the
frequent occurrence of immense tracts of land, covered by one flat
uniform surface of naked rock. In the Scha-mo, which separates
Mongolia and the mountain chain of Ulangom and Malakha-Oola from the
north-west part of China, such rocky banks are termed _Tsy_. In the
woody plains of the Orinoco they are found to be surrounded with the
most luxuriant vegetation.[J] In the midst of these flat, tabular
masses of granite and syenite, several thousands of feet in diameter,
presenting merely a few scattered lichens, we find in the forests, or
on their margins, little islands of light soil, covered with low and
ever-flowering plants, having the appearance of small gardens. The
monks settled on the Upper Orinoco, singularly enough regard the whole
of these horizontal naked stony plains, when extending over a
considerable area, as conducive to fevers and other diseases. Many of
the villages belonging to the mission have been transferred to other
spots on account of the general prevalence of this opinion. Do these
stony flats (_laxas_) act chemically on the atmosphere or influence it
only by means of a greater radiation of heat?
Footnote 5:
p. 2—“_Compared with the Llanos and Pampas of South America, or even
with the Prairies on the Missouri_.”
Our physical and geognostic knowledge of the western mountain region
of North America has recently been enriched by the acquisition of many
accurate data yielded by the admirable labours of the enterprising
traveller Major Long, and his companion Edwin James, but more
especially by the comprehensive investigations of Captain Frémont. The
knowledge thus established clearly corroborates the accuracy of the
different facts which in my work on New Spain I could merely advance
as hypothetical conjectures regarding the northern plains and
mountains of America. In natural history, as well as in historical
research, facts remain isolated until by long-continued investigation
they are brought into connection with each other.
The eastern shore of the United States of North America inclines from
south-west to north-east, as does the Brazilian coast south of the
equator from the Rio de la Plata to Olinda. On both these regions
there rise, at a short distance from the coast line, two ranges of
mountains more nearly parallel to each other than to the western
Andes, (the Cordilleras of Chili and Peru), or to the North Mexican
chain of the Rocky Mountains. The South American or Brazilian mountain
system, forms an isolated group, the highest points of which,
Itacolumi and Itambe, do not rise above an elevation of 900 toises, or
5755 English feet. The eastern portion of the ridge most contiguous to
the sea is the only part that follows a regular inclination from
S.S.W. to N.N.E., increasing in breadth and diminishing in general
elevation as it approaches further westward. The chain of the Parecis
hills approximates to the rivers Itenes and Guaporé, in the same
manner as the mountains of Aguapehi and San Fernando (south of
Villabella) approach the lofty Andes of Cochabamba and Santa Cruz de
la Sierra.
There is no direct connection between the two mountain systems of the
Atlantic and South-sea coasts (the Brazilian and the Peruvian
Cordilleras); Western Brazil being separated from Eastern or Upper
Peru by the low lands of the province of Chiquitos, which is a
longitudinal valley that inclines from north to south, and
communicates both with the plains of the Amazon and of the Rio de la
Plata. In these regions, as in Poland and Russia, a ridge of land,
sometimes imperceptible (termed in Slavonic _Uwaly_), forms the line
of separation between different rivers; as for instance, between the
Pilcomayo and Madeira, between the Aguapehi and Guaporé, and between
the Paraguay and the Rio Topayos. The ridge (_seuil_) extends from
Chayanta and Pomabamba (19°–20° lat.,) in a south-easterly direction,
and after intersecting the depressed tracts of the province of
Chiquitos, (which has become almost unknown to geographers since the
expulsion of the Jesuits,) forms to the north-east, where some
scattered mountains are again to be met with, the _divortia aquarum_
at the sources of the Baures and near Villabella (15°–17° lat.)
This water-line of separation which is so important to the general
intercourse and growing civilization of different nations corresponds
in the northern hemisphere of South America with a second line of
demarcation (2°–3° lat.) which separates the district of the Orinoco
from that of the Rio Negro and the Amazon. These elevations or risings
in the midst of the plains (_terræ tumores_, according to Frontinus)
may almost be regarded as undeveloped mountain-systems, designed to
connect two apparently isolated groups, the Sierra Parime and the
Brazilian highlands, to the Andes chain of Timana and Cochabamba.
These relations, to which very little attention has hitherto been
directed, form the basis of my division of South America into three
depressions or basins, viz., those of the Orinoco in its lower course,
of the Amazon, and of the Rio de la Plata. Of these three basins, the
exterior ones, as I have already observed, are Steppes or Prairies;
but the central one between the Sierra Parime and the Brazilian chain
of mountains must be regarded as a wooded plain or _Hylæa_.
In endeavouring by a few equally brief touches to give a sketch of the
natural features of North America, we must first glance at the chain
of the Andes, which, narrow at its origin, soon increases in height
and breadth as it follows an inclination from south-east to
north-west, passing through Panama, Veragua, Guatimala, and New Spain.
This range of mountains, formerly the seat of an ancient civilization,
presents a like barrier to the general current of the sea between the
tropics, and to a more rapid intercommunication between Europe,
Western Africa, and Eastern Asia. From the 17th degree of latitude at
the celebrated Isthmus of Tehuantepec, the chain deflects from the
shores of the Pacific, and inclining from south to north becomes an
inland Cordillera. In Northern Mexico, the Crane Mountains (Sierra de
las Grullas) constitute a portion of the Rocky Mountains. On their
western declivity rise the Columbia and the Rio Colorado of
California; on the eastern side the Rio Roxo of Natchitoches, the
Canadian river, the Arkansas, and the shallow river Platte, which
latter has recently been converted by some ignorant geographers, into
a Rio _de la Plata_, or a river yielding silver. Between the sources
of these rivers rise in the parallels of 37° 20′ and 40° 13′ lat.,
three huge peaks composed of granite, containing little mica, but a
large proportion of hornblende. These have been respectively named
Spanish Peak, James or Pike’s Peak, and Big Horn or Long’s Peak.[K]
Their elevation exceeds that of the highest summits of the North
Mexican Andes, which indeed nowhere attain the height of the line of
perpetual snow from the parallels of 18° and 19° lat., or from the
group of Orizaba, (2717 toises, or 17,374 English feet), and of
Popocatepetl (2771 toises, or 17,720 English feet) to Santa Fé and
Taos in New Mexico. James’ Peak (38° 48′ lat.) is said to have an
elevation of 11,497 English feet. Of this only 8537 feet have been
determined by trigonometrical measurement, the remainder being deduced
in the absence of barometrical observations, from uncertain
calculations of the declivity or fall of rivers. As it is scarcely
ever possible, even at the level of the sea, to conduct a purely
trigonometrical measurement, determinations of impracticable heights
are always in part barometrical. Measurements of the fall of rivers,
of their rapidity and of the length of their course, are so deceptive,
that the plain at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, more especially
near those summits mentioned in the text, was, before the important
expedition of Captain Frémont, estimated sometimes at 8000 and
sometimes at 3000 feet above the level of the sea.[L] From a similar
deficiency of barometrical measurements, the true height of the
Himalaya remained for a long time uncertain; now, however, science has
made such advances in India, that when Captain Gerard had ascended on
the Tarhigang, near the Sutledge, north of Shipke, to the height of
19,411 feet, he still had, after having broken three barometers, four
equally correct ones remaining.[M]
Frémont, in the expedition which he made between the years 1842 and
1844, at the command of the United States Government, discovered and
measured barometrically the highest peak of the whole chain of the
Rocky Mountains to the north-north-west of Spanish, James’, Long’s,
and Laramie’s Peaks. This snow-covered summit, which belongs to the
group of the Wind River Mountains, bears the name of Frémont’s Peak on
the great chart published under the direction of Colonel Abert, chief
of the topographical department at Washington. This point is situated
in the parallel of 43° 10′ north lat., and 110° 7′ west long., and
therefore nearly 5° 30′ north of Spanish Peak. The elevation of
Frémont’s Peak, which according to direct measurement is 13,568 feet,
must therefore exceed by 2072 feet that given by Long to James’ Peak,
which would appear from its position to be identical with Pike’s Peak,
as given in the map above referred to. The Wind River Mountains
constitute the dividing ridge (_divortia aquarum_) between the two
seas. “From the summit,” says Captain Frémont in his official
report,[N] “we saw on the one side numerous lakes and streams, the
sources of the Rio Colorado, which carries its waters through the
Californian Gulf to the South Sea; on the other, the deep valley of
the Wind River, where lie the sources of the Yellowstone River, one of
the main branches of the Missouri which unites with the Mississippi at
St. Louis. Far to the north-west we could just discover the snowy
heads of the Trois Tetons, which give rise to the true sources of the
Missouri not far from the primitive stream of the Oregon or Columbia
river, which is known under the name of Snake River, or Lewis Fork.”
To the surprise of the adventurous travellers, the summit of Frémont’s
Peak was found to be visited by bees. It is probable that these
insects, like the butterflies which I found at far higher elevations
in the chain of the Andes, and also within the limits of perpetual
snow, had been involuntarily drawn thither by ascending currents of
air. I have even seen large winged lepidoptera, which had been carried
far out to sea by land-winds, drop on the ship deck at a considerable
distance from land in the South Sea.
Frémont’s map and geographical researches embrace the immense tract of
land extending from the confluence of Kanzas River with the Missouri,
to the cataracts of the Columbia and the Missions of Santa Barbara and
Pueblo de los Angeles in New California, presenting a space amounting
to 28 degrees of longitude (about 1360 miles) between the 34th and
45th parallels of north latitude. Four hundred points have been
hypsometrically determined by barometrical measurements, and for the
most part, astronomically: so that it has been rendered possible to
delineate the profile above the sea’s level of a tract of land
measuring 3,600 miles with all its inflections, extending from the
north of Kanzas River to Fort Vancouver and to the coasts of the South
Sea (almost 720 miles more than the distance from Madrid to Tobolsk).
As I believe I was the first who attempted to represent, in geognostic
profile, the configuration of entire countries, as the Spanish
Peninsula, the highland of Mexico, and the Cordilleras of South
America (for the half-perspective projections of the Siberian
traveller, the Abbé Chappe,[O] were based on mere and for the most
part on very inaccurate estimates of the falls of rivers); it has
afforded me special satisfaction to find the graphical method of
representing the earth’s configuration in a vertical direction, that
is, the elevation of solid over fluid parts, achieved on so vast a
scale. In the mean latitudes of 37° to 43° the Rocky Mountains
present, besides the great snow-crowned summits, whose height may be
compared to that of the Peak of Teneriffe, elevated plateaux of an
extent scarcely to be met with in any other part of the world, and
whose breadth from east to west is almost twice that of the Mexican
highlands. From the range of the mountains, which begin a little
westward of Fort Laramie, to the further side of the Wahsatch
Mountains, the elevation of the soil is uninterruptedly maintained
from five to upwards of seven thousand feet above the sea’s level;
nay, this elevated portion occupies the whole space between the true
Rocky Mountains and the Californian snowy coast range from 34° to 45°
north latitude. This district, which is a kind of broad longitudinal
valley, like that of the lake of Titicaca, has been named _The Great
Basin_ by Joseph Walker and Captain Frémont, travellers well
acquainted with these western regions. It is a _terra incognita_ of at
least 8000 geographical (or 128,000 English) square miles, arid,
almost uninhabited, and full of salt lakes, the largest of which is
3940 Parisian (or 4200 English) feet above the level of the sea, and
is connected with the narrow Lake Utah,[P] into which the “Rock River”
(_Timpan Ogo_ in the Utah language) pours its copious stream. Father
Escalante, in his wanderings from Santa Fé del Nuevo Mexico to
Monterey in New California, discovered Frémont’s “Great Salt Lake” in
1776, and confounding together the river and the lake, called it
Laguna de Timpanogo. Under this name I inserted it in my map of
Mexico, which gave rise to much uncritical discussion regarding the
assumed non-existence of a large inland salt lake,[Q]—a question
previously mooted by the learned American traveller Tanner. Gallatin
expressly says in his memoir on the aboriginal races[R]—“General
Ashley and Mr. J. S. Smith have found the Lake Timpanogo in the same
latitude and longitude nearly as had been assigned to it in Humboldt’s
Atlas of Mexico.”
I have purposely dwelt at length on these considerations regarding the
remarkable elevation of the soil in the region of the Rocky Mountains,
since by its extension and height it undoubtedly exercises a great,
although hitherto unappreciated influence on the climate of the
northern half of the new continent, both in its southern and eastern
portions. On this vast and uniformly elevated plateau Frémont found
the water covered with ice every night in the month of August. Nor is
the configuration of the land less important when considered in
reference to the social condition and progress of the great North
American United States. Although the mountain range which divides the
waters attains a height nearly equal to that of the passes of Mount
Simplon (6170 Parisian or 6576 English feet), Mount Gothard (6440
Parisian or 6863 English feet), and the great St. Bernard (7476
Parisian or 7957 English feet), the ascent is so prolonged and gradual
that no impediments oppose a general intercourse by means of vehicles
and carriages of every kind between the Missouri and Oregon
territories, between the Atlantic States, and the new settlements on
the Oregon (or Columbia) river, or between the coast-lands lying
opposite to Europe on the one side of the continent, and to China on
the other. The distance from Boston to the old settlement of Astoria
on the Pacific at the mouth of the Oregon when measured in a direct
line, and taking into account the difference of longitude, is 550
geographical, _i.e._, 2200 English miles, or one-sixth less than the
distance between Lisbon and Katherinenburg in the Ural district. On
account of this gentle ascent of the elevated plains leading from the
Missouri to California and the Oregon territory (all the
resting-places measured between the Fort and River Lamarie on the
northern branch of the Platte river to Fort Hall on the Lewis Fork of
the Columbia, being situated at an elevation of from five to upwards
of seven thousand feet, and that in Old Park even at the height of
9760 Parisian or 10,402 English feet!), considerable difficulty has
been experienced in determining the culminating point, or that of the
_divortia aquarum_. It is south of the Wind River Mountains, about
midway between the Mississippi and the coast line of the Southern
Ocean, and is situated at an elevation of 7490 feet, or only 480 feet
lower than the pass of the Great Bernard. The emigrants call this
culminating point the South Pass.[S] It is situated in a pleasant
region, embellished by a profusion of artemisiæ, especially A.
tridentata (Nuttall), and varieties of asters and cactuses, which
cover the micaceous slate and gneiss rocks. Astronomical
determinations place its latitude in the parallel of 42° 24′, and its
longitude in that of 109° 24′ W. Adolf Erman has already drawn
attention to the fact, that the line of strike of the great
east-Asiatic Aldanian mountain-chain, which separates the basin of the
Lena from the rivers flowing towards the Great Southern Ocean, if
extended in the form of a great circle on the surface of the globe,
passes through many of the summits of the Rocky Mountains between 40°
and 55° north lat. “An American and an Asiatic mountain-chain,” he
remarks, “appear therefore to be only portions of one and the same
fissure erupted by the shortest channels.”[T]
The western high mountain coast chain of the Californian maritime
Alps, the _Sierra Nevada de California_, is wholly distinct from the
Rocky Mountains, which sink towards the Mackenzie River (that remains
covered with ice for a great portion of the year), and from the high
table land on which rise individual snow-covered peaks. However
injudicious the choice of the appellation of _Rocky Mountains_ may be,
when applied to the most northerly prolongation of the Mexican central
chain, I do not deem it expedient to substitute for it the
denomination of the Oregon Chain, as has frequently been attempted.
These mountains do indeed give rise to the sources of three main
branches constituting the great Oregon or Columbia river (viz.,
Lewis’, Clarke’s, and North Fork); but this mighty stream also
intersects the chain of the ever snow-crowned maritime Alps of
California. The name of Oregon Territory is also employed, politically
and officially, to designate the lesser territory of land west of the
coast chain, where Fort Vancouver and the Walahmutti settlements are
situated; and it would therefore seem better to abstain from applying
the name of Oregon either to the central or to the coast chain. This
denomination, moreover, led the celebrated geographer Malte-Brun into
a misconception of the most remarkable kind. He read in an old Spanish
chart the following passage:—“And it is still unknown (_y aun se
ignora_) where the source of this river” (now called the Columbia) “is
situated,” and he believed that the word _ignora_ signified the name
of the Oregon.[U]
The rocks which give rise to the cataracts of the Columbia at the
point where the river breaks through the chain, mark the prolongation
of the Sierra Nevada of California from the 44th to the 47th degree of
latitude.[V] In this northern prolongation of the chain lie the three
colossal elevations of Mount Jefferson, Mount Hood, and Mount St.
Helen’s, which rise 14,540 Parisian (or 15,500 English) feet above the
sea-level. The height of this coast chain or range far exceeds
therefore that of the Rocky Mountains. “During an eight months’
journey along these maritime Alps,” says Captain Frémont,[W] “we were
constantly within sight of snow-covered summits; and while we were
able to cross the Rocky Mountains through the South Pass at an
elevation of 7027 feet, we found that the passes in the maritime
range, which is divided into several parallel chains, were more than
2000 feet higher”—and therefore only 1170 (English) feet below the
summit of Mount Etna. It is also a very remarkable fact, and one which
reminds us of the relations of the eastern and western Cordilleras of
Chili, that volcanoes still active are only found in the Californian
chain which lies in the closest proximity to the sea. The conical
mountains of Regnier and of St. Helen’s are almost invariably observed
to emit smoke; and on the 23rd of November, 1843, the latter of these
volcanoes erupted a mass of ashes which covered the shores of the
Columbia for a distance of forty miles, like a fall of snow. To the
volcanic Californian chain belong also in the far north of Russian
America, Mount Elias (according to La Pérouse 1980 toises, or 12,660
feet, and according to Malaspina 2792 toises, or 17,850 feet in
height), and Mount Fair Weather (Cerro de Buen Tiempo, 2304 toises, or
14,733 feet high). Both these conical mountains are regarded as still
active volcanoes. Frémont’s expedition, which has proved alike useful
in reference to botany and geognosy, likewise collected volcanic
products in the Rocky Mountains (as scoriaceous basalt, trachyte, and
true obsidian), and discovered an old extinct crater somewhat to the
east of Fort Hall (43° 2′ north lat., and 112° 28′ west long.), but no
traces of any still active volcanoes emitting lava and ashes, were to
be met with. We must not confound with these the hitherto unexplained
phenomenon termed _smoking hills_, _côtes brûlées_, and _terrains
ardens_, in the language of the English settlers and the natives who
speak French. “Rows of low conical hills,” says the accurate observer
M. Nicollet, “are almost periodically, and sometimes for two or three
years continually, covered with dense black smoke, unaccompanied by
any visible flames. This phenomenon is more particularly noticed in
the territory of the Upper Missouri, and still nearer to the eastern
declivity of the Rocky Mountains, where there is a river named by the
natives Mankizitah-watpa, or the river of smoking earth. Scorified
pseudo-volcanic products, a kind of porcelain jasper, are found in the
vicinity of the smoking hills.”
Since the expedition of Lewis and Clarke an opinion has generally
prevailed that the Missouri deposits a true pumice on its banks; but
here white masses of a delicate cellular texture have been mistaken
for that substance. Professor Ducatel was of opinion that the
phenomenon which is chiefly observed in the chalk formation, was owing
to “the decomposition of water by sulphur pyrites and to a reaction on
the brown coal floetzes.”[X]
If before we close these general remarks regarding the configuration
of North America we once more cast a glance at those regions which
separate the two diverging coast chains from the central chain, we
shall find in strong contrast, on the West, between that central chain
and the Californian Alps of the Pacific, an arid and uninhabited
elevated plateau nearly six thousand feet above the sea; and in the
East, between the Rocky Mountains and the Alleghanies. (whose highest
points, Mount Washington and Mount Marcy, rise, according to Lyell, to
the respective heights, of 6652 and 5400 feet,) we see the richly
watered, fruitful, and thickly-inhabited basin of the Mississippi, at
an elevation of from four to six hundred feet, or more than twice that
of the plains of Lombardy. The hypsometrical character of this eastern
valley, or in other words, its relation to the sea’s level, has only
very recently been explained by the admirable labours of the talented
French astronomer Nicollet, unhappily lost to science by a premature
death. His great chart of the Upper Mississippi, executed between the
years 1836 and 1840, was based on two hundred and forty astronomical
determinations of latitude, and one hundred and seventy barometrical
determinations of elevation. The plain which encloses the valley of
the Mississippi is identical with that of northern Canada, and forms
part of one and the same depressed basin, extending from the Gulf of
Mexico to the Arctic Sea.[Y] Wherever the low land falls in
undulations, and slight elevations which still retain their un-English
appellation of _côteaux des prairies_, _côteaux des bois_, occur in
connected rows between the parallels of 47° and 48° north lat., these
rows and gentle undulations of the ground separate the waters between
Hudson’s Bay and the Gulf of Mexico. Such a line of separation between
the waters is formed, north of Lake Superior or Kichi Gummi, by the
Missabay Heights, and further west by the elevations known as
_Hauteurs des Terres_, in which are situated the true sources of the
Mississippi, one of the largest rivers in the world, and which were
not discovered till the year 1832. The highest of these chains of
hills hardly attains an elevation of from 1500 to 1600 feet. From its
mouth (the old French Balize) to St. Louis, somewhat to the south of
its confluence with the Missouri, the Mississippi has a fall of only
380 feet, notwithstanding that the itinerary distance between these
two points exceeds 1280 miles. The surface of Lake Superior lies at an
elevation of 618 feet, and as its depth in the neighbourhood of the
island of Magdalena is fully 790 feet, its bottom must be 172 feet
below the surface of the ocean.[Z]
Beltrami, who in 1825 separated himself from Major Long’s expedition,
boasted that he had found the sources of the Mississippi in Lake Cass.
The river passes, in its upper course, through four lakes, the second
of which is the one referred to, while the outermost one, Lake Istaca
(47° 13′ north lat., and 95° west long.), was first recognised as the
true source of the Mississippi, in 1832, in the expedition of
Schoolcraft and Lieutenant Allen. This stream, which subsequently
becomes so mighty, is only 17 feet in width, and 15 inches deep, when
it issues from the singular horse-shoe-shaped Lake Istaca. The local
relations of this river were first fully established on a basis of
astronomical observations of position by the scientific expedition of
Nicollet, in the year 1836. The height of the sources, that is to say,
of the last access of water received by Lake Istaca from the ridge of
separation, called _Hauteur de Terre_, is 1680 feet above the level of
the sea. Near this point, and at the southern declivity of the same
separating ridge, lies Elbow Lake, the source of the small Red River
of the north, which empties itself, after many windings, into Hudson’s
Bay. The Carpathian Mountains exhibit similar relations in reference
to the origin of the rivers which empty themselves into the Baltic and
the Black Sea. M. Nicollet gave the names of celebrated astronomers,
opponents as well as friends, with whom he had become acquainted in
Europe, to the twenty small lakes which combine together to form
narrow groups in the southern and western regions of Lake Istaca. His
atlas is thus converted into a geographical album, reminding one of
the botanical album of the _Flora Peruviana_ of Ruiz and Pavon, in
which the names of new families of plants were made to accord with the
Court Calendar, and the various alterations made in the _Oficiales de
la Secretaria_.
The east of the Mississippi is still occupied by dense forests; the
west by prairies only, on which the buffalo (_Bos Americanus_) and the
musk ox (_Bos moschatus_) pasture. These two species of animals, the
largest of the new world, furnish the nomadic tribes of the
Apaches-Llaneros and Apaches-Lipanos with the means of nourishment.
The Assiniboins occasionally slay from seven to eight hundred bisons
in the course of a few days in the artificial enclosures constructed
for the purpose of driving together the wild herds, and known as
_bison parks_.[AA] The American bison, called by the Mexicans
_Cibolo_, is killed chiefly on account of the tongue, which is
regarded as a special delicacy. This animal is not a mere variety of
the aurochs of the old world; although, like other species of animals,
as for instance the elk (_Cervus alces_) and the reindeer (_Cervus
tarandus_), no less than the stunted inhabitants of the polar regions,
it may be regarded as common to the northern portions of _all_
continents, and as affording a proof of their former long existing
connection. The Mexicans apply to the European ox the Aztec term
_quaquahue_, or horned animal, from _quaquahuitl_, a horn. The huge
ox-horns which have been found in ancient Mexican buildings near
Cuernavaca, south-west of the capital of Mexico, appear to me to
belong to the bison. The Canadian bison can be used for agricultural
labour, and will breed with the European cattle, although it is
uncertain whether the hybrid thus engendered is capable of propagating
its species. Albert Gallatin, who, before his appearance in Europe as
a distinguished diplomatist, had acquired by personal observation a
considerable amount of information regarding the uncultivated parts of
the United States, assures us that the fruitfulness of the mixed breed
of the American buffalo and European cattle is an undoubted fact: “the
mixed breed,” he writes, “was quite common fifty years ago in some of
the north-western counties of Virginia, and the cows, the issue of
that mixture, propagated like all others.” “I do not remember,” he
further adds, “that full-grown buffaloes were tamed; but dogs would at
that time occasionally bring in the young bison-calves, which were
reared and bred with European cows. At Monongahela all the cattle for
a long time were of this mixed breed. It was said, however, that the
cows yielded but little milk.” The favourite food of the buffalo is
the _Tripsacum dactyloides_ (known as buffalo-grass in North Carolina)
and a hitherto undescribed species of clover allied to the _Trifolium
repens_, and designated by Barton as _Trifolium bisonicum_.
I have elsewhere[AB] drawn attention to the fact, that according to a
passage of the trustworthy Gomara[AC], there lived, as late as the
sixteenth century, an Indian tribe in the north-west of Mexico, in 40°
north lat., whose greatest wealth consisted in hordes of tamed
buffaloes (_bueyes con una giba_). Yet, notwithstanding the
possibility of taming the buffalo, and the abundance of milk it
yields, and notwithstanding the herds of Lamas in the Peruvian
Cordilleras, no pastoral tribes were met with on the discovery of
America. Nor does history afford any evidence of the existence, at any
period, of this intermediate stage of national development. It is also
a remarkable fact that the North American bison or buffalo has exerted
an influence on geographical discoveries in pathless mountain
districts. These animals advance in herds of many thousands in search
of a milder climate, during winter, in the countries south of the
Arkansas river. Their size and cumbrous forms render it difficult for
them to cross high mountains on these migratory courses, and a
well-trodden buffalo-path is therefore followed wherever it is met
with, as it invariably indicates the most convenient passage across
the mountains. Thus buffalo-paths have indicated the best tracks for
passing over the Cumberland Mountains in the south-western parts of
Virginia and Kentucky, and over the Rocky Mountains, between the
sources of the Yellowstone and Plate rivers, and between the southern
branch of the Columbia and the Californian Rio Colorado. European
settlements have gradually driven the buffalo from the eastern
portions of the United States. Formerly these migratory animals passed
the banks of the Mississippi and the Ohio, advancing far beyond
Pittsburgh.[AD]
From the granitic rocks of Diego Ramirez and the deeply-intersected
district of Terra del Fuego (which in the east contains silurian
schist, and in the west, the same schist metamorphosed into granite by
the action of subterranean fire,)[AE] to the North Polar Sea, the
Cordilleras extend over a distance of more than 8000 miles. Although
not the loftiest, they are the longest mountain chain in the world,
being upheaved from one fissure, which runs in the direction of a
meridian from pole to pole, and exceeding in linear extent the
distance which, in the old continent, separates the Pillars of
Hercules from the Icy Cape of the Tschuktches, in the north-east of
Asia. Where the Andes are divided into several parallel chains, those
lying nearest the sea are found to be the seat of the most active
volcanoes; and it has moreover been repeatedly observed that when the
phenomenon of an eruption of subterranean fire ceases in one mountain
chain, it breaks forth in some other parallel range. The cones of
eruption usually follow the direction of the axis of the chain; but in
the Mexican table-land, the active volcanoes are situated on a
transverse fissure, running from sea to sea, in a direction from east
and west.[AF] Wherever the upheaval of mountain masses in the folding
of the ancient crust of the earth has opened a communication with the
fused interior, volcanic activity continued to be exhibited on the
murally upheaved mass by means of the ramification of fissures. That
which we call a mountain chain has not been raised to its present
elevation, or manifested as it now appears, at one definite period;
for we find that rocks, varying considerably in age, have been
superimposed on one another, and have penetrated towards the surface
through early formed channels. The diversity observable in rocks is
owing to the outpouring and upheaval of rocks of eruption, as well as
to the complicated and slow process of metamorphism going on in
fissures filled with vapour, and conducive to the conduction of heat.
The following have for a long time, viz., from 1830 to 1848, been
regarded as the highest or culminating points of the Cordilleras of
the new continent:—
The _Nevado de Sorata_, also called Ancohuma or Tusubaya (15° 52′
south lat.), somewhat to the south of the village of Sorata or
Esquibel, in the eastern chain of Bolivia: elevation, 25,222 feet.
The _Nevado de Illimani_, west of the mission of Yrupana (16° 38′
south lat.), also in the eastern chain of Bolivia: elevation, 24,000
feet.
The _Chimborazo_ (1° 27′ south lat.), in the province of Quito:
elevation, 21,422 feet.
The Sorata and Illimani were first measured by the distinguished
geologist, Pentland, in the years 1827 and 1838; and since the
publication of his large map of the basin of the Laguna de Titicaca,
in June, 1848, we learn that the above elevations given for the Sorata
and Illimani are 3960 feet and 2851 feet too high. His map gives only
21,286 feet for the Sorata, and 21,149 feet for the Illimani. A more
exact calculation of the trigonometrical operations of 1838 led Mr.
Pentland to these new results. He ascribes an elevation of from 21,700
to 22,350 feet to four summits of the western Cordilleras; and,
according to his data, the Peak of Sahama would thus be 926 feet
higher than the Chimborazo, but 850 feet lower than the Peak of
Aconcagua.
Footnote 6:
p. 2—“_The desert near the basaltic mountains of Harudsch_.”
Near the Egyptian Natron Lakes, which in Strabo’s time had not yet
been divided into the six reservoirs by which they are now
characterized, there rises abruptly to the north a chain of hills,
running from east to west past Fezzan, where it at length appears to
form one connected range with the Atlas chain. It divides in
north-eastern, as Mount Atlas does in north-western Africa the Lybia,
described by Herodotus as inhabited and situated near the sea, from
the land of the Berbirs, or Biledulgerid, famed for the abundance of
its wild animals. On the borders of Middle Egypt the whole region,
south of the 30th degree of latitude, is an ocean of sand, studded
here and there with islands or oases abounding in springs and rich in
vegetation. Owing to the discoveries of recent travellers, a vast
addition has been made to the number of the Oases formerly known, and
which the ancients limited to three, compared by Strabo to spots upon
a panther’s skin. The third Oasis of the ancients, now called Siwah,
was the _nomos_ of Ammon, a hierarchical seat and a resting-place for
the caravans, which inclosed within its precincts the temple of the
horned Ammon and the spring of the Sun, whose waters were supposed to
become cool at certain periods. The ruins of Ummibida (_Omm-Beydah_)
incontestably belong to the fortified caravanserai at the Temple of
Ammon, and therefore constitute one of the most ancient monuments
which have come down to us from the dawn of human civilization.[AG]
The word Oasis is Egyptian, and is synonymous with Auasis and
Hyasis.[AH] Abulfeda calls the Oases _el-Wah_. In the latter time of
the Cæsars, malefactors were sent to the Oases, being banished to
these islands in the sandy ocean, as the Spaniards and English
transported their malefactors to the Falkland islands and New Holland.
The ocean affords almost a better chance of escape than the desert
surrounding the Oases; which, moreover, diminish in fruitfulness in
proportion to the greater quantity of sand incorporated in the soil.
The small mountain range of Harudsch (_Harudje_[AI]) consists of
grotesquely-shaped basaltic hills. It is the _Mons Ater_ of Pliny, and
its western extremity, known as the Soudah mountain, has been recently
explored by my unfortunate friend, the enterprising traveller Ritchie.
These basaltic eruptions in the tertiary limestone, and rows of hills
rising abruptly from fissures, appear to be analogous to the basaltic
eruptions in the Vicentine territory.
Nature repeats the same phenomena in the most distant regions of the
earth. Hornemann found an immense quantity of petrified fishes’ heads
in the limestone formations of the White Harudsch (_Harudje
el-Abiad_), belonging probably to the old chalk. Ritchie and Lyon
remarked that the basalt of the Soudah mountain was in many places
intimately mingled with carbonate of lime, as is the case in Monte
Berico; a phenomenon that is probably connected with eruptions through
limestone strata. Lyon’s chart even indicates dolomite in the
neighbourhood. Modern mineralogists have found syenite and greenstone,
but not basalt, in Egypt. Is it possible that the true basalt, from
which many of the ancient vases found in various parts of the country
were made, can have been derived from a mountain lying so far to the
west? Can the _obsidius lapis_ have come from there, or are we to seek
basalt and obsidian on the coast of the Red Sea? The strip of the
volcanic eruptions of Harudsch, on the borders of the African desert,
moreover reminds the geologist of augitic vesicular amygdaloid,
phonolite, and greenstone porphyry, which are only found on the
northern and western limits of the steppes of Venezuela and of the
plains of the Arkansas, and therefore, as it were, on the ancient
coast chains.[AJ]
Footnote 7:
p. 3—“_When suddenly deserted by the tropical east wind, and the sea
is covered with weeds_.”
It is a remarkable phenomenon, although one generally known to
mariners, that in the neighbourhood of the African coast, (between the
Canaries and the Cape de Verde islands, and more especially between
Cape Bojador and the mouth of the Senegal,) a westerly wind often
prevails instead of the usual east or trade wind of the tropics. The
cause of this phenomenon is to be ascribed to the far-extending desert
of Zahara, and arises from the rarefaction, and consequent vertical
ascent of the air over the heated sandy surface. To fill up the vacuum
thus occasioned, the cool sea-air rushes in, producing a westerly
breeze, adverse to vessels sailing to America; and the mariner, long
before he perceives any continent, is made sensible of the effects of
its heat-radiating sands. As is well known, a similar cause produces
that alternation of sea and land breezes, which prevails at certain
hours of the day and night on all sea-coasts.
The accumulation of sea-weed in the neighbourhood of the western
coasts of Africa has been often referred to by ancient writers. The
local position of this accumulation is a problem which is intimately
connected with the conjectures regarding the extent of Phœnician
navigation. The Periplus, which has been ascribed to Scylax of
Caryanda, and which, according to the investigations of Niebuhr and
Letronne, was very probably compiled in the time of Philip of Macedon,
contains a description of a kind of fucus sea, _Mar de Sargasso_,
beyond Cerne; but the locality indicated appears to me very different
from that assigned to it in the work “_De Mirabilibus
Auscultationibus_,” which for a long time, but incorrectly, bore the
great name of Aristotle.[AK] “Driven by the east wind,” says the
pseudo-Aristotle, “Phœnician mariners came in a four days’ voyage from
Gades to a place where the sea was found covered with rushes and
sea-weed (θρύον καὶ φῦκος). The sea-weed is uncovered at ebb, and
overflowed at flood tide.” Does he not here refer to a shoal lying
between the 34th and 36th degrees of latitude? Has a shoal disappeared
there in consequence of volcanic revolution? Vobonne refers to rocks
north of Madeira.[AL] In Scylax it is stated that “the sea beyond
Cerne ceases to be navigable in consequence of its great shallowness,
its muddiness, and its sea-grass. The sea-grass lies a span thick, and
it is pointed at its upper extremity, so that it pricks.” The sea-weed
which is found between Cerne (the Phœnician station for merchant
vessels, Gaulea; or, according to Gosselin, the small estuary of
Fedallah, on the north-west coast of Mauritania,) and Cape Verde, at
the present time by no means forms a great meadow or connected group,
“_mare herbidum_,” such as exists on the other side of the Azores.
Moreover, in the poetic description of the coast given by Festus
Avienus,[AM] in which, as Avienus himself very distinctly
acknowledges, he availed himself of the journals of Phœnician ships,
the impediments presented by the sea-weed are described with great
minuteness; but Avienus places the site of this obstacle much further
north, towards Ierne, the Holy Isle.
Sic nulla late flabra propellunt ratem,
Sic segnis humor æquoris pigri stupet.
Adjicit et illud, plurimum inter gurgites
Exstare fucum, et sæpe virgulti vice
Retinere puppim ...
Hæc inter undas multa cæspitem jacet,
Eamque late gens Hibemorum colit.
When we consider that the sea-weed (_fucus_), the mud or slime
(πηλὸς), the shallowness of the sea, and the perpetual calms, are
always regarded by the ancients as characteristic of the Western Ocean
beyond the Pillars of Hercules, we feel inclined, especially on
account of the reference to the _calms_, to ascribe this to Punic
cunning, to the tendency of a great trading people to hinder others,
by terrific descriptions, from competing with them in maritime trading
westwards. But even in the genuine writings of the Stagyrite,[AN] the
same opinion is retained regarding the absence of wind, and Aristotle
attempts to explain a false notion, or, as it seems to me, more
correctly speaking, a fabulous mariner’s story, by an hypothesis
regarding the depth of the sea. The stormy sea between Gades and the
Islands of the Blest (Cadiz and the Canaries) can in truth in no way
be compared with the sea, which lies between the tropics, ruffled only
by the gentle trade-winds (_vents alisés_), and which has been very
characteristically named by the Spaniards[AO] _El Golfo de las Damas_.
From very careful personal researches and from comparison of the logs
of many English and French vessels, I am led to believe that the old
and very indefinite expression _Mar de Sargasso_, refers to two fucus
banks, the larger of which is of an elongated form, and is the
easternmost one, lying between the parallels of 19° and 34°, in a
meridian 7° westward of the Island of Corvo, one of the Azores; while
the smaller and westernmost bank is of a roundish form, and is found
between Bermuda and the Bahama Islands (lat. 25°–31°, long. 66°–74°).
The principal diameter of the small bank, which is traversed by ships
sailing from Baxo de Plata (Caye d’Argent,) northward of St. Domingo
to the Bermudas, appears to me to have a N. 60° E. direction. A
transverse band of _fucus natans_, extending in an east-westerly
direction between the latitudes of 25° and 30°, connects the greater
with the smaller bank. I have had the pleasure of seeing these views
adopted by my lamented friend Major Rennell, and confirmed, in his
great work on Currents, by many new observations.[AP] The two groups
of sea-weed, together with the transverse band uniting them,
constitute the Sargasso Sea of the older writers, and collectively
occupy an area equal to six or seven times that of Germany.
The vegetation of the ocean thus offers the most remarkable example of
_social plants_ of a single species. On the main land the Savannahs or
grass plains of America, the heaths (_ericeta_), and the forests of
Northern Europe and Asia, in which are associated coniferous trees,
birches, and willows, produce a less striking uniformity than do these
thalassophytes. Our heaths present in the north not only the
predominating Calluna vulgaris, but also Erica tetralix, E. ciliaris,
and E. cinerea; and in the south, Erica arborea, E. scoparia, and E.
Mediterranea. The uniformity of the view presented by the Fucus natans
is incomparably greater than that of any other assemblage of social
plants. Oviedo calls the fucus banks “meadows,” _praderias de yerva_.
If we consider that Pedro Velasco, a native of the Spanish harbour of
Palos, by following the flight of certain birds from Fayal, discovered
the Island of Flores as early as 1452, it seems almost impossible,
considering the proximity of the great fucus bank of Corvo and Flores,
that no part of these oceanic meadows should have been seen before the
time of Columbus by Portuguese ships driven westward by storms.
We learn, however, from the astonishment of the companions of the
admiral, when they were continuously surrounded by sea-grass from the
16th of September to the 8th of October, 1492, that the magnitude of
the phenomenon was at that period unknown to mariners. In the extracts
from the ship’s journal given by Las Casas, Columbus certainly does
not mention the apprehensions which the accumulation of sea-weed
excited, or the grumbling of his companions. He merely speaks of the
complaints and murmurs regarding the danger of the very weak but
constant east winds. It was only his son, Fernando Colon, who in the
history of his father’s life, endeavoured to give a somewhat dramatic
delineation of the anxieties of the sailors.
According to my researches, Columbus made his way through the great
fucus bank in the year 1492, in latitude 28½°, and in 1493, in
latitude 37°, and both times in the longitude of 38°–41°. This can be
established with tolerable certainty from the estimation of the
velocity recorded by Columbus, and “the distance daily sailed over;”
not indeed by dropping the log, but by the information afforded by the
running out of half-hour sand-glasses (_ampolletas_). The first
certain and distinct account of the log, (_catena della poppa_,) which
I have found, is in the year 1521, in Pigafetta’s Journal of
Magellan’s Circumnavigation of the World.[AQ] The determination of the
ship’s place during the days in which Columbus was crossing the great
bank is the more important, because it shews us that for three
centuries and a half the total accumulation of these socially-living
thalassophytes, (whether consequent on the local character of the
sea’s bottom or on the direction of the recurrent Gulf stream,) has
remained at the same point. Such evidences of the persistence of great
natural phenomena doubly arrest the attention of the natural
philosopher, when they occur in the ever-moving oceanic element.
Although the limits of the fucus banks oscillate considerably, in
accordance with the strength and direction of long predominating
winds, yet we may still, in the middle of the nineteenth century, take
the meridian of 41° west of Paris (or 8° 38′ west of Greenwich) as the
principal axis of the _great bank_. Columbus, with his vivid
imaginative force, associated the idea of the position of this bank
with the great physical line of demarcation, which according to him,
“separated the globe into two parts, and was intimately connected with
the changes of magnetic deviation and of climatic relations.” Columbus
when he was uncertain regarding the longitude, attempted to determine
his place (February, 1493,) by the appearance of the first floating
masses of tangled weed (_de la primera yerva_) on the eastern border
of the great Corvo bank. The physical line of demarcation was, by the
powerful influence of the Admiral, converted on the 4th of May, 1493,
into a political one, in the celebrated _line of demarcation_ between
the Spanish and Portuguese rights of possession[AR].
Footnote 8:
p. 3—“_The Nomadic Tribes of Tibbos and Tuaryks_.”
These two nations, which inhabit the desert between Bornou, Fezzan,
and Lower Egypt, were first made more accurately known to us by the
travels of Hornemann and Lyon. The Tibbos or Tibbous occupy the
eastern, and the Tuaryks (Tueregs) the western portion of the great
sandy ocean. The former, from their habits of constant moving, were
named by the other tribes “birds.” The Tuaryks are subdivided into two
tribes—the Aghadez and the Tagazi. These are often caravan leaders and
merchants. They speak the same language as the Berbers, and
undoubtedly belong to the primitive Lybian races. They present the
remarkable physiological phenomenon that, according to the character
of the climate, the different tribes vary in complexion from a white
to a yellow, or even almost black hue; but they never have woolly hair
or negro features.[AS]
Footnote 9:
p. 3—“_The ship of the desert_.”
In the poetry of the East, the camel is designated as _the land-ship_,
or _the ship of the desert_ (_Sefynet-el-badyet_[AT]).
The camel is, however, not only the carrier in the desert, and the
medium for maintaining communication between different countries, but
is also, as Carl Bitter has shown in his admirable treatise on the
sphere of distribution of this animal, “the main requirement of a
nomadic mode of life in the patriarchal stage of national development,
in the torrid regions of our planet, where rain is either wholly or in
a great degree absent. No animal’s life is so closely associated by
natural bonds with a certain primitive stage of the development of the
life of man, as that of the camel among the Bedouin tribes, nor has
any other been established in like manner by a continuous historical
evidence of several thousand years.”[AU] “The camel was entirely
unknown to the cultivated people of Carthage through all the centuries
of their flourishing existence, until the destruction of the city. It
was first brought into use for armies by the Marusians, in Western
Lybia, in the times of the Cæsars; perhaps in consequence of its
employment in commercial undertakings by the Ptolemies, in the valley
of the Nile. The Guanches, inhabiting the Canary Islands, who were
probably related to the Berber race, were not acquainted with the
camel before the fifteenth century, when it was introduced by Norman
conquerors and settlers. In the probably very limited communication of
the Guanches with the coast of Africa, the smallness of their boats
must necessarily have impeded the transport of large animals. The true
Berber race, which was diffused throughout the interior of Northern
Africa, and to which the Tibbos and Tuaryks, as already observed,
belong, is probably indebted to the use of the camel throughout the
Lybian desert and its oases, not only for the advantages of internal
communication, but also for its escape from complete annihilation and
for the maintenance of its national existence to the present day. The
use of the camel continued, on the other hand, to be unknown to the
negro races, and it was only in company with the conquering
expeditions and proselyting missions of the Bedouins through the whole
of Northern Africa, that the useful animal of the Nedschd, of the
Nabatheans, and of all the districts occupied by Aramean races, spread
here, as elsewhere, to the westward. The Goths brought camels as early
as the fourth century to the Lower Istros (the Danube), and the
Ghaznevides transported them in much larger numbers to India as far as
the banks of the Ganges.” We must distinguish two epochs in the
distribution of the camel throughout the northern part of the African
continent; the first under the Ptolemies, which operated through
Cyrene on the whole of the north-west of Africa, and the second under
the Mahommedan epoch of the conquering Arabs.
It has long been a matter of discussion, whether those domestic
animals which were the earliest companions of mankind, as oxen, sheep,
dogs, and camels, are still to be met with in a state of original
wildness. The Hiongnu, in Eastern Asia, are among the nations who
earliest trained wild camels as domestic animals. The compiler of the
great Chinese work, _Si-yu-wen-kien-lo_[AV], states that in the middle
of the eighteenth century, wild camels, as well as wild horses and
wild asses, still roamed over Eastern Turkestan. Hadji Chalfa, in his
Turkish Geography, written in the seventeenth century, speaks of the
very frequent hunting of the wild camel in the high plains of Kashgar,
Turfan, and Khotan. Schott finds in the writings of a Chinese author,
Ma-dschi, that wild camels exist in the countries north of China and
west of the basin of the Hoang-ho, in Ho-si or Tangut. Cuvier[AW]
alone doubts the present existence of wild camels in the interior of
Asia. He believes that they have merely “become wild;” since Calmucks,
and others professing kindred Buddhist doctrines, set camels and other
animals at liberty, in order “to acquire to themselves merit for the
other world.” The Ailanitic Gulf of the Nabatheans was the home of the
wild Arabian camel, according to Greek witnesses of the times of
Artemidorus and Agatharchides of Cnidus.[AX] The discovery of fossil
camel-bones of the ancient world in the Sewalik hills (which are
projecting spurs of the Himalaya range), by Captain Cautley and Dr.
Falconer, in 1834, is especially worthy of notice. These remains were
found with antediluvian bones of mastodons, true elephants, giraffes,
and a gigantic land tortoise (_Colossochelys_), twelve feet in length
and six feet in height.[AY] This camel of the ancient world has been
named _Camelus sivalensis_, although it does not show any great
difference from the still living Egyptian and Bactrian camels with one
and two humps. Forty camels have very recently been introduced into
Java, from Teneriffe[AZ]. The first experiment has been made in
Samarang. In like manner, reindeer were only introduced into Iceland
from Norway in the course of the last century. They were not found
there when the island was first colonised, notwithstanding its
proximity to East Greenland, and the existence of floating masses of
ice.[BA]
Footnote 10:
p. 3—“_Between the Altai and the Kuen-lün_.”
The great highland, or, as it is commonly called, the mountain plateau
of Asia, which comprises the lesser Bucharia, Songaria, Thibet,
Tangut, and the Mogul country of the Chalcas and Olotes, is situated
between the 36th and 48th degrees of north latitude and the meridians
of 81° and 118° E. long. It is an erroneous idea to represent this
part of the interior of Asia as a single, undivided mountainous
swelling, continuous like the plateaux of Quito and Mexico, and
situated from seven to upwards of nine thousand feet above the level
of the sea. I have already shown in my “_Researches respecting the
Mountains of Northern India_,[BB]” that there is not in this sense any
continuous mountain plateau in the interior of Asia.
My views concerning the geographical distribution of plants, and the
mean degree of temperature requisite for certain kinds of cultivation,
had early led me to entertain considerable doubts regarding the
continuity of a great Tartarian plateau between the Himalaya and the
chain of the Altai. This plateau continued to be characterized, as it
had been described by Hippocrates, as “the high and naked plains of
Scythia, which, without being crowned with mountains, rise and extend
to beneath the constellation of the Bear.”[BC] Klaproth has the
undeniable merit of having been the first to make us acquainted with
the true position and prolongation of two great and entirely distinct
chains of mountains,—the Kuen-lün and the Thian-schan, in a part of
Asia which better deserves to be termed “central,” than Kashmeer,
Baltistan, and the Sacred Lakes of Thibet (the Manasa and the
Ravanahrada). The importance of the Celestial Mountains (the
Thian-schan) had indeed been already surmised by Pallas, without his
being conscious of their volcanic character; but this highly-gifted
investigator of nature, led astray by the hypotheses of the dogmatic
and fantastic geology prevalent in his time, and firmly believing in
“chains of mountains radiating from a centre,” saw in the Bogdo Oola
(the _Mons Augustus_, or culminating point of the Thian-schan,) such
“a central node, whence all the other Asiatic mountain chains diverge
in rays, and which dominates over all the rest of the continent!”
The erroneous idea of a single boundless and elevated plain, occupying
the whole of Central Asia, the “_Plateau de la Tartarie_,” originated
in France, in the latter half of the eighteenth century. It was the
result of historical combinations, and of a not sufficiently attentive
study of the writings of the celebrated Venetian traveller, as well as
of the naïve relations of those diplomatic monks who, in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries (thanks to the unity and extent of
the Mogul empire at that time), were able to traverse almost the whole
of the interior of the continent, from the ports of Syria and of the
Caspian Sea to the east coast of China, washed by the great ocean. If
a more exact acquaintance with the language and ancient literature of
India were of an older date among us than half a century, the
hypothesis of this central plateau, occupying the wide space between
the Himalaya and the south of Siberia, would no doubt have sought
support from some ancient and venerable authority. The poem of the
Mahabharata appears, in the geographical fragment Bhischmakanda, to
describe “Meru” not so much as a mountain as an enormous swelling of
the land, which supplies with water the sources of the Ganges, those
of the Bhadrasoma (Irtysch), and those of the forked Oxus. These
physico-geographical views were intermingled in Europe with ideas of
other kinds, and with mythical reveries on the origin of mankind. The
lofty regions from which the waters were supposed to have first
retreated (for geologists in general were long averse to the theories
of elevation) must also have received the first germs of civilization.
Hebraic systems of geology, based on ideas of a deluge, and supported
by local traditions, favoured these assumptions. The intimate
connexion between time and space, between the beginning of social
order and the plastic condition of the surface of the earth, lent a
peculiar importance and an almost moral interest to the Plateau of
Tartary, which was supposed to be characterized by uninterrupted
continuity. Acquisitions of positive knowledge,—the late matured fruit
of scientific travels and direct measurements,—with a fundamental
study of the languages and literature of Asia, and more especially of
China, have gradually demonstrated the inaccuracy and exaggeration of
those wild hypotheses. The mountain plains (ὀροπέδια) of Central Asia
are no longer regarded as the cradle of human civilization, and the
primitive seat of all arts and sciences. The ancient nation of
Bailly’s Atlantis, which d’Alembert has happily described as “having
taught us everything but its own name and existence,” has vanished.
The inhabitants of the Oceanic Atlantis were already treated, in the
time of Posidonius, as having a merely apocryphal existence.[BD]
A plateau of considerable but very unequal elevation runs with little
interruption, in a S.S.W.-N.N.E. direction, from Eastern Thibet
towards the mountain node of Kentei, south of Lake Baikal, and is
known by the names of Gobi, Scha-mo, (sand desert,) Scha-ho. (sand
river,) and Han-hai. This swelling of the ground, which is probably
more ancient than the elevation of the mountain-chains by which it is
intersected, is situated, as we have already remarked, between 81° and
118° east longitude from Greenwich. Measured at right angles to its
longitudinal axis, its breadth in the south, between Ladak, Gertop,
and H’lassa (the seat of the great Lama), is 720 miles; between Hami
in the Celestial Mountains, and the great curve of the Hoang-ho, near
the In-schan chain, it is scarcely 480; but in the north, between the
Khanggai, where the great city of Karakhorum once stood, and the chain
of Khin-gan-Petscha, which runs in a meridian line (in the part of
Gobi traversed in going from Kiachta to Pekin by way of Urga), it is
760 miles. The whole extent of this elevated ground, which must be
carefully distinguished from the more eastern and higher
mountain-range, may be approximately estimated, including its
deflections, at about three times the area of France. The map of the
mountain-ranges and volcanoes of Central Asia, which I constructed in
1839, but did not publish until 1843, shows in the clearest manner the
hypsometric relations between the mountain-ranges and the Gobi
plateau. It was founded on the critical employment of all the
astronomical determinations accessible to me, and on many of the very
rich and copious orographic descriptions in which Chinese literature
abounds, and which were examined at my request by Klaproth and
Stanislaus Julien. My map marks in prominent characters the mean
direction and the height of the mountain-chains, together with the
chief features of the interior of the continent of Asia from 30 to 60
degrees of latitude, between the meridians of Pekin and Cherson. It
differs essentially from any map hitherto published.
The Chinese enjoyed a triple advantage, by means of which they were
enabled to enrich their earliest literature with so considerable an
amount of orographic knowledge regarding Upper Asia, and more
especially those regions situated between the In-schan, the alpine
lake of Khuku-noor, and the shores of the Ili and Tarim, lying north
and south of the Celestial Mountains, and which were so little known
to Western Europe. These three advantages were, besides the peaceful
conquests of the Buddhist pilgrims, the warlike expeditions towards
the west (as early as the dynasties of Han and Thang, one hundred and
twenty-two years before our era, and again in the ninth century, when
conquerors advanced as far as Ferghana and the shores of the Caspian
Sea); the religious interest attached to certain high mountain
summits, on account of the periodical performance of sacrifices, in
accordance with pre-existing enactments; and lastly, the early and
generally known use of the compass for determining the direction of
mountains and rivers. This use, and the knowledge of the
south-pointing of the magnetic needle, twelve centuries before the
Christian era, gave a great superiority to the orographic and
hydrographic descriptions of the Chinese over those of Greek and Roman
authors, who treated less frequently of subjects of this nature. The
acute observer Strabo was alike ignorant of the direction of the
Pyrenees and of that of the Alps and Apennines.[BE]
To the lowlands belong almost the whole of Northern Asia to the
north-west of the volcanic Celestial Mountains (Thian-schan); the
steppes to the north of the Altai and the Sayanic chain; and the
countries which extend from the mountains of Bolor, or Bulyt-tagh
(Cloud Mountains in the Uigurian dialect), which run in a north and
south direction, and from the upper Oxus, whose sources were
discovered in the Pamershian Lake, Sir-i-kol (Lake Victoria), by the
Buddhist pilgrims Hiuen-thsang and Song-yun in 518 and 629, by Marco
Polo in 1277, and by Lieutenant Wood in 1838, towards the Caspian Sea;
and from Lake Tenghiz or Balkasch, through the Kirghis Steppe, towards
the Aral and the southern extremity of the Ural Mountains. In the
vicinity of mountainous plains, whose elevation varies from 6000 to
more than 10,000 feet above the sea’s level, we may assuredly be
allowed to apply the term lowlands to districts which are only
elevated from 200 to 1200 feet. The first of these heights correspond
with that of the city of Mannheim, and the second with that of Geneva
and Tübingen. If we extend the application of the word _plateau_,
which has so frequently been misused by modern geographers, to
elevations of the soil which scarcely present any sensible difference
in the character of the vegetation and climate, physical geography,
owing to the indefiniteness of the merely relatively important terms
of _high_ and _low_ land, will be unable to distinguish the connexion
between elevation above the sea’s level and climate, between the
decrease of the temperature and the increase in elevation. When I was
in Chinese Dzungarei, between the boundaries of Siberia and Lake
Saysan (Dsaisang), at an equal distance from the Icy Sea and the mouth
of the Ganges, I might assuredly consider myself to be in _Central
Asia_. The barometer, however, soon showed me that the elevation of
the plains watered by the Upper Irtysch between Ustkamenogorsk and the
Chinese Dzungarian post of Chonimailachu (the sheep-bleating) was
scarcely as much as from 850 to 1170 feet. Pansner’s earlier
barometric determinations of height, which were first made known after
my expedition, have been confirmed by my own observations. Both afford
a refutation of the hypotheses of Chappe D’Auteroche (based on
calculations of the fall of rivers) regarding the elevated position of
the shores of the Irtysch, in Southern Siberia. Even further eastward,
the Lake of Baikal is only 1420 feet above the level of the sea.
In order to associate the idea of the _relation_ between _lowlands_
and _highlands_, and of the successive gradations in the elevation of
the soil, with actual data based on accurate measurements, I subjoin a
table, in which the heights of the elevated plains of Europe, Africa,
and America are given in an ascending scale. With these numbers we may
then further compare all that has as yet been made known regarding the
mean height of the Asiatic plains, or true _lowlands_.
Toises. Feet.
Plateau of Auvergne 170 1,087
„ of Bavaria 260 1,663
„ of Castille 350 2,238
„ of Mysore 460 2,942
„ of Caracas 480 3,070
„ of Popayan 900 5,755
„ of the vicinity of the Lake of Tzana, in
Abyssinia 950 6,075
„ of the Orange River (in South Africa) 1000 6,395
„ of Axum (in Abyssinia) 1100 7,034
„ of Mexico 1170 7,482
„ of Quito 1490 9,528
„ of the Province de los Pastos 1600 10,231
„ of the vicinity of the Lake of Titicaca 2010 12,853
No portion of the so-called Desert of Gobi, which consists in part of
fine pasture lands, has been so thoroughly investigated in relation to
its differences of elevations as the zone which extends over an area
of nearly 600 miles, between the sources of the Selenga and the
Chinese wall. A very accurate barometrical levelling was executed,
under the auspices of the Academy of St. Petersburgh, by two
distinguished savans—the astronomer George Fuss, and the botanist
Bunge. They accompanied a mission of Greek monks to Pekin, in the year
1832, in order to establish there one of those magnetic stations whose
construction I had recommended. The mean height of this portion of the
Desert of Gobi amounts hardly to 4263 feet, and not to 8000 or 8500
feet, as had been too hastily concluded from the measurements of
contiguous mountain summits by the Jesuits Gerbillon and Verbiest. The
surface of the Desert of Gobi is not more than 2558 feet above the
level of the sea between Erghi, Durma, and Scharaburguna; and scarcely
more than 320 feet higher than the plateau of Madrid. Erghi is
situated midway, in 45° 31′ north lat., and 111° 26′ east long., in a
depression of the land extending in a direction from south-west to
north-east over a breadth of more than 240 miles. An ancient Mongolian
saga designates this spot as the former site of a large inland sea.
Reeds and saline plants, generally of the same species as those found
on the low shores of the Caspian Sea, are here met with; while there
are in this central part of the desert several small saline lakes, the
salt of which is carried to China. According to a singular opinion
prevalent among the Mongols, the ocean will at some period return, and
again establish its dominion in Gobi. Such geological reveries remind
us of the Chinese traditions of the _bitter lake_, in the interior of
Siberia, of which I have elsewhere spoken.[BF]
The basin of Kashmir, which has been so enthusiastically praised by
Bernier, and too moderately estimated by Victor Jacquemont, has also
given occasion to great hypsometric exaggerations. Jacquemont found by
an accurate barometric measurement that the height of the Wulur Lake,
in the valley of Kashmir, near the capital Sirinagur, was 5346 feet.
Uncertain determinations by the boiling point of water gave Baron Carl
von Hügel 5819 feet, and Lieutenant Cunningham only 5052 feet.[BG] The
mountainous districts of Kashmir, which has excited so great an
interest in Germany, and whose climatic advantages have lost somewhat
of their reputation since Carl von Hügel’s account of the four months
of winter snow in the streets of Sirinagur,[BH] does not lie on the
high crests of the Himalaya, as has commonly been supposed, but
constitutes a true cauldron-like valley on their southern declivity.
On the south-west, where the rampart-like Pir Panjal separates it from
the Indian Punjaub, the snow-crowned summits are covered, according to
Vigne, by basaltic and amygdaloid formations. The latter are very
characteristically termed by the natives _schischak deyu_, or devil’s
pock-marks.[BI] The charms of the vegetation have also been very
differently described, according as travellers passed into Kashmir
from the south, and left behind them the luxuriant and varied
vegetation of India; or from the northern regions of Turkestan,
Samarkand, and Ferghana.
Moreover, it is only very recently that we have obtained a clearer
view regarding the elevation of Thibet, the level of the plateau
having long been uncritically confounded with the mountain tops rising
from it. Thibet occupies the space between the two great chains of the
Himalaya and the Kuen-lün, and forms the elevated ground of the valley
between them. The land is divided from east to west, both by the
inhabitants and by Chinese geographers, into three parts. We
distinguish Upper Thibet, with its capital, H’lassa (probably 9592
feet high); Middle Thibet, with the town of Leh or Ladak (9995 feet);
and Little Thibet, or Baltistan, called the Thibet of Apricots
(Sari-Butan), in which lie Iskardo (6300 feet), Gilgit, and south of
Iskardo, but on the left bank of the Indus, the plateau Deotsuh, whose
elevation was determined by Vigne (11,977 feet). On carefully
examining all the notices we have hitherto possessed regarding the
three Thibets, and which will have been abundantly augmented during
the present year by the brilliant boundary surveying expedition under
the auspices of the Governor-general, Lord Dalhousie, we soon become
convinced that the region between the Himalaya and the Kuen-lün is no
unbroken table-land, but that it is intersected by mountain groups,
which undoubtedly belong to perfectly distinct systems of elevation.
Actual plains are very few in number: the most considerable are those
between Gertop, Daba, Schang-thung (the Shepherd’s Plain), the native
country of the shawl-goat, and Schipke (10,449 feet); those round
Ladak, which attain an elevation of 13,429 feet, and must not be
confounded with the depressed land in which the town lies; and
finally, the plateau of the Sacred Lakes, Manasa and Ravanahrada
(probably 14,965 feet), which was visited by Father Antonio de Andrada
as early as the year 1625. Other parts are entirely filled with
compressed mountain masses, “rising,” as a recent traveller observes,
“like the waves of a vast ocean.” Along the rivers, the Indus, the
Sutledge, and the Yaru-dzangbotschu, which was formerly regarded as
identical with the Buramputer (or correctly the Brahmaputra), points
have been measured which are only between 6714 and 8952 feet above the
sea; and the same is the case with the Thibetian villages Pangi,
Kunawur, Kelu, and Murung.[BJ] From many carefully collected
determinations of heights, I think that we are justified in assuming
that the plateau of Thibet between 73° and 85° east long, does not
attain a mean elevation of 11,510 feet: this is hardly the elevation
of the fruitful plain of Caxamarca in Peru, and is 1349 and 2155 feet
less than the plateau of Titicaca, and of the street pavement of the
Upper Town of Potosi (13,665 feet).
That beyond the Thibetian highlands and the Gobi, whose outline has
been already defined, Asia presents considerable depressions, and
indeed true lowlands, between the parallels of 37° and 48°, where once
an immeasurable continuous plateau was fabulously supposed to exist,
is proved by the cultivation of plants which cannot flourish without a
certain degree of temperature. An attentive study of the travels of
Marco Polo, in which mention is made of the cultivation of the vine,
and of the production of cotton in northern latitudes, had long ago
directed the attention of the acute Klaproth to this point. In a
Chinese work, bearing the title _Information respecting the recently
conquered Barbarians_ (Sinkiang-wai-tan-ki-lio), it is stated that
“the country of Aksu, somewhat to the south of the Celestial
Mountains, near the rivers which form the great Tarim-gol, produces
grapes, pomegranates, and numberless other fruits of singular
excellence; also cotton (Gossypium religiosum), which, covers the
fields like yellow clouds. In summer the heat is extremely great, and
in winter there is here, as at Turfan, neither intense cold nor heavy
snow.” The neighbourhood of Khotan, Kaschgar, and Yarkand still, as in
the time of Marco Polo,[BK] pays its tribute in home-grown cotton. In
the oasis of Hami (Khamil), above 200 miles east of Aksu, orange
trees, pomegranates, and the finer vines are found to flourish.
The products of cultivation which are here noticed lead to the belief
that over extensive districts the elevation of the soil is very
slight. At so great a distance from the sea side, and in the easterly
situation which so much increases the degree of winter cold, a
plateau, as high as Madrid or Munich, might indeed have a very hot
summer, but would hardly have, in 43° and 44° latitude, an extremely
mild and almost snowless winter. I have seen a high summer heat favour
the cultivation of the vine, as at the Caspian Sea, 83 feet below the
level of the Black Sea (at Astrakhan, latitude 46° 21′); but the
winter cold is there from –4° to –13°. Moreover, the vine is sunk to a
greater depth in the ground after the month of November. We can
understand that cultivated plants, which, as it were, live only in the
summer, as the vine, the cotton plant, rice, and melons, may be
cultivated with success between the latitudes of 40° and 44°, on
plateaux at an elevation of more than 3000[BL] feet, and may be
favoured by the action of radiant heat; but how could the pomegranate
trees of Aksu, and the orange trees of Hami, whose fruit Father
Grosier extolled as excellent, endure a long and severe winter (the
necessary consequence of a great elevation[BM])? Carl Zimmerman[BN]
has shown it to be extremely probable that the Tarim depression, or
the desert between the mountain chain of Thian-schan and Kuen-lün,
where the steppe river Tarim-gol discharges itself into the Lake of
Lop, formerly described as an alpine lake, is hardly 1280 feet above
the level of the sea, or only twice the elevation of Prague. Sir
Alexander Burnes also ascribes to Bokhara only an elevation of 1188
feet. It is most earnestly to be desired that all doubt regarding the
elevation of the plateaux of Central Asia, south of 45° north
latitude, should finally be removed by direct barometrical
measurements, or by determinations of the boiling point of water,
conducted with greater care than is usual in these cases. All our
calculations of the difference between the limits of perpetual snow
and the maximum elevation of vine cultivation in different climates,
rest at present on too complex and uncertain elements.
In order as briefly as possible to rectify that which has been
advanced in the former edition of the present work, regarding the
great mountain systems which intersect the interior of Asia, I subjoin
the following general review:—We begin with the four _parallel
chains_, which run, with tolerable regularity, from east to west, and
are connected together by means of a few detached transverse lines.
Differences of direction indicate, as in the Alps of Western Europe, a
difference in the epoch of elevation. After the four parallel chains
(the _Altai_, the _Thian-schan_, the _Kuen-lün_, and the _Himalaya_)
we must consider as following the direction of meridian, the Ural, the
Bolor, the Khingan, and the Chinese chains, which, with the great
inflection of the Thibetian and Assam-Birmese Dzangbo-tschu incline
from north to south. The Ural divides a depressed portion of Europe
from a similarly low portion of Asia. The latter was called by
Herodotus,[BO] and even earlier by Pherecydes of Syros, Scythian or
Siberian Europe, and comprised all the countries to the north of the
Caspian and of the Iaxartes, which flows from east to west, and may
therefore be regarded as a continuation of our Europe, “as it now
exists, extending lengthwise across the continent of Asia.”
1. The great mountain system of the Altai (the “gold mountains” of
Menander of Byzantium, an historical writer of the seventh century;
the Altaï-alin of the Moguls, and the Kin-schan of the Chinese) forms
the southern boundary of the great Siberian lowlands, and running
between 50° and 52½° north latitude, extends from the rich silver
mines of the Snake Mountains, and the confluence of the Uba and the
Irtysch, to the meridian of Lake Baikal. The divisions and names of
the “Great” and the “Little Altai,” taken from an obscure passage of
Abulghasi, should be wholly avoided.[BP] The mountain system of the
Altai comprehends—(_a_) the Altai proper, or Kolywanski Altai, which
is entirely under the Russian sceptre: it lies to the west of the
intersecting fissures of the Telezki Lake, which follow the direction
of the meridian; and in ante-historic times probably constituted the
eastern shore of the great arm of the sea, by which, in the direction
of the still existing lakes, Aksakal-Barbi and Sary-Kupa,[BQ] the
Aralo-Caspian basin was connected with the Icy sea;—(_b_) East of the
Telezki chains, which follow the direction of the meridian, the
Sayani, Tangnu, and Ulangom, or Malakha ranges, all tolerably parallel
with each other, and following an east and west direction. The Tangnu,
which merges in the basin of the Selenga, has, from very remote times,
constituted the national boundary between the Turkish race, to the
south, and the Kirghis (Hakas, identical with Σάκαι), to the
north.[BR] It is the original seat of the Samoieds or Soyotes. who
wandered as far as the Icy Sea, and were long regarded in Europe as a
race inhabiting exclusively the coasts of the Polar Sea. The highest
snow-covered summits of the Kolywan Altai are the Bielucha and the
Katunia Pillars. The latter attain only a height of about 11,000 feet,
or about the height of Etna. The Daurian highland, to which the
mountain node of Kentei belongs, and on whose eastern margin lies the
Jablonoi Chrebet, divides the depressions of the Baikal and the Amur.
2. The mountain system of the Thian-schan, or the chain of the
Celestial Mountains, the Tengri-tagh of the Turks (Tukiu), and of the
kindred race of the Hiongnu, is eight times as long, in an east and
west direction, as the Pyrenees. Beyond, that is to say, to the west
of its intersection with the meridian chain of the Bolor and Kosuyrt,
the Thian-schan bears the names of Asferah and Aktagh, is rich in
metals, and is intersected with open fissures, which emit hot vapours
luminous at night, and which are used for obtaining sal-ammoniac.[BS]
East of the transverse Bolor and Kosyurt chain, there follow
successively in the Thian-schan, the Kashgar Pass (Kaschgar-dawan),
the Glacier Pass of Djeparle, which leads to Kutch and Aksu in the
Tarim basin; the volcano of Pe-schan, which erupted fire and streams
of lava at least as late as the middle of the seventh century; the
great snow-covered massive elevation of Bogdo-Oola; the Solfatara of
Urumtsi, which furnishes sulphur and sal-ammoniac (nao-scha), and lies
in a coal district; the volcano of Turfan (or volcano of Ho-tscheu or
Bischbalik), almost midway between the meridians of Turfan (Kune
Turpan), and of Pidjan, and which is still in a state of activity. The
volcanic eruptions of the Thian-schan chain reach, according to
Chinese historians, as far back as the year 89, A.D., when the Hiongnu
were pursued by the Chinese from the sources of the Irtysch as far as
Kutch and Kharaschar[BT]. The Chinese General, Teu-hian, crossed the
Thian-schan, and saw “the Fire Mountains, which sent out masses of
molten rock that flow to the distance of many _Li_.”
The great distance of the volcanoes of the interior of Asia from the
sea coast is a remarkable and isolated phenomenon. Abel Rémusat, in a
letter to Cordier[BU], first directed the attention of geologists to
this fact. This distance, for instance, in the case of the volcano of
Pe-schan, from the north or the Icy Sea at the mouth of the Obi, is
1528 miles; and from the south or the mouths of the Indus and the
Ganges, 1512 miles; so central is the position of fire-emitting
volcanoes in the Asiatic continent. To the west its distance from the
Caspian at the Gulf of Karuboghaz, is 1360 miles, and from the east
shores of the Lake of Aral, 1020 miles. The active volcanoes of the
New World had hitherto offered the most remarkable examples of great
distance from the sea coast, but in the case of the volcano of
Popocatepetl, in Mexico, this distance is only one hundred and
thirty-two miles, and only ninety-two, one hundred and four, and one
hundred and fifty-six, respectively in the South American volcanoes
Sangai, Tolima, and de la Fragua. All extinct volcanoes, and all
trachytic mountains, which have no permanent connexion with the
interior of the earth, have been excluded from these statements[BV].
East of the volcano of Turfat, and of the fruitful Oasis of Hami, the
chain of the Thian-schan merges into the great elevated tract of Gobi,
which runs in a S.W. and N.E. direction. This interruption of the
mountain chain continues for more than 9½ degrees of longitude; it is
caused by the transversal intersection of the Gobi, but beyond the
latter, the more southern chain of In-schan (Silver Mountains),
proceeding from west to east, to the shores of the Pacific near Pekin
(north of the Pe-tscheli), forms a continuation of the Thian-schan. As
we may regard the In-schan as an eastern prolongation of the fissure
from which the Thian-schan is upheaved, so we may also be inclined to
consider the Caucasus as a western prolongation of the same range,
beyond the Great Aralo-Caspian basin or of the lowlands of Turan. The
mean parallel or axis of elevation of the Thian-schan oscillates
between 40° 40′ and 43° north latitude; that of the Caucasus
(inclining, according to the map of the Russian Staff, from E.S.E. to
W.N.W.) between 41° and 44°.[BW] Of the four parallel chains that
traverse Asia, the Thian-schan is the only one of which no summit has
as yet been measured.
3. The mountain system of the Kuen-lün (Kurkun or Kulkun), including
the Hindoo-Coosh, with its western prolongation in the Persian Elburz
and Demavend, and the American chain of the Andes, constitute the
longest lines of elevation on our planet. At the point where the
meridian chain of the Bolor intersects the Kuen-lün at right angles,
the latter receives the name of Onion Mountains (Tchsung-ling), a term
also applied to a portion of the Bolor at the inner eastern angle of
intersection. Bounding Thibet in the north, the Kuen-lün runs in a
regular direction from east to west, in the parallel of 36° north
latitude; until the chain is broken in the meridian of H’lassa, by the
vast mountain node which surrounds the _Sea of Stars_, _Sing so-hai_
(so celebrated in the mythical geography of the Chinese), and the
Alpine lake of Khuku-noor. The chains of Nan-schan and Kilian-schan,
lying somewhat further north, and extending to the Chinese wall near
Liang-tsheu, may almost be regarded as the eastern prolongation of the
Kuen-lün. To the west of the intersection of the Bolor and the
Kuen-lün (Tchsung-ling), the regular direction of the axes of
elevation (inclining from east to west in the Kuen-lün and
Hindoo-Coosh, and from south-east to north-west in the Himalaya)
proves, as I have elsewhere attempted to show, that the Hindoo-Coosh
is a prolongation of the Kuen-lün and not of the Himalaya.[BX] From
the Taurus in Lycia to the Kafiristan, the chain follows the parallel
of Rhodes (the diaphragm of Dicæarchus) over a distance of 45 degrees
of longitude. The grand geological views of Eratosthenes,[BY] which
were further developed by Marinus of Tyre, and by Ptolemy, and
according to which “the prolongation of the Taurus in Lycia was
continued, in the same direction, through all Asia as far as India,”
appear in part to be based on representations derived by the Persians
and Indians from the Punjaub.
“The Brahmins maintain,” says Cosmas Indicopleustes, in his Christian
Topography[BZ], “that a line drawn from Tzinitza (Thinæ) across Persia
and Romania, would exactly pass over the centre of the inhabited
earth.” It is remarkable, as Eratosthenes observes, that this greatest
axis of elevation in the old world passes directly through the basin
(the depression) of the Mediterranean, in the parallels of 35½° and
36° north latitude, to the Pillars of Hercules.[CA] The most eastern
portion of Hindoo-Coosh is the Paropanisus of the ancients, the Indian
Caucasus of the companions of the great Macedonian. The name of
_Hindoo-Coosh_, which is so frequently used by geographers, does not
in reality apply to more than one single mountain pass, where the
climate is so severe, as we learn from the travels of the Arabian
writer, Ibn Batuta, that many Indian slaves frequently perish from the
cold.[CB] The Kuen-lün still exhibits active fire-emitting eruptions
at the distance of several hundred miles from the sea-coast. Flames,
visible at a great distance, burst from the cavern of the mountain of
Schinkhieu, as I learn from a translation of the Yuen-thong-ki, made
by my friend Stanislaus Julien.[CC] The loftiest summit in the
Hindoo-Coosh, north-west of Jellalabad, is 20,232 feet above the level
of the sea; to the west, towards Herat, the chain sinks to 2558 feet,
rising again north of Teheran, in the volcano of Demavend, to the
height of 14,675 feet.
4. The mountain system of the Himalaya has a normal direction from
east to west, running more than 15 degrees of longitude (from 81° to
97°), or from the colossal mountain Dhawalagiri (28,072 feet) to the
intersection of the Dzangbo-tscheu (the Irawaddy of Dalrymple and
Klaproth), whose existence was long regarded as problematical, and to
the meridian chains, which cover the whole of Western China, and form
the great mountain group, from which spring the sources of the Kiang,
in the provinces of Sse-tschuan, Hu-kuang, and Kuang-si. Next to the
Dhawalagiri, the Kinchinjinga, and not the more eastern peak of
Schamalari, as has hitherto been supposed, is the highest point of
this portion of the Himalaya, which inclines from east to west. The
Kinchinjinga, in the meridian of Sikhim, between Butan and Nepal,
between the Schamalari (23,980 feet) and the Dhawalagiri, is 28,174
feet in height.
It is only within the present year that it has been trigonometrically
measured with exactness, and as I learn from India through the same
channel, “that a new measurement of the Dhawalagiri still leaves it
the first place among all the snow-crowned summits of the Himalaya,”
this mountain must necessarily have a greater elevation than the
28,072 feet hitherto ascribed to it.[CD] The point of deflection in
the direction of the chain is, near the Dhawalagiri, in 81° 22′, east
longitude. From thence the Himalaya no longer follows a due west
direction, but runs from S.E. to N.W., as a vast connecting system of
veins between Mozufer-abad and Gilgit, merging into a part of the
Hindoo-Coosh chain in the south of Kafiristan. Such a turn and
alteration in the line of the axis of elevation of the Himalaya (from
E.-W. to S.E.-N.W.) certainly indicates, as in the western region of
our European Alpine mountains, a different age or period of elevation.
The course of the Upper Indus, from the sacred lakes of Manasa and
Itavana-hrada, (at an elevation of 14,965 feet,) in the vicinity of
which this great river takes its origin, to Iskardo, and to the
plateau of Deotsuh (at an elevation of 12,994 feet), measured by
Vigne, follows in the Thibetian highlands the same north-westerly
direction as the Himalaya.
Here are situated the Djawahir, whose height was long since accurately
determined at 26,902 feet, and the Alpine valley of Caschmere (never
visited by winds or storms), where, at an elevation of only 5346 feet,
lies the lake of Wulur, which freezes every winter, and whose surface
is never broken by a single ripple.
After considering the four great mountain systems of Asia, which, in
their normal geognostic character, are true parallel chains, we must
turn to the long series of _alternating_ elevations following a
direction from north to south, and which extend from Cape Comorin,
opposite to the island of Ceylon, to the Icy Sea, alternating between
the parallels of 66° and 77° east longitude, from S.S.E. to N.N.W. To
this system of meridian chains, whose alternations remind us of faults
in veins, belong the Ghauts, the Soliman chain, the Paralasa, the
Bolor, and the Ural range. This interruption of the profile of the
elevation is so constituted, that each new chain begins in a degree of
latitude beyond that to which the preceding one had attained, all
alternating successively in an opposite direction. The importance
which the Greeks (probably not earlier than the second century of our
era) attached to these chains running from north to south, induced
Agathodæmon and Ptolemy (_Tab._ vii. et viii.) to regard the Bolor
under the name of Imaus as an axis of elevation, which extended as far
as 62° north latitude into the basin of the lower Irtysch and Obi.[CE]
As the vertical height of mountain summits above the sea’s level
(however unimportant the phenomenon of the more or less extensive
folding of the crust of a planetary sphere may be in the eyes of
geognosists) will always continue, like all that is difficult of
attainment, to be an object of general curiosity, the present would
appear to furnish a fitting place for the introduction of an
historical notice relative to the gradual advance of hypsometric
knowledge. When I returned to Europe in 1804, after an absence of four
years, not one of the high snow-crowned summits of Asia (in the
Himalaya, the Hindoo-Coosh, or the Caucasus) had been yet measured
with any degree of accuracy. I was unable, therefore, to compare my
determinations of the heights of perpetual snow in the Cordilleras of
Quito or the mountains of Mexico, with any results obtained in India.
The important travels of Turner, Davis, and Saunders to the highlands
of Thibet, were indeed accomplished in the year 1783; but the
intelligent Colebrooke justly observed that the height of the
Schamalari (28° 5′ north latitude, 89° 30′ east longitude, somewhat
north of Tassisudan), as given by Turner, rested on a foundation quite
as slight as the assumed measurements of the heights seen from Patna
and Kafiristan by Colonel Crawford and Lieutenant Macartney.[CF] The
admirable labours of Webb, Hodgson, Herbert, and the brothers Gerard,
have indeed thrown considerable light on the question concerning the
heights of the colossal summits of the Himalaya; but yet, in 1808, the
hypsometric knowledge of the East Indian mountain chains was still so
uncertain, that Webb wrote to Colebrooke, “The height of the Himalaya
still remains undetermined. It is true that I have ascertained that
the summits visible from the elevated plains of Rohilkand are 21,000
feet higher than that plateau, but we are ignorant of their absolute
height above the sea.”
In the year 1820 it first began to be currently reported in Europe
that there were not only much higher summits in the Himalaya than in
the Cordilleras, but that Webb had seen in the pass of Niti, and
Moorcroft in the Thibetian plateau of Daba, and the sacred lakes, fine
corn-fields and fertile pasturelands at elevations far exceeding the
height of Mont Blanc. This announcement was received in England with
great incredulity, and opposed by doubts regarding the influence of
the refraction of light. I have shown the unsoundness of such doubts
in two printed treatises on the mountains of India, in the _Annales de
Chimie et de Physique_. The Tyrolese Jesuit, Father Tiefenthaler, who
in 1766 penetrated as far as the provinces of Kemaun and Nepal, had
already divined the importance of the Dhawalagiri. We read on his map:
“_Montes Albi, qui Indis Dolaghir, nive obsiti_.” Captain Webb always
employs the same name. Until the measurements of the Djawahir (30° 22′
north latitude, and 79° 58′ east longitude, 26,902 feet in elevation),
and of the Dhawalagiri (28° 40′ north latitude, and 83° 21′ east
longitude, 28,072 feet in elevation), were made known in Europe, the
Chimborazo, which, according to my trigonometrical measurement, was
21,422 feet in height,[CG] was still everywhere regarded as the
loftiest summit on the earth. The Himalaya appeared, therefore, at
that time, to be 4323 feet or 6620 feet higher than the Cordilleras,
according as the comparison was made with the Djawahir or the
Dhawalagiri. Pentland’s South American travels, in the years 1827 and
1838, directed attention to two snow-crowned summits of Upper Peru,
east of the lake of Titicaca, which were conjectured to be
respectively 3824 and 2578 feet higher than the Chimborazo.[CH] It has
been already observed,[CI] that the most recent computations in the
measurements of the Sorata and Illimani have shown the error of this
hypsometric assertion. The Dhawalagiri, therefore, on whose declivity
in the river-valley of Ghandaki, the Salagrana Ammonites, so
celebrated in the Brahminical ritual as symbols of the testaceous
incarnation of Vishnu, are collected, still indicates a difference of
elevation between both continents of more than 6600 feet.
The question has been asked, whether there may not be still greater
heights in the rear of the southernmost chain, which has been as yet
measured with more or less exactitude. Colonel George Lloyd, who in
1840 edited the important observations of Captain Alexander Gerard and
his brother, entertains the opinion, that in that part of the
Himalaya, which he somewhat indefinitely names the “Tartaric Chain”
(and consequently in Northern Thibet, in the direction of the
Kuen-lün, perhaps in the Kailasa of the sacred lakes or beyond Leh)
there are mountain-summits which attain an elevation of from 29,000 to
30,000 feet, one or two thousand feet higher, therefore, than the
Dhawalagiri.[CJ] No definite opinion can be formed on the subject
until we are in the possession of actual measurements, since the
indication which led the natives of Quito, long before the arrival of
Bouguer and La Condamine, to regard the summit of the Chimborazo as
the culminating point—or the highest point within the region of
perpetual snow—is rendered very deceptive in the temperate zone of
Thibet, where the radiation of the table-land is so effective, and
where the lower limit of perpetual snow does not constitute a regular
line of equal level as in the tropics. The greatest elevation above
the level of the sea that has been reached by man on the sides of the
Himalaya is 19,488 feet. This elevation was gained by Captain Gerard,
with seven barometers, as we have already observed, on the mountain of
Tarhigang, somewhat to the north-west of Schipke.[CK] This happens to
be almost the same height as that to which I myself ascended up on the
Chimborazo (on the 23rd of June, 1802), and which was reached thirty
years later (16th of December, 1831) by my friend Boussingault. The
unattained summit of the Tarhigang is, moreover, 1255 feet higher than
the Chimborazo.
The passes across the Himalaya from Hindostan to Chinese Tartary, or
rather to Western Thibet, especially between the rivers Buspa and
Schipke, or Langzing Khampa, are from 15,347 to 18,544 feet in height.
In the chain of the Andes I found that the pass of Assuay, between
Quito and Cuenca, at the Ladera de Cadlud, was also fully 15,566 feet
above the level of the sea. A great part of the Alpine plains of the
interior of Asia would lie buried throughout the whole year in snow
and ice, if the limits of perpetual snow were not singularly elevated,
probably to about 16,626 feet, by the force of the heat radiated from
the Thibetian plain, the constant serenity of the sky, the rarity of
the formation of snow in the dry atmosphere, and by the powerful solar
heat peculiar to the eastern continental climate, which characterizes
the northern declivity of the Himalaya. Fields of barley (of _Hordeum
hexastichon_) have been seen in Kunawur at an elevation of 14,700 feet
and another variety of barley, called Ooa, and allied to _Hordeum
cœleste_, even much higher. Wheat thrives admirably well in the
Thibetian highlands, up to an elevation of 12,000 feet. On the
northern declivity of the Himalaya, Captain Gerard found that the
upper limits of the birch woods ascend to 14,069 feet; and small
brushwood used by the natives for fuel in their huts is even found
within the parallels of 30° 45′ and 31° north latitude, at an
elevation of 16,946 feet, and therefore nearly 1280 feet higher than
the lower snow-limit in the equatorial regions. It follows from the
data hitherto collected that on the northern declivity of the Himalaya
the mean of the lower snow-line is at least 16,626 feet, whilst on the
southern declivity it falls to 12,980 feet. But for this remarkable
distribution of heat in the upper strata of the atmosphere, the
mountain plain of Western Thibet would be rendered uninhabitable for
the millions of men who now occupy it.[CL]
In a letter which I have lately received from India from Dr. Joseph
Hooker, who is engaged in meteorological and geological observations,
as well as in the study of the geography of plants, he says, “Mr.
Hodgson, whom we here consider more thoroughly conversant than any
other geographer with the hypsometric relations of the snow ranges,
recognises the correctness of the opinions you have advanced in the
third part of your _Asie centrale_, regarding the cause of the unequal
height of the limit of perpetual snow on the northern and the southern
declivity of the Himalaya range. In the trans-Sutledge region (in 36°
north latitude) we often observed the snow limit as high as 20,000
feet, whilst in the passes south of Brahmaputra, between Assam and
Birmah (in 27° north latitude), where the most southern snow-capped
mountains of Asia are situated, the snow limit sinks to 15,000 feet.”
I believe we ought to distinguish between the extreme and the mean
elevations, but in both we find the formerly disputed difference
between the Thibetian and the Indian declivities manifested in the
clearest manner.
My result for the mean height of Extremes according to Dr. Hooker’s
the snow line as given in _Asie Letter.
centrale_, t. iii., p. 326.
Feet. Feet.
Northern declivity 16,626 Northern declivity 20,000
Southern declivity 12,981 Southern declivity 15,000
—————— ——————
Difference 3,645 Difference 5,000
The local differences vary still more, as may be seen from the series
of extremes given in _Asie centrale_, t. iii., p. 295. Alexander
Gerard saw the snow-limit ascend to 20,463 feet on the Thibetian
declivity of the Himalaya; and Jacquemont found it as low as 11,500
feet on the south-Indian declivity, north of Cursali on the Jumnautri.
[The recent investigations of Lieutenant Strachey show that M.
Humboldt has been led astray, when treating of the Himalaya, by the
very authorities on whom he placed the most reliance. The results of
his inquiries on this point are given in the first volume of the
COSMOS (Bohn’s Ed.), pp. 9 and 338. As the subject is one of
considerable interest we give a brief sketch of Lieutenant
Strachey’s[CM] recent labours, confining ourselves to his own views,
and omitting (for want of space) his somewhat lengthy exposition of
the errors committed by the authorities quoted by Humboldt. The
following are his personal observations regarding the _southern limit
of the belt of perpetual snow_.
“In this part of the Himalaya it is not, on an average of years, till
the beginning of December, that the snow line appears decidedly to
descend for the winter. After the end of September, indeed, when the
rains are quite over, light falls of snow are not of very uncommon
occurrence on the higher mountains, even down to 12,000 feet; but
their effects usually disappear very quickly, often in a few hours.
The latter part of October, the whole of November, and the beginning
of December, are here generally characterised by the beautiful
serenity of the sky; and it is at this season, on the southern edge of
the belt, that the line of perpetual snow is seen to attain its
greatest elevation.
“The following are the results of trigonometrical measurements of the
elevation of the inferior edge of snow on spurs of the Treslú and
Nandádevi groups of peaks, made, before the winter snow had begun, in
November, 1848.
┌─────────┬────────────────────────────────────────────┬──────────────┐
│ │ │Height on face│
│ Point │ Height as observed on face exposed to the │ exposed to │
│observed.│ East. │West. Observed│
│ │ │from Almorah. │
├─────────┼──────────────┬──────────────┬──────────────┼──────────────┤
│ │From Almorah, │ From Binsar, │ │ │
│ │(height, 5586 │(height, 7969 │ Mean. │ │
│ │ ft.) │ ft.) │ │ │
├─────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┼──────────────┤
│ No. │ Feet. │ Feet. │ Feet. │ Feet. │
│ 1 │ 16,599│ 16,767│ 16,683│ 15,872│
│ 2 │ 16,969│ 17,005│ 16,987│ │
│ 3 │ 17,186│ 17,185│ 17,185│ 14,878│
│ 4 │ 15,293│ 15,361│ 15,327│ │
└─────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┴──────────────┘
“The points 1, 2 and 3 are in ridges that run in a south-westerly
direction. The dip of the strata being to the north-east, the faces
exposed to view from the south are for the most part very abrupt, and
snow never accumulates on them to any great extent. This in some
measure will account for the height to which the snow is seen to have
receded on the eastern exposures, that is, upwards of 17,000 feet. On
the western exposures the ground is less steep, and the snow is seen
to have been observed at a considerable less elevation; but it was in
very small quantities, and had probably fallen lately, so that I am
inclined to think that its height, viz., about 15,000 feet, rather
indicates the elevation below which the light autumnal falls of snow
were incapable of lying, than that of the inferior edge of the
perpetual snow. It is further to be understood, that below this level
of 15,000 feet the mountains were absolutely without snow, excepting
those small isolated patches that are seen in ravines, or at the head
of glaciers, which, of course, do not affect such calculations as
these. On the whole, therefore, I consider that the height of the
snow-line on the more prominent points of the southern edge of the
belt may be fairly reckoned at 16,000 feet at the very least.
“The point No. 4 was selected as being in a much more retired position
than the others. It is situate not far from the head of the Pindur
river. It was quite free from snow at 15,300 feet, and I shall
therefore consider 15,000 feet as the elevation of the snow-line in
the re-entering angles of the chain.
“I conclude, then, that 15,500 feet, the mean of the heights at the
most and least prominent points, should be assigned as the mean
elevation of the snow-line at the southern limit of the belt of
perpetual snow in Kumaon; and I conceive that whatever error there may
be in this estimate will be found to lie on the side of diminution
rather than of exaggeration.
“This result appears to accord well with what has been observed in the
Bissehir range. The account given by Dr. Gerard of his visit to the
Shátúl Pass on this range, which he undertook expressly for the
purpose of determining the height of the snow-line, contains the only
definite information as to the limit of the perpetual snow at the
southern edge of the belt that is to be found in the whole of the
published writings of the Gerards; and the following is a short
abstract of his observations. Dr. Gerard reached the summit of the
Shátúl Pass, the elevation of which is 15,500 feet, on the 9th of
August, 1822, and remained there till the 15th of the same month. He
found the southern slope of the range generally free from snow, and he
states that it is sometimes left without any whatever. On the top of
the pass itself there was no snow; but on the northern slope of the
mountain it lay as far down as about 14,000 feet. On his arrival rain
was falling, and out of the four days of his stay on this pass it
either rained or snowed for the greater part of three. The fresh snow
that fell during this time did not lie below 16,000 feet, and some of
the more precipitous rocks remained clear even up to 17,000 feet.
“The conclusion to which Dr. Gerard comes from these facts is, that
the snow-line on the southern face of the Bissehir range is at 15,000
feet above the sea. But I should myself be more inclined, from his
account, to consider that 15,500 feet was nearer the truth; and in
this view I am confirmed by verbal accounts of the state of the passes
on this range, which I have obtained from persons of my acquaintance,
who have crossed them somewhat later in the year. The difference,
however, is after all trifling.
“Such is the direct evidence that can be offered on the height of the
snow-line at the southern limit of the belt of perpetual snow: some
additional light, may, however, be thrown on the subject generally by
my shortly explaining the state in which I have found the higher parts
of the mountains at the different seasons during which I have visited
them.
“In the beginning of May, on the mountains to the east of the Rámganga
river, near Námik, I found the ground on the summit of the ridge,
called Champwá, not only perfectly free from snow at an elevation of
12,000 feet, but covered with flowers, in some places golden with
calsha and ranunculus polypetalus, in others purple with primulus. The
snow had in fact already receded to upwards of 12,500 feet, behind
which even a few little gentians proclaimed the advent of spring.
“Towards the end of the same month, at the end of the Pindur, near the
glacier from which that river rises, an open spot on which I could
pitch my tent could not be found above 12,000 feet. But here the
accumulation of snow, which was considerable in all ravines even below
11,000 feet, is manifestly the result of avalanches and drift. The
surface of the glacier, clear ice as well as moraines, was quite free
from snow up to nearly 13,000 feet; but the effect of the more retired
position of the place in retarding the melting of the snow, was
manifest from the less advanced state of the vegetation. During my
stay at Pinduri the weather was very bad, and several inches of snow
fell; but, excepting where it had fallen on the old snow, it all
melted off again in a few hours, even without the assistance of the
sun’s direct rays. On the glacier, at 13,000 feet, it had all
disappeared twelve hours after it fell.
“On revisiting Pinduri about the middle of October, the change that
had taken place was very striking. Now not a sign of snow was to be
seen on any part of the road up to the very head of the glacier; a
luxuriant vegetation had sprung up, but had already almost entirely
perished, and its remains covered the ground as far as I went. From
this elevation, about 13,000 feet, evident signs of vegetation could
be seen to extend far up the less precipitous mountains. The place is
not one at which the height of the perpetual snow can be easily
estimated, for on all sides are glaciers, and the vast accumulations
of snow from which they are supplied, and these cannot always be
readily distinguished from snow _in situ_; but as far as I could
judge, those places which might be considered as offering a fair
criterion were free from snow up to 15,000, or even 16,000 feet.
“Towards the end of August I crossed the Barjikang Pass, between Rálam
and Juhár, the elevation of which is about 15,300 feet. There was here
no vestige of snow on the ascent to the pass from the south-east, and
only a very small patch remained on the north-western face. The view
of the continuation of the ridge in a southerly direction was cut off
by a prominent point, but no snow lay on that side within 500 feet of
the pass, while to the north I estimated that there was no snow in
considerable quantity within 1500 feet or more, that is, nearly up to
17,000 feet. The vegetation on the very summit of the pass was far
from scanty, though it had already begun to break up into tufts, and
had lost that character of continuity which it had maintained to
within a height of 500 or 600 feet. Species of Potentilla, Sedum,
Saxifraga, Corydalis, Aconitum, Delphinium, Thalictrum, Ranunculus
Saussurea, Gentiana, Pedicularis, Primula, Rheum, and Polygonum, all
evidently flourishing in a congenial climate, showed that the limits
of vegetation and region of perpetual snow were still far distant.
“In addition to these facts, it may not be out of place to mention
that there are two mountains visible from Almorah, Rigoli-gúdri, in
Garhwal between the Kailganga and Nandákni, and Chipula, in Kumaon,
between the Gori and Dauli (of Darma), both upwards of 13,000 feet in
elevation, from the summits of which the snow disappears long before
the end of the summer months, and which do not usually again become
covered for the winter till late in December.”
These remarks are followed by an exposition of the errors into which
Webb, Colebrooke, Hodgson, A. Gerard, and Jacquemont, have fallen. The
heights assigned by these travellers “must all be rejected; nor can it
be considered at all surprising that any amount of mistake, as to the
height of the snow-line, should be made, so long as travellers cannot
distinguish snow from glacier ice, or look for the boundary of
perpetual snow at the beginning of the spring.”
With regard to _the northern limit of the belt of perpetual snow_,
Lieutenant Strachey’s observations were made in September, 1848, on
his way from Milam into Hundes, _viâ_ Unta-dhúra, Kyungar-ghát, and
Balch-dhúra, at the beginning of the month; and on his road back
again, _viâ_ Lakhur-ghát, at the end of the month.
“Of the three passes that we crossed on our way from Milam, all of
them being about 17,000 feet in elevation, the first is Wata-dhára,
and we saw no snow on any part of the way up to its top, which was
reached in a very disagreeable drizzle of rain and snow. The final
ascent to the pass from the south is about 1000 feet. The path leads
up the side of a ravine, down which a small stream trickles, the
ground having a generally even and rounded surface. Neither on any
part of this nor on the summit of the pass itself, which is tolerably
level, were there any remains of snow whatever. On the ridge to the
right and left there were patches of snow a few hundred feet above;
and on the northern face of the pass an accumulation remained that
extended about 200 feet down, apparently the effect of the drift
through the gap in which the pass lies. Below this again the ground
was everywhere quite free from snow. On the ascent to Wata-dhára, at
perhaps 17,000 feet, a few blades of grass were seen, but on the whole
it may be said to have been utterly devoid of vegetation. On the north
side of the pass, 300 or 400 feet below the summit, a cruciferous
plant was the first met with.
“The Kyungar pass, which is four or six miles north of Wata-dhára, was
found equally free from snow on its southern face and summit, which
latter is particularly open and level. The mountains on either side
were also free from snow to some height; but on the north a large bed
lay a little way down the slope, and extended to about 500 feet from
the top. On this pass a boragineous plant in flower was found above
17,000 feet; a species of _Urtica_ was also got about the same
altitude, and we afterwards saw it again nearly as high up on the
Lakhur pass.
“In our ascent to the Balch pass no snow was observed on any of the
southern spires of the range, and only one or two very small patches
could be seen from the summit on the north side. The average height of
the top of this range can hardly be more than 500 feet greater than
that of the pass; and as a whole it certainly does not enter the
region of perpetual snow. As viewed from the plains of Handes, it
cannot be said to appear snowy, a few only of the peaks being tipped.
“We returned to Milam _viâ_ Chirchun. The whole of the ascent to The
Lakhur pass was perfectly free from snow to the very top, _i.e._
18,300 feet, and many of the neighbouring mountains were bare still
higher. The next ridge on this route is Jainti-dhára, which is passed
at an elevation of 18,500 feet, but still without crossing the least
portion of snow. The line of perpetual snow is however evidently near;
for though the Jainti ridge was quite free, and some of the peaks near
us were clear probably to upwards of 19,000 feet, yet in more
sheltered situations unbroken snow could be seen considerably below
us; and on the whole I think that 18,500 feet must be near the average
height of the snow-line at this place.”
A brief recapitulation of the principal results of Lieutenant
Strachey’s inquiries shows us that “the snow-line or the southern edge
of the belt of perpetual snow in this portion of the Himalaya is at an
elevation of 15,000 feet, while on the northern edge it reaches 18,500
feet; and that on the mountains to the north of the Sutlej, or still
further, it recedes even beyond 19,000 feet. The greater elevation
which the snow-line attains on the northern edge of the belt of
perpetual snow is a phenomenon not confined to the Thibetan declivity
alone, but extending far into the interior of the chain; and it
appears to be caused by the quantity of snow that falls on the
northern portion of the mountains being much less than that which
falls farther to the south along the line where the peaks, covered
with perpetual snow, first rise above the less elevated ranges of the
Himalaya.”
The letters of Dr. Joseph Hooker published during the present year
(1849) in the _Athenæum_ (pp. 431 and 1039) may also be consulted with
advantage.
Footnote 11:
p. 5—“_A tawny tribe of Herdsmen_.”
The Hiongnu (Hioung-nou), whom Deguignes and with him many other
historians long believed to be identical with the Huns, inhabited the
vast Tartarian tract of land which is bordered on the east by
Uo-leang-ho, the present territory of the Mant-schu, on the south by
the Chinese wall, on the west by the U-siün, and on the north by the
land of the Eleuthes But the Hiongnu belong to the Turkish, and the
Huns to the Finnish or Uralian race. The _northern_ Huns, a rude
people of herdsmen, unacquainted with agriculture, were of a blackish
brown complexion. The _southern_ Huns, or Hajatehah called by the
Byzantines Euthalites or Nephthalites, and inhabiting the eastern
shore of the Caspian Sea, had fairer skins. These pursued agriculture,
and dwelt in towns. They are frequently termed _White Huns_, and
d’Herbelot even regards them as Indo-Scythians. In Deguignes[CN] an
account will be found of the Punu, the leader or Tanju of the Huns,
and of the great drought and famine which led to the migration of a
portion of the nation northwards about the year 46 A.D. All the
details, given in his celebrated work regarding the Hiongnu, have been
recently submitted by Klaproth to a rigid and learned scrutiny. From
the result of his investigations it would appear, that the Hiongnu
belong to the widely diffused Turkish races of the Altai and Tangnu
mountain districts. The name of Hiongnu was a general name for the Ti,
Thu-kiu or Turks, in the north and north-west of China, even in the
third century before the Christian era. The southern Hiongnu submitted
themselves to the Chinese, and in conjunction with the latter
destroyed the empire of the northern Hiongnu, who were in consequence
compelled to flee to the west, and thus appear to have given the first
impulse to the migration of nations in Central Asia. The Huns, who
were long confounded with the Hiongnu (as the Uigures were with the
Ugures and Hungarians) belonged, according to Klaproth,[CO] to the
Finnish race of the Uralian mountains, which race has been variously
intermixed with Germans, Turks, and Samoiedes.
The Huns (Οὖννοι) are first mentioned by Dionysius Periegetes, a
writer who was able to obtain more accurate information than others
regarding the interior of Asia, because, as a learned man and a native
of Charax on the Arabian Gulf, he was sent back to the East by
Augustus, to accompany thither his adopted son, Caius Agrippa.
Ptolemy, a century later, writes the word Χοῦνοι with a strong
aspiration, which, as St. Martin observes, is again met with in the
geographical name of Chunigard.
Footnote 12:
p. 6—“_No hewn stone_.”
Representations of the sun and figures of animals have certainly been
found graven in rocks on the banks of the Orinoco, near Caicara, where
the woody region borders on the plain, but in the Llanos themselves
not a trace of these rough memorials of earlier inhabitants has ever
been discovered. It is to be regretted that no accurate account has
reached us of a monument which was sent to Count Maurepas, in France,
and which, according to Kalm, was discovered in the prairies of
Canada, 900 French leagues (about 2700 English miles) west of
Montreal, by M. de Verandrier, while engaged on an expedition to the
coast of the Pacific Ocean.[CP] This traveller met in the plains with
huge masses of stone erected by the hand of man, on one of which there
was an inscription believed to be in the Tartar language[CQ]. How can
so important a monument have remained uninvestigated? Can it actually
have borne an alphabetical inscription, or are we not rather to
believe that it must have been an historical picture, like the
so-called Phœnician inscription, which has been discovered on the bank
of the Taunton river, and whose authenticity has been questioned by
Court de Gebelin? I indeed regard it as highly probable that these
plains were once traversed by civilised nations, and it seems to me
that this fact is proved by the existence of pyramidal grave-works or
burrows and bulwarks of extraordinary length, between the Rocky
Mountains and the Alleghanys, on which Squier and Davis have now
thrown new light in their account of the ancient monuments of the
Mississippi valley.[CR] M. de Verandrier was despatched, about the
year 1746, on this expedition by the Chevalier de Beauharnois,
Governor-General of Canada; and several Jesuits in Quebec assured Kalm
that they had actually had this so-called inscription in their hands,
and that it was graven on a small tablet which was found inlaid in a
hewn pillar. I have in vain requested several of my friends in France
to make inquiries regarding this monument, in the event of its being
in the Collection of Count Maurepas. I have also found equally
uncertain accounts of the alphabetical writing of the American
aboriginal races, in a work of Pedro de Cieça de Leon,[CS] in
Garcia,[CT] and in Columbus’s[CU] journal of his first voyage. M. de
Verandrier maintained also that traces of the ploughshare were
observed for days together in travelling over the grassy plains of
Western Canada; a circumstance that other travellers, prior to him,
likewise profess to have noticed. But the utter ignorance of the
primitive nations of North America regarding this implement of
agriculture, the want of beasts of draught, and the vast extent of
surface over which these tracks extend through the prairie, tend
rather to make me adopt the opinion that this singular appearance of
furrows is owing to some movement of water over the earth’s surface.
Footnote 13:
p. 6—“_It spreads like an arm of the sea_.”
The great steppe, which extends from the mouth of the Orinoco to the
snowy mountains of Merida, from east to west, deflects towards the
south in the parallel of 8° north latitude, and occupies the whole
space between the eastern declivity of the elevated mountains of New
Granada and the Orinoco, which here flows in a northerly direction.
That portion of the Llanos, which is watered by the Meta, Vichada,
Zama, and Guaviare, connects as it were the valley of the Amazon with
that of the Lower Orinoco. The word _Paramo_, which I have frequently
employed in this work, signifies in the Spanish colonies all alpine
regions which are situated from 11,000 to 14,000 feet above the level
of the sea, and whose climate is rude, ungenial, and misty. In the
higher Paramos hail and snow fall daily for many hours continuously,
and yield a beneficial supply of humidity to the alpine plants, not
from the absolute quantity of vapour in the higher strata of the air,
but by the frequency of the aqueous deposits occasioned by the rapidly
changing currents of air, and the variations of the electric tension.
The trees found in these regions are low, and spread out in an
umbrella-like form, have gnarled branches, which are constantly
covered with fresh and evergreen foliage. They are mostly
large-flowering laurel and myrtle-leaved alpine shrubs _Escallonia
tubar_, _Escallonia myrtilloides_, _Chuquiraga insignis_, _Araliæ_,
_Weinmanniæ_, _Frezieræ_, _Gualtheriæ_, and _Andromeda reticulata_,
may be regarded as the representatives of the physiognomy of this
vegetation.[CV] To the south of the town of Santa Fé de Bogota lies
the celebrated _Paramo de la Suma Paz_, an isolated mountain group, in
which, according to Indian legends, great treasures are concealed; and
hence issues a small stream or brook, which pours its foaming waters
through a remarkable natural bridge in the rocky ravine of Icononzo.
In my Latin treatise, _De Distributione geographica Plantarum secundum
cœli temperiem et altitudinem montium_, 1817, p. 104, I have thus
endeavoured to characterise these Alpine regions: “Altitudine
1700–1900 hexapod: asperriæ solitudines, quæ a colonis hispanis uno
nomine _Paramos_ appellantur, tempestatum vicissitudinibus mire
obnoxiæ, ad quas solutæ et emollitæ defluunt nives; ventorum flatibus
ac nimborum grandinisque jactu tumultuosa regio, quæ æque per diem et
per noctes riget, solis nubila et tristi luce fere nunquam calefacta.
Habitantur in hac ipsa altitudine sat magnæ civitates, ut Micuipampa
Peruvianorum, ubi thermometrum centes. meridie inter 5° et 8°, noctu
–0°.4 consistere vidi; Huancavelica, propter cinnabaris venas
celebrata, ubi altitudine 1835 hexap. fere totum per annum temperies
mensis Martii Parisiis.”
Footnote 14:
p. 6—“_The Cordilleras of Cochabamba and the Brazilian mountains
approximate to one another by means of separate transverse chains_.”
The immense space between the eastern coasts of South America and the
eastern declivity of the chain of the Andes is contracted by two
mountain masses, which partially separate from one another the three
valleys or plains of the Lower Orinoco, the Amazon, and the Rio de la
Plata. The more northern mountain mass, called the group of the Parime,
is opposite to the Andes of Cundinamarca, which, after extending far
towards the east, assume the form of one elevated mountain, between the
parallels of 66° and 68° west longitude. It is connected by the narrow
mountain ridge of Pacaraima with the granitic hills of French Guiana, as
I have clearly indicated in the map of Columbia which I drew up from my
own astronomical observations. The Caribs, in their long expeditions
from the missions of Carony to the plains of Rio Branco, and even to the
Brazilian frontier, are obliged to traverse the crests of Pacaraima and
Quimiropaca. The second group of mountains, which separates the valley
of the Amazon from that of La Plata, is the Brazilian, which
approximates to the promontory of Santa Cruz de la Sierra, in the
province of Chiquitos, west of the Parecis hills. As neither the group
of the Parime, which gives rise to the cataracts of the Orinoco, nor the
Brazilian group, is directly connected with the chain of the Andes, the
plains of Venezuela and those of Patagonia are directly connected with
one another.[CW]
Footnote 15:
p. 6—“_Herds of wild dogs_.”
In the Pampas of Buenos Ayres the traveller meets with European dogs,
which have become wild. They live gregariously in holes and excavations,
in which they conceal their young. When the horde becomes too numerous,
several families go forth, and form new settlements elsewhere. The
European dog barks as loudly after it has become wild, as does the
indigenous American hairy species. Garcilaso asserts that, prior to the
arrival of the Spaniards, the Peruvians had a race of dogs called
_Perros gozques_; and he calls the indigenous dog _Allco_. In order to
distinguish this animal from the European variety, it is called in the
Quichua language Runa-allco, Indian dog, or dog of the natives. The
hairy Runa-allco appears to be a mere variety of the shepherd’s dog. It
is, however, smaller, has long yellow-ochry coloured hair, is marked
with white and brown spots, and has erect and pointed ears. It barks
continually, but seldom bites the natives, however it may attack the
whites. When the Inca Pachacutec, in his religious wars, conquered the
Indians of Xauxa and Huanca (the present valley of Huancaya and Jauja),
and compelled them by force to submit to the worship of the sun, he
found that dogs were made the objects of their adoration, and that the
priests used the skulls of these animals as wind instruments. It would
also appear that the flesh of this canine divinity was eaten by the
believers.[CX] The veneration of dogs in the valley of the Huancaya is
probably the reason why the skulls, and even whole mummies, of these
animals are sometimes found in the Huacas, or Peruvian graves of the
most ancient period. Von Tschudi, the author of an admirable treatise on
the _Fauna Peruana_, has examined these skulls, and believes them to
belong to a peculiar species, which he calls _Canis ingæ_, and which is
different from the European dog. The Huancas are still, in derision,
called “dog-eaters” by the inhabitants of other provinces. Among the
natives of the Rocky Mountains of North America, cooked dog’s flesh is
placed before the stranger guest, as a feast of honour. Captain Frémont
was present at such a dog-feast in the neighbourhood of Fort Laramie,
which is one of the stations of the Hudson’s Bay Company for trading in
skins and peltries with the Sioux Indians.[CY]
The Peruvian dogs were made to play a singular part during eclipses of
the moon, being beaten as long as the darkness continued. The Mexican
_Techichi_, a variety of the common dog, which was called in Anahuac
_Chichi_, was the only completely dumb dog. The literal signification of
the word _Techichi_ is “stone-dog,” from the Aztec, _tetl_, a stone.
This dog was eaten according to the ancient Chinese custom, and the
Spaniards found this food so indispensable before the introduction of
horned cattle, that the race was gradually almost entirely
extirpated.[CZ] Buffon confounds the Techichi with the Koupara of
Guiana,[DA] which is, however, identical with the Procyon or _Ursus
cancrivorus_, the _Raton crabier_, or the crab-eating Aguara-guaza of
the coasts of Patagonia.[DB] Linnæus, on the other hand, confounds the
dumb dog with the Mexican _Itzcuintepotzotli_, a canine species which
has not hitherto been perfectly described, and which is said to be
characterised by a short tail, a very small head, and a large hump on
the back. The name signifies a hump-backed dog, and is derived from the
Aztec _itzcuintli_, another word for dog, and _tepotzotli_, humped or a
humpback. I was much struck in America, especially in Quito and Peru,
with the great number of black hairless dogs. They are termed _Chiens
turcs_ by Buffon, and are the _Canis ægyptius_ of Linnæus. This species
is common amongst the Indians, who, however, generally despise them, and
treat them ill. All European dogs multiply rapidly in South America; and
if no species are to be met with equal to those of Europe, it is partly
owing to want of care, and partly to the circumstance that the finest
varieties (as the elegant greyhound and the Danish tiger breed) have
never been introduced.
Von Tschudi makes the singular remark, that on the Cordilleras, at
elevations of more than 12,000 feet, delicate breeds of dogs and the
European domestic cat are exposed to a particular kind of mortal
disease. “Innumerable attempts have been made to keep cats as domestic
animals in the town of Cerro de Pasco (lying at an elevation of 14,100
feet above the sea’s level); but such endeavours have invariably been
frustrated, as both cats and dogs have died in convulsions at the end of
a few days. The cats, after being attacked by convulsive fits, attempt
to climb the walls, but soon fall to the ground exhausted and
motionless. I frequently observed instances in Yauli of this chorea-like
disease; and it seems to arise from insufficient atmospheric pressure.”
In the Spanish colonies, the hairless dog, which is called _Perro
chinesco_, or _chino_, is supposed to be of Chinese origin, and to have
been brought from Canton, or from Manila. According to Klaproth, the
race has been very common in the Chinese Empire from the earliest ages
of its culture. Among the animals indigenous to Mexico, there was a very
large, totally hairless, and dog-like wolf, named _Xoloitzcuintli_, from
the Mexican _xolo_ or _xolotl_, a servant or slave.[DC]
The result of Tschudi’s observations regarding the American indigenous
races of dogs are as follows:—There are two varieties almost
specifically different—1. The _Canis caraibicus_ of Lesson, totally
hairless, with the exception of a small tuft of white hair on the
forehead and at the tip of the tail; of a slate-gray colour, and without
voice. This variety was found by Columbus in the Antilles, by Cortes in
Mexico, and by Pizarro in Peru (where it suffers from the cold of the
Cordilleras); and it is still very frequently met with in the warmer
districts of Peru, under the name of _Perros chinos_. 2. The _Canis
ingæ_, which belongs to the barking species, and has a pointed nose and
pointed ears; it is now used for watching sheep and cattle; it exhibits
many variations of colour, induced by being crossed with European
breeds. The _Canis ingæ_ follows man up the heights of the Cordilleras.
In the old Peruvian graves, the skeleton of this dog is sometimes found
resting at the feet of the human mummy, presenting an emblem of fidelity
frequently employed by the mediæval sculptors.[DD] European dogs, that
had become wild, were found in the island of St. Domingo, and in Cuba,
in the early periods of the Spanish conquest.[DE] In the savannahs
between the Meta, Arauca, and Apure, dumb dogs (_perros mudos_) were
used as food as late as the sixteenth century. The natives called them
_Majos_ or _Auries_, says Alonzo de Herrera, who undertook an expedition
to the Orinoco, in 1535. The highly intelligent traveller Gisecke found
this variety of non-barking dogs in Greenland. The dogs of the Esquimaux
live entirely in the open air, scraping for themselves at night holes in
the snow, and howling like wolves, in concert with one of the troop, who
sits in the middle, and takes the lead in the chorus. The Mexican dogs
were castrated, in order that their flesh might become more fat and
delicate. On the borders of the province of Durango, and further north,
near the Slave Lake, the natives load the larger dogs with their
buffalo-skin tents, (at all events they did so formerly,) when, on the
change of seasons, they seek a different place of abode. These various
details may all be regarded as characteristic of the mode of life led by
the nations of Eastern Asia.[DF]
Footnote 16:
p. 7—“_Like the greater part of the Desert of Sahara, the Llanos lie
within the Torrid Zone_.”
Significant denominations, particularly such as refer to the form of the
earth’s surface, and which arose at a period when there was only very
uncertain information respecting different regions and their hypsometric
relations, have led to various and long-continued geographical errors.
The ancient Ptolemaic denomination of the “Greater and Lesser Atlas”[DG]
has exercised the injurious influence here indicated. There is no doubt
that the snow-covered western summits of the Atlas of Morocco may be
regarded as the Great Atlas of Ptolemy; but where is the limit of the
Little Atlas? Are we still to maintain the division into two Atlas
chains (which the conservative tendency of geographers has retained for
1700 years) in the territory of Algiers, and even between Tunis and
Tlemse? Are we to seek a Greater and a Lesser Atlas between the coast
and the parallel chains of the interior? All travellers familiar with
geognostic views, who have visited Algeria since it has been in the
possession of the French, contest the meaning conveyed by the generally
adopted nomenclature. Among the parallel chains, that of Jurjura is
generally supposed to be the highest of those which have been measured;
but the well-informed Fournel (who was long _Ingénieur en chef des Mines
de l’Algérie_) affirms that the mountain range of Aurès, near Batnah,
which even at the end of March was found covered with snow, has a
greater elevation. Fournel contests the existence of a Little and a
Great Atlas, as I do that of a Little and a Great Altai[DH]. There is
but one Atlas, formerly called Dyris by the Mauritanians, “a name that
must be applied to the foldings (_rides_, _suites de crêtes_), which
form the division between the waters flowing to the Mediterranean and
towards the lowland of the Sahara.” The lofty Atlas chain of Morocco
inclines from north-east to south-west, and not, like the Eastern
Mauritanian portion of the Atlas, from east to west. It rises into
summits which, according to Renou, attain an elevation of 11,400 feet,
exceeding, therefore, the height of Etna[DI]. A singularly formed
highland, of an almost square shape (Sahab el-Marga), is situated in 33°
north lat., and is bounded to the south by high elevations. From thence
the Atlas declines in height in a westerly direction towards the sea,
about a degree south of Mogador. This south-western portion bears the
name of Idrar-N-Deren.
The northern boundaries of the extended low region of the Sahara in
Mauritania, as well as its southern limits towards the fertile Sudan,
have hitherto been but imperfectly investigated. If we take the
parallels of 16½° and 32½° north lat. as the outer limits, we obtain for
the Desert, including its oases, an area of more than 1,896,000 square
miles; or between nine and ten times the extent of Germany, and almost
three times that of the Mediterranean, exclusive of the Black Sea. The
best and most recent intelligence, for which we are indebted to the
French observers, Colonel Daumas, and MM. Fournel, Renou, and Carette,
shows us that the Desert of Sahara is composed of several detached
basins, and that the number and the population of the fertile Oases is
very much greater than had been imagined from the awfully desert
character of the country between Insalah and Timbuctoo, and the road
from Mourzouk, in Fezzan, to Bilma, Tirtuma, and Lake Tschad. It is now
generally affirmed that the sand covers only the smaller portion of the
lowlands. A similar opinion had been previously advanced by my Siberian
travelling companion, the acute observer Ehrenberg, from what he had
himself seen[DJ]. Of larger wild animals, only gazelles, wild asses, and
ostriches are to be met with.
“That lions exist in the desert,” says M. Carette, “is a myth
popularised by the dreams of artists and poets, and has no foundation
but in their imagination. This animal does not quit the mountains where
it finds shelter, food, and drink. When the traveller questions the
natives concerning these wild beasts, which Europeans suppose to be
their companions in the desert, they reply, with imperturbable _sang
froid_, ‘Have you, then, lions in your country which can drink air and
eat leaves? With us lions require running water and living flesh; and
therefore they only appear where there are wooded hills and water. We
fear only the viper (_lefa_), and, in humid spots, the innumerable
swarms of mosquitoes which abound there.[DK]’”
While Dr. Oudney, in his long journey from Tripoli to Lake Tschad,
estimated the elevation of the Southern Sahara at 1637 feet, and German
geographers even ventured to add an additional thousand feet, Fournel,
the engineer, has, by careful barometric measurements, based on
corresponding observations, made it tolerably probable that a part of
the northern desert is below the sea’s level. The portion of the desert
which is now called “Le Zahara d’Algérie,” advances to the chains of
hills of Metlili and el-Gaous, where lies the most northern of all the
Oases, el-Kantara, fruitful in dates. This low basin, which reaches the
parallel of 34° lat., receives the radiant heat of a stratum of chalk,
inclined at an angle of 65° towards the south, and which is full of the
shells of Inoceramus[DL]. “Arrived at Biscara (Biskra),” says Fournel,
“an indefinite horizon, like that of the sea, lay spread before us.”
Between Biscara and Sidi Ocba the land is only 243 feet above the sea’s
level. The inclination increases considerably towards the south. In
another work[DM], where I have brought together all the points that
refer to the depression of some portions of continents below the level
of the sea, I have already noticed that, according to Le Père, the
bitter lakes (_lacs amers_) on the isthmus of Suez, when they have but
little water, and, according to General Andréossy, the Natron lakes of
Fayoum, are also lower than the level of the Mediterranean.
Among other manuscript notices of M. Fournel, I possess a geognostic
vertical profile, with all the inflexions and inclinations of the
strata, representing the surface the whole way from the coast near
Philippeville to a spot near the Oasis of Biscara in the Desert of
Sahara. The direction of the line on which the barometric measurements
were taken is south 20° west; but the points of elevation determined are
projected, as in my Mexican profiles, on a different plane, one from N.
to S. Ascending uninterruptedly from Constantine, whose elevation is
2123 feet, the highest point is found between Batnah and Tizur, at only
3581 feet. In the part of the desert which lies between Biscara and
Tuggurt, Fournel has succeeded in digging a series of artesian
wells[DN]. We learn from the old accounts of Shaw, that the inhabitants
of the country were acquainted with a subterranean supply of water, and
related fabulous tales of a “sea under the earth (bahr tôhl el-erd).”
Fresh waters, which flow between clay and marl strata of the old chalk
and other sedimentary formations, under the action of hydrostatic
pressure, form gushing fountains when the strata are pierced[DO]. The
phenomenon of fresh water being often found near beds of rock salt, need
not surprise the geognosist, acquainted with mining operations, since
Europe offers many analogous phenomena.
The riches of the desert in rock-salt, and its employment for purposes
of building, have been known since the time of Herodotus. The salt zone
of the Sahara (zone salifère du désert) is the most southern of the
three zones which pass through Northern Africa from south-west to
north-east, and is believed to be connected with the beds of rock-salt
in Sicily and Palestine described by Friedrich Hoffman, and by
Robinson[DP].
The trade in salt with Sudan, and the possibility of cultivating the
date-tree in the many Oasis-like depressions, caused probably by
earth-slips in the beds of tertiary chalk or Keuper-gypsum, have equally
contributed to animate the desert, at various parts, by human
intercourse. The high temperature of the air, which renders the day’s
march so oppressive across the Sahara, makes the coolness of the night
(of which Denham and Sir Alexander Burnes frequently complained in the
African and Asiatic deserts) so much the more remarkable. Melloni[DQ]
ascribes this coolness (which is probably produced by the radiation of
heat from the ground), not to the great purity of the heavens
(irraggiamento calorifico per la grande serenità di cielo nell’ immensa
e deserta pianura dell’ Africa centrale), but to the extreme calm, and
the absence of all movement in the air throughout the whole night[DR].
The river Quad-Dra (Wadi Dra), which is almost dry the greater part of
the year, and which, according to Renou[DS], is one-sixth longer than
the Rhine, flows into the Sahara in 32° north latitude, from the
southern declivity of the Atlas of Morocco. It runs at first from north
to south, until in 29° north lat., and 5° 8′ west long., it deflects at
right angles to the west, and traversing the great fresh-water lake of
Debaid, flows into the sea at Cape Nun, in lat. 28° 46′, and long. 11°
8′. This region, which was first rendered celebrated by the Portuguese
discoveries of the fifteenth century, and whose geography has
subsequently been shrouded in the deepest obscurity, is now known on the
coast as the country of the Scheik of Beirouk (whose dominions are
independent of the Emperor of Morocco). It was explored, in the months
of July and August, 1840, by the French Count, Captain de
Bouet-Villaumez, under the orders of his government. From manuscript and
official reports it would appear that the mouth of the Quad-Dra is at
present so much blocked up by sand as to have an open channel of only
about 190 feet. The Saguiel-el-Hamra,—still very little known,—which
comes from the south, and is supposed to have a course of at least 600
miles, flows into the same mouth at a point somewhat farther eastward.
The length of these deep, but generally dry, river-beds is astonishing.
They are ancient furrows, similar to those which I observed in the
Peruvian desert at the foot of the Cordilleras, between the latter and
the shores of the Pacific. In Bouet’s manuscript narrative[DT], the
mountains which rise to the north of Cape Nun are estimated at the great
height of 9,186 feet.
It is generally supposed that Cape Nun was discovered in 1433 by the
Knight Gilianez, despatched under the order of the celebrated Infante,
Henry, Duke of Viseo, and founder of the Academy of Sagres, which was
presided over by the pilot and cosmographer, Mestre Jacomè, of Majorca;
but the _Portulano Mediceo_,—the work of a Genoese navigator of the year
1351,—already contains the name of “Cavo di Non.” The doubling of this
Cape was as much dreaded as has been since then the passage round Cape
Horn; although it is only 23′ north of the parallel of Teneriffe, and
might be reached by a few days’ sail from Cadiz. The Portuguese adage,
“Quem passa o Cabo de Num, ou tornarà ou não,” could not intimidate the
Infante, whose heraldic French motto of “Talent de bien faire,” well
expressed his noble, enterprising, and vigorous character. The name of
this Cape, which has long been supposed to originate in a play of words
on the negative particle, does not appear to me to be of Portuguese
origin. Ptolemy placed on the north-west coast of Africa a river
_Nuius_, in the Latin version _Nunii ostia_. Edrisi refers to a town,
Nul, or Wadi Nun, somewhat further south, and about three days’ journey
in the interior, named by Leo Africanus _Belad de Non_. Several European
navigators had penetrated far to the south of Cape Nun before the
Portuguese squadron under Gilianez. The Catalan, Don Jayme Ferrer, in
1346, as we learn from the _Atlas Catalan_, published at Paris by
Buchon, had advanced as far as the Gold River (_Rio do Ouro_), in 23°
56′ north lat.; while the Normans, at the close of the fourteenth
century, reached Sierra Leone in 8° 30′ north latitude. The merit of
having been the first to cross the equator in the Western Ocean
incontrovertibly belongs, like so many other great achievements, to the
Portuguese.
Footnote 17:
p. 7.—“_As a grassy plain, resembling many of the Steppes of Central
Asia._”
The Llanos of Caracas, of the Rio Apure and the Meta, which are the
abode of numerous herds of cattle, are, in the strictest sense of the
word, grassy plains. The two families of the Cyperaceæ and the Gramineæ,
which are the principal representatives of the vegetation, yield
numerous forms of Paspalum (_Paspalum leptostachyum_, _P. lenticulare_),
of Kyllingia (_Kyllingia monocephala (Rottb.)_, _K. odorata_), of
Panicum (_Panicum granuliferum_, _P. micranthum_), of Antephora,
Aristida, Vilfa, and Anthisteria (_Anthisteria reflexa_, _A. foliosa_).
It is only here and there that any herbaceous dicotyledon, as the
low-growing species of Mimosa intermedia and M. dormiens, which are so
grateful to the wild horses and cattle, are found interspersed among the
Gramineæ. The natives very characteristically apply to this group the
name of “Dormideras,” or sleepy plants, because the delicate and
feathery leaves close on being touched. For many square miles not a tree
is to be seen; but where a few solitary trees are found, they are, in
humid districts, the Mauritia Palm, and, in arid spots, a Proteacea
described by Bonpland and myself, the Rhopala complicata (_Chaparro
bobo_), which Willdenow regarded as an Embothrium; also the useful Palma
de Covija or de Sombrero; and our Corypha inermis, an umbrella palm
allied to Chamærops, and used by the natives for the covering of their
huts. How much more varied and rich is the aspect of the Asiatic plains!
In a great portion of the Kirghis and Kalmuck Steppes which I have
traversed (extending over a space of 40 degrees of longitude), from the
Don, the Caspian Sea and the Orenburg-Ural river Jaik, to the Obi and
the Upper Irtysch, near the Lake Dsaisang, the extreme range of view is
never bounded by a horizon in which the vault of heaven appears to rest
on an unbroken sea-like plain, as is so frequently the case in the
Llanos, Pampas, and Prairies of America. I have, indeed, never observed
anything approaching to this phenomenon, excepting, perhaps, where I
have looked only towards one quarter of the heavens, for the Asiatic
plains are frequently intersected by chains of hills, or clothed with
coniferous woods. The Asiatic vegetation, too, in the most fruitful
pasture lands, is by no means limited to the family of the Cyperaceæ,
but is enriched by a great variety of herbaceous plants and shrubs. In
the season of spring, small snowy white and red flowering Rosaceæ and
Amygdaleæ (_Spiræa_, _Cratægus_, _Prunus spinosa_, _Amygdalus nana_),
present a pleasing appearance. I have elsewhere spoken of the tall and
luxuriant Synanthereæ (_Saussurea amara_, _S. salsa_, _Artemisiæ_, and
_Centaureæ_), and of leguminous plants, (species of the Astragalus,
Cytisus and Caragana). Crown Imperials (_Fritillaria ruthenica_ and _F.
meleagroides_), Cypripediæ and tulips gladden the eye with their varied
and bright hues.
A contrast is presented to this charming vegetation of the Asiatic
plains by the dreary Salt Steppes, especially by that portion of the
Barabinski Steppe which lies at the base of the Altai Mountains, between
Barnaul and the Serpent Mountain, and by the country to the east of the
Caspian. Here the social Chenopodiæ, species of Salsola, Atriplex,
Salicorniæ, and Halimocnemis crassifolia[DU], cover the clayey soil with
patches of verdure. Among the five hundred phanerogamic species which
Claus and Göbel collected on the Steppes, Synanthereæ, Chenopodiæ, and
Cruciferæ were more numerous than the grasses; the latter constituting
only ¹⁄₁₁th of the whole, and the two former ⅐th and ⅑th. In Germany,
owing to the alternation of hills and plains, the Glumaceæ (comprising
the Gramineæ, Cyperaceæ, and Juncaceæ) constitute ⅐th, the Synanthereæ
(Compositæ) ⅛th, and the Cruciferæ ¹⁄₁₈th of all the German Phanerogamic
species. In the most northern part of the flat land of Siberia, the
extreme limit of tree and shrub vegetation (_Coniferæ_ and _Amentaceæ_)
is, according to Admiral Wrangell’s fine map, 67° 15′ north lat., in the
districts contiguous to Behring’s Straits, while more to the west,
towards the banks of the Lena, it is 71°, which is the parallel of the
North Cape of Lapland. The plains bordering on the Polar Sea are the
domain of Cryptogamic plants. They are called Tundra (Tuntur in
Finnish), and are vast swampy districts, covered partly with a thick
mantle of Sphagnum palustre and other Liverworts, and partly with a dry
snowy-white carpet of Cenomyce rangiferina (Reindeer-moss), Stereocaulon
paschale, and other lichens. “These _Tundra_,” says Admiral Wrangell, in
his perilous expedition to the Islands of New Siberia, so rich in fossil
wood, “accompanied me to the extremest Arctic coast. Their soil is
composed of earth that has been frozen for thousands of years. In the
dreary uniformity of the landscape, and surrounded by reindeer, the eye
of the traveller rests with pleasure on the smallest patch of green turf
that shows itself on a moist spot.”
Footnote 18:
p. 7.—“_A diversity of causes diminishes the dryness and heat of the New
Continent._”
I have endeavoured to compress the various causes of the humidity and
lesser heat of America into one general category. It will of course be
understood, that I can only have reference here to the _general_
hygroscopic condition of the atmosphere, and the temperature of the
_whole_ continent; for in considering individual regions, as for
instance, the island of Margarita, or the coasts of Cumana and Coro, it
will be found that these exhibit an equal degree of dryness and heat
with any portion of Africa.
The maximum of heat, at certain hours of a summer’s day, considered with
reference to a long series of years, has been found to be almost the
same in all regions of the earth, whether on the Neva, the Senegal, the
Ganges, or the Orinoco, namely, between 93° and 104° Fahr., and on the
whole not higher; provided that the observation be made in the shade,
far from solid radiating bodies, and not in an atmosphere filled with
heated dust or granules of sand, and not with spirit-thermometers, which
absorb light. The fine grains of sand (forming centres of radiant heat)
which float in the air, were probably the cause of the fearful heat
(122° to 133° Fahr. in the shade) in the Oasis of Mourzouk to which my
unhappy friend Ritchie, who perished there, and Captain Lyon, were
exposed for weeks. The most remarkable instance of a high temperature,
in an air probably free from dust, is mentioned by an observer who well
knew how to arrange and correct all his instruments with the greatest
accuracy. Rüppel found the temperature 110°.6 Fahr. at Ambukol, in
Abyssinia, with a cloudy sky, a strong south-west wind, and an
approaching thunder-storm. The _mean_ annual temperature of the tropics,
or the actual climate of the region of palms, is on the main land
between 78°.2 and 85°.5 Fahr., without any sensible difference between
the observations made in Senegal, Pondichery, and Surinam[DV].
The great coolness, one might almost say _coldness_, which prevails
during a great portion of the year in the tropics, on the coast of Peru,
and which causes the mercury to fall to 59° Fahr., is, as I hope to show
in another place, not to be attributed to the effect of neighbouring
mountains covered with snow, but rather to the mist (_garua_) which
obscures the sun’s disk, and to a current of _cold sea-water_ commencing
in the antarctic regions, and which coming from the south-west, strikes
the coast of Chili near Valdivia and Concepcion, and is thence propelled
with violence, in a northerly direction, to Cape Pariña. On the coast of
Lima, the temperature of the Pacific is 60°.2 Fahr., whilst it is 79°.2
Fahr. under the same parallel of latitude when outside the current. It
is singular, that so remarkable a fact should have remained unnoticed,
until my residence on the coast of the Pacific, in October, 1802.
The variations of temperature, of many parts of the earth, depend
principally on the character of the bottom of the aërial ocean, or in
other words, on the nature of the solid or fluid (continental or
oceanic) base on which the atmosphere rests. Seas, traversed in various
directions by currents of warm and cold water (oceanic rivers), exert a
different action from articulated or inarticulated continental masses or
islands, which may be regarded as the shoals in the aërial ocean, and
which, notwithstanding their small dimensions, exercise, even to great
distances, a remarkable degree of influence on the climate of the sea.
In continental masses, we must distinguish between barren sandy deserts,
savannahs, (grassy plains,) and forest districts. In Upper Egypt and in
South America, Nouet and myself found, at noon, the temperature of the
ground, which was composed of granitic sand, 154° and 141° Fahr.
Numerous careful observations instituted at Paris, have given, according
to Arago, 122° and 126°.5 Fahr.[DW] The Savannahs, which, between the
Missouri and the Mississippi, are called _Prairies_, and which appear in
the south at the Llanos of Venezuela and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, are
covered with small monocotyledons, belonging to the family of the
Cyperaceæ, and with grasses, whose dry pointed stalks, and whose
delicate, lanceolate leaves radiate towards the unclouded sky, and
possess an extraordinary power of emission. Wells and Daniell[DX] have
even seen in our latitude, where the atmosphere has a much less
considerable degree of transparency, the thermometer fall to 14°.5, or
18° Fahr. on being placed on the grass. Melloni has most ably shown[DY]
that in a calm, which is a necessary condition of a powerful radiation,
and of the formation of dew, the cooling of the stratum of grass is
promoted by the falling to the ground of the cooler particles of air, as
being the heavier.
In the vicinity of the equator, under the cloudy sky of the Upper
Orinoco, the Rio Negro and the Amazon, the plains are covered with dense
primeval forests; but to the north and south of this woody district,
there extend, from the zone of palms and of tall dicotyledonous trees in
the northern hemisphere, the Llanos of the Lower Orinoco, the Meta, and
Guaviare; and in the south, the Pampas of the Rio de la Plata and of
Patagonia. The area thus covered by grassy plains, or Savannahs, in
South America, is at least nine times greater than that of France.
The forest region acts in a threefold manner, by the coolness induced by
its shade, by evaporation, and by the cooling process of radiation.
Forests uniformly composed in our temperate zone of “social” plants,
belonging to the families of the Coniferæ or Amentaceæ (the oak, beech,
and birch), and under the tropics composed of plants not living
socially, protect the ground from direct insolation, evaporate the
fluids they have themselves produced, and cool the contiguous strata of
air by the radiation of heat from their leafy appendicular organs. The
leaves are by no means all parallel to one another, and present
different inclinations towards the horizon; and according to the laws
established by Leslie and Fourier, the influence of this inclination on
the quantity of heat emitted by radiation is such, that the radiating
power of a given measured surface _a_, having a given oblique direction,
is equal to the radiating power of a leaf of the size of _a_ projected
on a horizontal plane. In the initial condition of radiation of all the
leaves which form the summit of a tree, and which partially cover each
other, those which are directly presented towards the unclouded sky,
will be first cooled.
This production of cold (or the exhaustion of heat by emission) will be
the more considerable in proportion to the thinness of the leaves. A
second stratum of leaves has its upper surface turned to the under
surface of the former, and will give out more heat by radiation towards
that stratum than it can receive from it. The result of this unequal
exchange will then be a diminution of temperature for the second stratum
also. A similar action will extend from stratum to stratum, till all the
leaves of the tree, by their greater or less radiation, as modified by
their difference of position, have passed into a condition of stable
equilibrium, of which the law may be deduced by mathematical analysis.
In this manner, in the serene and long nights of the equinoctial zone,
the forest air, which is contained in the interstices between the strata
of leaves, becomes cooled by the process of radiation; for a tree, a
horizontal section of whose summit would hardly measure 2000 square
feet, would, in consequence of the great number of its appendicular
organs (the leaves), produce as great a diminution in the temperature of
the air as a space of bare land or turf many thousand times greater than
2000 square feet.[DZ] I have thus sought to develope somewhat fully the
complicated relations which the action of great forest regions exerts on
the atmosphere, because they have so often been touched upon in
connection with the important question of the climate of ancient Germany
and Gaul.
As in the old continent, European civilization has had its principal
seat on the western coast, it could not fail to be early remarked that
under equal degrees of latitude the opposite eastern littoral region of
the United States of North America was several degrees colder, in mean
annual temperature, than Europe, which is, as it were, a western
peninsula of Asia, and bears much the same relation to it as Brittany
does to the rest of France. The fact, however, escaped notice that these
differences decrease from the higher to the lower latitudes, and that
they are hardly perceptible below 30°. For the west coast of the New
Continent exact observations of the temperature are still almost
entirely wanting; but the mildness of the winter in New California shows
that in reference to their mean annual temperature, the west coasts of
America and Europe under the same parallels, scarcely present any
differences. The annexed table gives the mean annual temperatures, which
correspond to the same geographical latitudes, on the eastern coast of
the New Continent and the western coast of Europe:—
──────────┬────────────┬──────────┬─────────────────┬──────────────────
│ │ │ │Difference between
Similar │ Eastern │ Western │Mean Temperature │ the annual
Degrees of│ Coast of │ Coast of │ of the Year, of │ Temperature of
Latitude. │ America. │ Europe. │ Winter, and │ Eastern America
│ │ │ Summer. │ and Western
│ │ │ │ Europe.
──────────┼────────────┼──────────┼─────────────────┼──────────────────
│ │ │ - 0°.4│
57° 10′│Nain │ │ 25°.7 —————│
│ │ │ 45°.7│
│ │ │ │ 20°.7
│ │ │ 31°.5│
57° 41′│ │Gottenburg│ 46°.4 —————│
│ │ │ 62°.4│
══════════╪════════════╪══════════╪═════════════════╪══════════════════
│ │ │ 23°│
47° 34′│St. John’s │ │ 38°.1 —————│
│ │ │ 54°│
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ 31°.1│
47° 30′│ │Buda │ 50°.5 —————│ 13°.6
│ │ │ 69°.8│
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ 37°.8│
48° 50′│ │Paris │ 51°.7 —————│
│ │ │ 64°.6│
══════════╪════════════╪══════════╪═════════════════╪══════════════════
│ │ │ 24°.1│
44° 39′│Halifax │ │ 43°.5 —————│
│ │ │ 63°.0│
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ │ 13°.7
│ │ │ 42°.8│
44° 50′│ │Bordeaux │ 57°.2 —————│
│ │ │ 71°.1│
│ │ │ 32°.2│
40° 43′│New York │ │ 52°.5 —————│
│ │ │ 72°.9│
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ 32°.2│
39° 57′│Philadelphia│ │ 52°.2 —————│
│ │ │ 72°.7│
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ 36°.0│
38° 53′│Washington │ │ 54°.9 —————│ 9°.3
│ │ │ 71°.1│
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ 49°.5│
40° 51′│ │Naples │ 61°.0 —————│
│ │ │ 74°.9│
│ │ │ │
│ │ │ 52°.2│
38° 52′│ │Lisbon │ 61°.5 —————│
│ │ │ 71°.1│
══════════╪════════════╪══════════╪═════════════════╪══════════════════
│ │ │ 59°.5│
29° 48′│St. Agustin │ │ 72°.3 —————│
│ │ │ 81°.5│
│ │ │ │ 0°.5
│ │ │ 58°.5│
30° 2′│ │Cairo │ 71°.8 —————│
│ │ │ 84°.6│
──────────┴────────────┴──────────┴─────────────────┴──────────────────
In the preceding table the number placed before the fraction represents
the mean annual temperature, the numerator of the fraction, the mean
winter temperature, and the denominator the mean summer temperature.
Besides the more marked difference between the mean annual temperatures,
there is also a very striking contrast between the opposite coasts in
respect to the distribution of heat over the different seasons of the
year; and it is indeed this distribution which exerts the greatest
influence on our bodily feelings and on the process of vegetation.
Dove[EA] makes the general remark, that the summer temperature of
America is lower under equal degrees of latitude than that of Europe.
The climate of St. Petersburgh (lat. 59° 56′), or to speak more
correctly, the mean annual temperature of that city, is found on the
eastern coast of America, in lat. 47° 30′, or 12° 30′ more to the south;
and in like manner we find the climate of Königsberg (lat. 54° 43′) at
Halifax in lat. 44° 39′. Toulouse (lat. 43° 36′) corresponds in its
thermic relations to Washington.
It is very hazardous to attempt to obtain any general results respecting
the distribution of heat in the United States of North America, since
there are three regions to be distinguished—1, the region of the
Atlantic States, east of the Alleghanys; 2, the Western States, in the
wide basin between the Alleghanys and the Rocky Mountains, watered by
the Mississippi, the Ohio, the Arkansas, and the Missouri; and 3, the
elevated plains between the Rocky Mountains and the Coast Range of New
California, through which the Oregon or Columbia river wends its course.
Since the commendable establishment by John Calhoun of uninterrupted
observations of temperature, made on a uniform plan, at thirty-five
military stations, and reduced to diurnal, mensal, and annual means, we
have attained more correct climatic views than were generally held in
the time of Jefferson, Barton, and Volney. These meteorological stations
extend from the point of Florida and Thompson’s Island (West Key), lat.
24° 33′, to the Council Bluffs on the Missouri; and if we reckon Fort
Vancouver (lat. 45° 37′), among them, they include a space extending
over forty degrees of longitude.
It cannot be affirmed that on the whole the second region has a higher
mean annual temperature than the first, or Atlantic. The further advance
towards the north of certain plants on the western side of the
Alleghanys, depends partly on the nature of those plants and partly on
the different distribution through the seasons of the year of the same
annual amount of heat. The broad valley of the Mississippi enjoys, at
its northern extremity, the warming influence of the Canadian lakes, and
at the south, that of the Mexican Gulf-Stream. These five lakes (Lakes
Superior, Michigan, Huron, Erie, and Ontario,) cover an area of 92,000
square miles. The climate is so much milder and more uniform in the
vicinity of the lakes, that at Niagara, for instance (in 43° 15′ north
lat.), the mean annual winter temperature is only half a degree below
the freezing-point, whilst, at a distance from the lakes, in 44° 53′
north lat. at Fort Snelling, near the confluence of the river St. Peter
with the Mississippi, the mean winter temperature is 15°.8 Fahr.[EB] At
this distance from the Canadian lakes, whose surface is from five to
upwards of six hundred feet _above_ the sea’s level, whilst the bottom
of Lakes Michigan and Huron is five hundred feet _below_ it, recent
observations have shown that the climate of the country possesses the
actual continental character of hotter summers and colder winters. “It
is proved,” says Forry, “by our thermometrical data, that the climate
west of the Alleghany chain is more _excessive_ than that on the
Atlantic side.” At Fort Gibson, on the Arkansas river, which falls into
the Mississippi, in lat. 35° 47′, where the mean annual temperature
hardly equals that of Gibraltar, the thermometer was observed, in
August, 1834, to rise to 117° Fahr. when in the shade, and without any
reflected heat from the ground.
The statements so frequently advanced, although unsupported by
measurements, that since the first European settlements in New England,
Pennsylvania, and Virginia, the destruction of many forests on both
sides of the Alleghanys, has rendered the climate more equable,—making
the winters milder and the summers cooler,—are now generally
discredited. No series of thermometric observations worthy of confidence
extend further back in the United States than seventy-eight years. We
find from the Philadelphia observations that from 1771 to 1824, the mean
annual heat has hardly risen 2°.7 Fahr.;—an increase that may fairly be
ascribed to the extension of the town, its greater population, and to
the numerous steam-engines. This annual increase of temperature may also
be owing to accident, for in the same period I find that there was an
increase of the mean winter temperature of 2° Fahr.; but with this
exception the seasons had all become somewhat warmer. Thirty-three
years’ observations at Salem in Massachusetts show scarcely any
difference, the mean of each one oscillating within 1° of Fahrenheit,
about the mean of the whole number; and the winters of Salem, instead of
having been rendered more mild, as conjectured, from the eradication of
the forests, have become colder by 4° Fahr. during the last thirty-three
years.[EC]
As the east coast of the United States may be compared, in equal
latitudes, with the Siberian and Chinese eastern coasts of Europe, in
respect to mean annual temperature, so the western coasts of Europe and
America have also very justly been compared together. I will here only
adduce a few instances from the western region of the Pacific, for two
of which, viz., Sitka. (New Archangel,) in Russian America, and Fort
George. (having the same latitudes respectively as Gottenburg and
Geneva,) we are indebted to Admiral Lütke’s voyage of circumnavigation.
Iluluk and Danzig are situated in about the same parallel of latitude,
and although the mean temperature of Iluluk, owing to its insular
climate and the cold sea current contiguous to it, is lower than that of
Danzig, the winters of the former are milder than those of the Baltic
city.
33°.3
Sitka Lat. 57° 3′ Long. 135° 16′ W. 44°.6 —————
55°.0
31°.6
Gottenburg Lat. 57° 41′ Long. 11° 59′ E. 46°.4 —————
62°.4
37°.8
Fort George Lat. 46° 18′ Long. 123° 58′ W. 50°.2 —————
60.°0
33.°6
Geneva Lat. 46° 12′ Altitude 1298 feet 49°.8 —————
63°.5
25°.0
Cherson Lat. 46° 38′ Long. 32° 39′ E. 53°.1 —————
71°.0
Snow is hardly ever seen on the banks of the Oregon or Columbia river,
and ice on the river lasts only a few days. The lowest temperature which
Mr. Ball ever observed there (in 1838) was 18°.4 Fahr.[ED] A cursory
glance at the summer and winter temperatures given above, suffices to
show that a true insular climate prevails on and near the western
coasts; whilst the winter cold is less considerable than in the western
part of the old continent, the summers are much cooler. This contrast is
made most apparent when we compare the mouth of the Oregon with Forts
Snelling and Howard, and the Council Bluffs in the interior of the
Mississippi and Missouri basin, (44°–46° north lat.,) where, to speak
with Buffon, we find an _excessive_ or true _continental_ climate,—a
winter cold, which on some days is –32° or even –37° Fahr., followed by
a mean summer’s heat, which rises to 69° and 71°.4 Fahr.
Footnote 19:
p. 8.—“_As if America had emerged later from the chaotic covering of
waters._”
The acute natural inquirer Benjamin Smith Barton, expresses himself thus
accurately:[EE]—“I cannot but deem it a puerile supposition, unsupported
by the evidence of nature, that a great part of America has probably
later emerged from the bosom of the ocean than the other continents.” I
have already elsewhere treated of this subject in a memoir on the
primitive nations of America:[EF]—“The remark has been too frequently
made by authors of general and well-attested merit that America was in
every sense of the word a _new_ continent. The luxuriance of vegetation,
the vast mass of waters in the rivers, and the continued activity of
great volcanoes, confirm the fact (say these writers,) that the still
agitated and humid earth is in a condition approximating more closely to
the chaotic primordial state of our planet than the old continent. Such
ideas appeared to me, long before my travels in those regions, no less
unphilosophical than at variance with generally acknowledged physical
laws. These imaginary representations of an earlier age and a want of
repose, and of the increase of dryness and inertia with the increased
age of our globe, could only have been framed by those who seek to
discover striking contrasts between the two hemispheres, and who do not
endeavour to consider the construction of our terrestrial planet from
one grand and general point of view. Are we to regard the southern as
more recent than the northern part of Italy, simply because the former
is almost constantly disturbed by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions?
How inconsiderable, moreover, are the phenomena presented by our
volcanoes and earthquakes, when compared with the convulsions of nature
which the geognosist must conjecture to have occurred in the chaotic
condition of our globe, when mountain masses were upheaved, solidified,
or cleft asunder? Different causes must also occasion a diversity of
effects in the forces of nature in parts of the earth remote from one
another. The volcanoes in the new continent,” (of which I still count
about twenty-eight,) “may probably have continued longer active, because
the high mountain ridges on which they are erupted in rows upon long
fissures are nearer to the sea, and because this vicinity appears to
modify the energy of the subterranean fire, in a manner which, with few
exceptions, has not yet been explained. Besides, both earthquakes and
fire-erupting mountains act periodically. At present” (this I wrote
forty-two years ago,) “physical disquietude and political repose prevail
in the new continent, whilst in the old continent the calm repose of
nature is contrasted with the dissensions of different nations. The time
may however come, when this strange contrast between physical and moral
forces may change its theatre of action from one quarter of the world to
another. Volcanoes enjoy centuries of repose between their
manifestations of activity; and the idea that in the older countries
nature must be characterized by a certain repose and quietude, has no
other foundation than in the mere caprice of the imagination. There
exists no reason for assuming that one side of our planet is older or
more recent than the other. Islands, as the Azores and many flat islands
of the Pacific, which have been upheaved by volcanoes, or been gradually
formed by coral animals, are indeed more recent than many plutonic
formations of the European central chain. Small tracts of land, as
Bohemia and Kashmeer, and many of the valleys in the moon, inclosed by a
ring of mountains, may continue for a long time under the form of a sea,
owing to partial inundations, and after the flowing off of these inland
waters, the bottom, on which plants would gradually manifest themselves,
might indeed be figuratively regarded as of more recent origin. Islands
have been connected together into continental masses by upheaval, whilst
other parts of the previously existing land have disappeared in
consequence of the subsidence of the oscillating ground; but general
submersions can, from hydrostatic laws, only be imagined as embracing
simultaneously all parts of the earth. The sea cannot permanently
submerge the vast lowlands of the Orinoco and the Amazon, without at the
same time destroying our Baltic lands. Moreover the succession and
identity of the floetz strata, and of the organic remains of plants and
animals belonging to the primitive world, inclosed in those strata, show
that several great depositions have occurred almost simultaneously over
the whole earth.”[EG]
Footnote 20:
p. 8.—“_The Southern Hemisphere is cooler and more humid than the
Northern._”
Chili, Buenos Ayres, the southern part of Brazil, and Peru, enjoy the
cool summers and mild winters of a true _insular climate_, owing to the
narrowness and contraction of the continent towards the south. This
advantage of the Southern Hemisphere is manifested as far as 48° or 50°
south lat., but beyond that point, and nearer the Antarctic Pole, South
America is an inhospitable waste. The different degrees of latitude at
which the _southern_ extremities of Australia, including Van Diemen’s
Island, of Africa, and America, terminate, give to each of these
continents its peculiar character. The Straits of Magellan lie between
the parallels of 53° and 54° south lat.; and notwithstanding this, the
thermometer falls to 41° Fahr. in the months of December and January,
when the sun is eighteen hours above the horizon. Snow falls almost
daily in the lowlands, and the maximum of atmospheric heat observed by
Churruca in 1788, during the month of December, and consequently in the
summer of that region, did not exceed 52°.2 Fahr. The Cabo Pilar, whose
turret-like rock is only 1394 feet in height, and which forms the
southern extremity of the chain of the Andes, is situated in nearly the
same latitude as Berlin.[EH]
Whilst in the Northern Hemisphere all continents fall, in their
prolongation towards the Pole, within a mean limit, which corresponds
tolerably accurately with 70°, the southern extremities of America. (in
Tierra del Fuego, which is so deeply indented by intersecting arms of
the sea,) of Australia, and of Africa, are respectively 34°, 46° 30′ and
56° distant from the South Pole. The temperature of the unequal extents
of ocean which separate these southern extremities from the icy Pole
contributes essentially towards the modification of the climate. The
areas of the dry land of the two hemispheres separated by the equator
are as 3 to 1. But this deficiency of continental masses in the Southern
Hemisphere is greater in the temperate than in the torrid zone, the
ratio being in the former at 13 to 1, and in the latter as 5 to 4. This
great inequality in the distribution of dry land exerts a perceptible
influence on the strength of the ascending atmospheric current, which
turns towards the South Pole, and on the temperature of the Southern
Hemisphere generally. Some of the noblest forms of tropical vegetation,
as for instance tree-ferns, advance south of the equator to the
parallels of from 46° to 53°, whilst to the north of the equator they do
not occur beyond the tropic of Cancer.[EI] Tree-ferns thrive admirably
well at Hobart Town in Van Diemen’s Land (42° 53′ lat.), with a mean
annual temperature of 52°.2 Fahr., and therefore on an isothermal line
less by 3°.6 Fahr. than that of Toulon. Rome, which is almost one degree
of latitude further from the equator than Hobart Town, has an annual
temperature of 59°.7 Fahr.; a winter temperature of 46°.6 Fahr., and a
summer temperature of 86° Fahr.; whilst in Hobart Town these three means
are respectively 52°, 42°.1, and 63° Fahr. In Dusky Bay, New Zealand,
tree-ferns thrive in 46° 8′ lat., and in the Auckland and Campbell
Islands in 53° lat.[EJ]
In the Archipelago of Tierra del Fuego, having a mean winter temperature
of 33° Fahr., and a mean summer temperature of only 50° Fahr., in the
same latitude as Dublin, Captain King found “vegetation thriving most
luxuriantly in large woody-stemmed trees of Fuchsia and Veronica;”
whilst this vigorous vegetation, which, especially on the western coast
of America (in 38° and 40° south lat.), has been so picturesquely
described by Charles Darwin, suddenly disappears south of Cape Horn, on
the rocks of the Southern Orkney and Shetland Islands, and of the
Sandwich Archipelago. These islands, but scantily covered with grass,
moss, and lichens, _Terres de Désolation_, as they have been called by
French navigators, lie far to the north of the Antarctic Polar Circle;
whilst in the Northern Hemisphere, in 70° lat., on the extremest verge
of Scandinavia, fir-trees reach a height of more than 60 feet.[EK] If we
compare Tierra del Fuego, and more particularly Port Famine, in the
Straits of Magellan, 53° 38′ lat., with Berlin, which is situated one
degree nearer the equator, we shall find for Berlin, 47°.3
^{38°.9}/_{62°.3}; and for Port Famine, 42°.6 ^{34°.7}/_{50°.0} Fahr. I
subjoin the few certain data of temperature which we at present possess
of the temperate zones of the Southern Hemisphere, and which may be
compared with the temperatures of northern regions in which the
distribution of summer heat and winter cold is so unequal. I make use of
the convenient mode of notation already explained in which the number
standing before the fraction indicates the mean annual temperature, the
numerator the winter, and the denominator the summer temperature.
───────────────────────────────────┬───────────┬───────────────────────
│ South │ Mean Annual, Winter,
Places. │ Latitude. │ and Summer
│ │ Temperatures.
───────────────────────────────────┼───────────┼───────────┬───────────
│ │ │ 54°.5
Sydney and Paramatta (New Holland) │ 33° 50′│ 64°.6│ —————
│ │ │ 77°.5
│ │ │
│ │ │ 58°.5
Cape Town (Africa). │ 33° 55′│ 65°.7│ —————
│ │ │ 73°.2
│ │ │
│ │ │ 52°.5
Buenos Ayres │ 34° 17′│ 62°.4│ —————
│ │ │ 73°.0
│ │ │
│ │ │ 57°.4
Monte Video │ 34° 54′│ 67°│ —————
│ │ │ 77°.5
│ │ │
│ │ │ 42°.1
Hobart Town (Van Diemen’s Land) │ 42° 45′│ 52°.5│ —————
│ │ │ 63°.0
│ │ │
│ │ │ 34°.7
Port Famine (Straits of Magellan) │ 53° 38′│ 42°.6│ —————
│ │ │ 50°.0
───────────────────────────────────┴───────────┴───────────┴───────────
Footnote 21:
p. 9.—“_One connected sea of sand._”
As we may regard the social _Erica_ as furnishing one continuous
vegetable covering spread over the earth’s surface, from the mouth of
the Scheldt to the Elbe, and from the extremity of Jutland to the Harz
mountains, so may we likewise trace the sea of sand continuously through
Africa and Asia, from Cape Blanco to the further side of the Indus, over
an extent of 5,600 miles. The sandy region mentioned by Herodotus, which
the Arabs call the Desert of Sahara, and which is interrupted by oases,
traverses the whole of Africa like a dried arm of the sea. The valley of
the Nile is the eastern boundary of the Lybian desert. Beyond the
Isthmus of Suez and the porphyritic, syenitic, and greenstone rocks of
Sinai begins the Desert mountain plateau of Nedschd, which occupies the
whole interior of the Arabian Peninsula, and is bounded to the west and
south by the fruitful and more highly favoured coast-lands of Hedschaz
and Hadhramaut. The Euphrates forms the eastern boundary of the Arabian
and Syrian desert. The whole of Persia, from the Caspian Sea to the
Indian Ocean, is intersected by immense tracts of sand (_bejaban_),
among which we may reckon the soda and potash Deserts of Kerman,
Seistan, Beludschistan, and Mekran. The last of these barren wastes is
separated by the Indus from the Desert of Moultan.
Footnote 22:
p. 9.—“_The western portion of Mount Atlas._”
The question of the position of the Atlas of the ancients has often been
agitated in our own day. In making this inquiry, ancient Phœnician
traditions are confounded with the statements of the Greeks and Romans
regarding Mount Atlas at a less remote period. The elder Professor
Ideler, who combined a profound knowledge of languages with that of
astronomy and mathematics, was the first to throw light on this obscure
subject; and I trust I may be pardoned if I insert the communications
with which I have been favoured by this enlightened observer.
“The Phœnicians ventured at a very early period in the world’s history
to penetrate beyond the Straits of Gibraltar. They founded Gades and
Tartessus on the Spanish, and Lixus, together with many other cities on
the Mauritanian coasts of the Atlantic Ocean. They sailed northward
along these shores to the Cassiterides, from whence they obtained tin,
and to the Prussian coasts where they procured amber found there; whilst
southward they penetrated as far as Madeira and the Cape de Verd
Islands. Amongst other regions they visited the Archipelago of the
Canary Isles, where their attention was arrested by the Peak of
Teneriffe, whose great height appears to be even more considerable than
it actually is from the circumstance of the mountain projecting directly
from the sea. Through their colonies established in Greece, especially
under Cadmus in Bœotia, the Greeks were made acquainted with the
existence of this mountain which soared high above the region of clouds,
and with the ‘Fortunate Islands’ on which this mountain was situated,
and which were adorned with fruits of all kinds, and particularly with
the golden orange. By the transmission of this tradition through the
songs of the bards, Homer became acquainted with these remote regions,
and he speaks of an Atlas to whom all the depths of ocean are known, and
who bears upon his shoulders the great columns which separate from one
another the heavens and the earth,[EL] and of the _Elysian Plains_,
described as a wondrously beautiful land in the west.”[EM] Hesiod
expresses himself in a similar manner regarding Atlas, whom he
represents as the neighbour of the Hesperides.[EN] The Elysian Plains,
which he places at the western limits of the earth, he terms the
‘Islands of the Blessed.’[EO] Later poets have still further embellished
these myths of Atlas, the Hesperides, their golden apples, and the
Islands of the Blessed, which are destined to be the abode of good men
after death, and have connected them with the expeditions of the Tyrian
God of Commerce, Melicertes, the Hercules of the Greeks.
“The Greeks did not enter into rivalship with the Phœnicians and
Carthaginians in the art of navigation until a comparatively late
period. They indeed visited the shores of the Atlantic, but they never
appear to have advanced very far. It is doubtful whether they had
penetrated as far as the Canary Isles and the Peak of Teneriffe; but be
this as it may, they were aware that Mount Atlas, which their poets had
described as a very high mountain situated on the western limits of the
earth, must be sought on the western coast of Africa. This too was the
locality assigned to it by their later geographers Strabo, Ptolemy, and
others. As however no mountain of any great elevation was to be met with
in the north-west of Africa, much perplexity was entertained regarding
the actual position of Mount Atlas, which was sought sometimes on the
coast, sometimes in the interior of the country, and sometimes in the
vicinity of the Mediterranean, or further southward. In the first
century of the Christian era, when the armies of Rome had penetrated to
the interior of Mauritania and Numidia, it was usual to give the name of
Atlas to the mountain chain which traverses Africa from west to east in
a parallel direction with the Mediterranean. Pliny and Solinus were
both, however, fully aware that the description of Atlas given by the
Greek and Roman poets did not apply to this mountain range, and they
therefore deemed it expedient to transfer the site of Mount Atlas, which
they described in picturesque terms, in accordance with poetic legends,
to the _terra incognita_ of Central Africa. The Atlas of Homer and
Hesiod can, therefore, be none other than the Peak of Teneriffe, while
the Atlas of Greek and Roman geographers must be sought in the north of
Africa.”
I will only venture to add the following remarks to the learned
explanations of Professor Ideler. According to Pliny and Solinus, Atlas
rises from the midst of a sandy plain (_e medio arenarum_), and its
declivity affords pasture to elephants, which have undoubtedly never
been known in Teneriffe. That which we now term Atlas is a long mountain
ridge. How could the Romans have recognised one isolated conical
elevation in this mountain range of Herodotus? May the cause not be
ascribed to the optical illusion by which every mountain chain, when
seen laterally from an oblique point of view, appears to be of a narrow
and conical form? I have often, when at sea, mistaken long mountain
ranges for isolated mountains. According to Höst, Mount Atlas is covered
with perpetual snow near Morocco. Its elevation must therefore be
upwards of 11,500 feet at that particular spot. It seems to me very
remarkable that the barbarians, the ancient Mauritanians, if we are to
believe the testimony of Pliny, called Mount Atlas _Dyris_. This
mountain chain is still called by the Arabs _Daran_, a word that is
almost identical in its consonants with _Dyris_. Hornius,[EP] on the
other hand, thinks that he recognises the term Dyris in the word
_Ayadyrma_, the name applied by the Guanches to the Peak of
Teneriffe.[EQ]
As our present geological knowledge of the mountainous parts of North
Africa, which, however, must be admitted to be very limited, does not
make us acquainted with any traces of volcanic eruptions within historic
times, it seems the more remarkable that so many indications should be
found in the writings of the Ancients of a belief in the existence of
such phenomena in the Western Atlas and the contiguous west coast of the
continent. The streams of fire so often mentioned in Hanno’s Ship’s
Journal might indeed have been tracks of burning grass, or beacon fires
lighted by the wild inhabitants of the coasts as a signal to warn each
other of threatening danger on the first appearance of hostile vessels.
The high summit of the “Chariot of the Gods,” of which Hanno speaks (the
θεῶν ὄχημα), may also have had some faint reference to the Peak of
Teneriffe; but farther on he describes a singular configuration of the
land. He finds in the gulf, near the Western Horn, a large island, in
which there is a salt lake, which again contains a smaller island. South
of the Bay of the Gorilla Apes the same conformation is repeated. Does
he refer to coral structures, lagoon islands (Atolls), and to volcanic
crater lakes, in the middle of which a conical mountain has been
upheaved? The Triton Lake was not in the neighbourhood of the lesser
Syrtis, but on the western shores of the Atlantic.[ER] The lake
disappeared in an earthquake, which was attended with great
fire-eruptions. Diodorus[ES] says expressly πυρὸς εκφυτήματα μεγάλα. But
the most wonderful configuration is ascribed to the hollow Atlas, in a
passage hitherto but little noticed in one of the philosophical Dialexes
of Maximus Tyrius, a Platonic philosopher who lived in Rome under
Commodus. _His_ Atlas is situated “on the continent where the Western
Lybians inhabit a projecting peninsula.” The mountain has a deep
semi-circular abyss on the side nearest the sea; and its declivities are
so steep that they cannot be descended. The abyss is filled with trees,
and “one looks down upon their summits and the fruits they bear as if
one were looking into a well.”[ET] The description is so minute and
graphic that it no doubt sprung from the recollection of some actual
view.
Footnote 23:
p. 9.—“_The Mountains of the Moon, Djebel-al-Komr._”
The Mountains of the Moon described by Ptolemy,[EU] σελήνης ὄρος, form
on our older maps a vast uninterrupted mountain chain, traversing the
whole of Africa from east to west. The existence of these mountains
seems certain; but their extent, their distance from the equator, and
their mean direction, still remain problematical. I have indicated in
another work[EV] the manner in which a more intimate acquaintance with
Indian idioms and the ancient Persian or Zend teaches us that a part of
the geographical nomenclature of Ptolemy constitutes an historical
memorial of the commercial relations that existed between the West and
the remotest regions of Southern Asia and Eastern Africa. The same
direction of ideas is apparent in relation to a subject that has very
recently become a matter of investigation. It is asked, whether the
great geographer and astronomer of Pelusium merely meant in the
denomination of Mountains of the Moon (as in that of “Island of Barley,”
(Jabadiu, Java) to give the Greek translation of the native name of
those mountains; whether, as is most probable, El-Istachri, Edrisi,
Ibn-al-Vardi, and other early Arabian geographers, simply transferred
the Ptolemaic nomenclature into their own language; or whether
similarity in the sound of the word and the manner in which it was
written misled them? In the notes to the translation of Abd-Allatif’s
celebrated description of Egypt, my great teacher, Silvestre de
Sacy,[EW] expressly says, “The name of the mountains regarded by Leo
Africanus as furnishing the sources of the Nile, has generally been
rendered ‘Mountains of the Moon,’ and I have adhered to the same
practice. I do not know whether the Arabs originally borrowed this
denomination from Ptolemy. It may indeed be inferred that at the present
day they understand the word قمر in the sense of _moon_, pronouncing
it _kamar_; I do not think however, that such was the practice of the
older Arabs, who pronounced it _komr_, as has been proved by Makrizi.
Aboulfeda positively rejects the opinion of those who would adopt the
pronunciation _kamar_, and derive the word from the name of the moon.
As, according to the author of _Kamous_, the word _komr_, considered as
the plural of اقمر, signifies an object of a greenish or dirty white
colour, it would appear that some authors have supposed that this
mountain derived its name from its colour.”
The learned Reinaud, in his recent excellent translation of Abulfeda (t.
ii., p. i., pp. 81, 82), regards it as probable that the Ptolemaic
interpretation of the name of Mountains of the Moon (ὄρη σεληναῖα) was
that originally adopted by the Arabs. He observes that in the Moschtarek
of Yakut, and in Ibn-Said, the mountain is written al-Komr, and that
Yakut writes in a similar manner the name of the Island of Zendj
(Zanguebar). The Abyssinian traveller Beke, in his learned and critical
treatise on the Nile and its tributaries,[EX] endeavours to prove that
Ptolemy, in his σελήνης ὄρος, merely followed the native name, for the
knowledge of which he was indebted to the extensive commercial
intercourse which then existed. He says, “Ptolemy knew that the Nile
rises in the mountainous district of Moezi, and in the languages which
are spoken over a great part of Southern Africa (as, for instance, in
Congo, Monjou, and Mozambique), the word _moezi_ signifies the moon. A
large tract of country situated in the south-west was called Mono-Muezi,
or Mani-Moezi, _i.e._, the land of the King of Moezi (or Moon-land); for
in the same family of languages in which _moezi_ or _muezi_ signifies
the moon, _mono_ or _mani_ signifies a king. Alvarez[EY] speaks of the
‘regno di Manicongo,’ or territory of the king of Congo.” Beke’s
opponent, Ayrton, seeks the sources of the White Nile (Bahr el-Abiad),
not as do Arnaud, Werne, and Beke, near the equator, or south of it (in
31° 22′ E. long. from Greenwich), but far to the north-east, as does
Antoine d’Abbadie, in the Godjeb and Gibbe of Eneara (Iniara), therefore
in the high mountains of Habesch, in 7° 20′ north lat., and 35° 22′ east
long. from Greenwich. He is of opinion that the Arabs, from a similarity
of sound, may have interpreted the native name Gamaro, which was applied
to the Abyssinian mountains lying south-west of Gaka, and in which the
Godjeb (or White Nile) takes its rise, to signify a mountain of the moon
(Djebel al-Kamar); so that Ptolemy himself, who was familiar with the
intercourse existing between Abyssinia and the Indian Ocean, may have
adopted the Semitic interpretation, as given by the descendants of the
early Arab immigrants.[EZ]
The lively interest which has recently been felt in England for the
discovery of the most southern sources of the Nile induced the
Abyssinian traveller above referred to, (Charles Beke) at a recent
meeting of the “British Association for the advancement of Science,”
held at Swansea, more fully to develope his ideas respecting the
connection between the Mountains of the Moon and those of Habesch. “The
Abyssinian elevated plain,” he says, “generally above 8000 feet high,
extends towards the south to nearly 9° or 10° north latitude. The
eastern declivity of the highlands has, to the inhabitants of the coast,
the appearance of a mountain chain. The plateau, which diminishes
considerably in height towards its southern extremity, passes into the
Mountains of the Moon, which run not east and west, but parallel to the
coast, or from N.N.E. to S.S.W., extending from 10° north to 5° south
latitude. The sources of the White Nile are situated in the Mono-Moezi
country, probably in 2° 30′ south latitude, not far from where the river
Sabaki, on the eastern side of the Mountains of the Moon, falls into the
Indian Ocean, near Melindeh, north of Mombaza. Last autumn (1847), the
two Abyssinian missionaries Rebmann and Dr. Krapf were still on the
coast of Mombaza. They have established in the vicinity, among the
Wakamba tribe, a missionary station, called Rabbay Empie, which seems
likely to be very useful for geographical discoveries. Families of the
Wakamba tribe have advanced westward five or six hundred miles into the
interior of the country, as far as the upper course of the river
Lusidji, the great lake Nyassi or Zambeze (5° south lat.?), and the
vicinal sources of the Nile. The expedition to these sources, which
Friedrich Bialloblotzky, of Hanover, is preparing to undertake” (by the
advice of Beke), “is to start from Mombaza. The Nile coming from the
west referred to by the ancients is probably the Bahr-el-Ghazal, or
Keilah, which falls into the Nile in 9° north lat., above the mouth of
the Godjeb or Sobat.”
Russegger’s scientific expedition—undertaken in 1837 and 1838, in
consequence of Mehemet Ali’s eager desire to participate in the gold
washings of Fazokl on the Blue (Green) Nile, Bahr el-Azrek—has rendered
the existence of a Mountain of the Moon very doubtful. The Blue Nile,
the Astapus of Ptolemy, rising from Lake Coloe (now called Lake Tzana),
winds through the colossal Abyssinian range of mountains; while to the
south-west there appears a far extended tract of low land. The three
exploring expeditions which the Egyptian Government sent from Chartum to
the confluence of the Blue and the White Nile (the first under the
command of Selim Bimbaschi, in November, 1839; the next, which was
attended by the French engineers Arnaud, Sabatier, and Thibaut, in the
autumn of 1840; and the third, in the month of August, 1841), first
removed some of the obscurity which had hitherto shrouded our knowledge
of the high mountains, which between the parallels of 6°–4°, and
probably still further southward, extend first from west to east, and
subsequently from north-west to south-east, towards the left bank of the
Bahr-el-Abiad. The second of Mehemet Ali’s expeditions first saw the
mountain chain, according to Werne’s account, in 11° 20′ north lat.,
where Gebel Abul and Gebel Kutak rise to the height of 3623 feet. The
high land continued to approach the river more to the south from 4° 45′
north lat. to the parallel of the Island of Tchenker in 4° 4′, near the
point at which terminated the expedition commanded by Selim and Feizulla
Effendi. The shallow river breaks its way through the rocks, and
separate mountains again rise in the land of Bari to the height of more
than 3200 feet. These are probably a part of the Mountains of the Moon,
as they are given in our most recent maps, although they are not covered
with perpetual snow, as asserted by Ptolemy.[FA] The line of perpetual
snow would assuredly not be found in these parallels of latitude below
an elevation of nearly 15,500 feet above the sea’s level. It is not
improbable that Ptolemy extended the knowledge he may have possessed of
the high mountains of Habesch, near Upper Egypt and the Red Sea, to the
country of the sources of the White Nile. In Godjam, Kaffa, Miecha, and
Sami, the Abyssinian mountains rise from 10,000 to nearly 15,000 feet,
as we learn from exact measurements; (not according to those of Bruce,
who gives to Chartum an elevation of 5041 feet, instead of the true
height, 1524 feet!) Rüppell, who ranks amongst the most accurate
observers of the present day, found Abba Jarat (in 13° 10′ north lat.)
only 70 feet below the elevation of Mont Blanc,[FB] The same observer
states that a plain, elevated 13,940 feet above the Red Sea, was barely
covered with a thin layer of freshly fallen snow.[FC] The celebrated
inscription of Adulis, which, according to Niebuhr, is of somewhat later
date than the age of Juba and Augustus, speaks of “Abyssinian snow that
reaches to the knee,” and affords, I believe, the most ancient record in
antiquity of snow within the tropics,[FD] as the Paropanisus is 12° lat.
north of that limit.
Zimmermann’s map of the district of the Upper Nile shows the dividing
line where the basin of the great river terminates in the south-east,
and which separates it from the domain of the rivers belonging to the
Indian Ocean, viz.; from the Doara which empties itself north of
Magadoxo; from the Teb on the amber coast of Ogda; from the Goschop
whose abundant waters are derived from the confluence of the Gibu and
the Zebi, and which must be distinguished from the Godjeb, rendered
celebrated since 1839 by Antoine d’Abbadie, Beke, and the Missionary
Krapf. In a letter to Carl Ritter I hailed with the most lively joy the
appearance of the combined results of the recent travels of Beke, Krapf,
Isenberg, Russegger, Rüppel, Abbadie, and Werne, as ably and
comprehensively brought together in 1843 by Zimmermann. “If a prolonged
span of life,” I wrote to him, “bring with it many inconveniences to the
individual himself, and some to those about him, it yields a
compensation in the mental enjoyment, afforded by comparing the earlier
state of our knowledge with its more recent condition, and of seeing the
growth and development of many branches of science that had long
continued torpid, or whose actual fruits hypercriticism may even have
attempted to set aside. This genial enjoyment has from time to time
fallen to our lot in our geographical studies, and more especially in
reference to those portions of which we could hitherto only speak with a
certain timid hesitation. The internal configuration and articulation of
a continent depends in its leading characters on several plastic
relations which are usually among the latest to be elucidated. A new and
excellent work of our friend, Carl Zimmermann, on the district of the
Upper Nile and of the eastern portions of Central Africa, has made me
more vividly sensible of these considerations. This new map indicates,
in the clearest manner, by means of a special mode of shading, all that
still remains unknown, and all that by the courage and perseverance of
travellers of all nations (among which our own countrymen happily play
an important part), has already been disclosed to us. We may regard it
as alike important and useful that the actual condition of our
knowledge, should, at different periods, be graphically represented by
men well acquainted with the existing and often widely scattered
materials of knowledge, and who not merely delineate and compile, but
who know how to compare, select, and, where it is practicable, test the
routes of travellers by astronomical determinations of place. Those who
have contributed as much to the general stock of knowledge as you have
done, have indeed an especial right to expect much, since their
combinations have greatly increased the number of connecting points; yet
I scarcely think that when, in the year 1822, you executed your great
work on Africa, you could have anticipated so many additions as we have
received.” It must be admitted that, in some cases, we have only
acquired a knowledge of rivers, their direction, their branches, and
their numerous synonymes according to various languages and dialects;
but the courses of rivers indicate the configuration of the surface of
the earth, and exert a threefold influence; they promote vegetation,
facilitate general intercourse, and are pregnant with the future destiny
of man.
The northern course of the White Nile, and the south-eastern course of
the great Goschop, show that both rivers are separated by an elevation
of the surface of the earth; although we are as yet but imperfectly
acquainted with the manner in which such an elevation is connected with
the highlands of Habesch, or how it may be prolonged in a southerly
direction beyond the equator. Probably, and this is also the opinion of
my friend Carl Ritter, the Lupata Mountains, which, according to the
excellent Wilhelm Peters, extend to 26° south lat., are connected by
means of the Mountains of the Moon with this northern swelling of the
earth’s surface (the Abyssinian Highlands). _Lupata_, according to the
last-named African traveller, signifies, in the language of Tette,
_closed_, when used as an adjective. This mountain-range which is only
intersected by some few rivers would thus be the _closed_ or _barred_.
“The Lupata chain of the Portuguese writers,” says Peters, “is situated
about 90 leagues from the mouth of the Zambeze, and has an elevation of
little more than 2000 feet. This mural chain has a direction due north
and south, although it frequently deflects to the east or the west. It
is sometimes interrupted by plains. Along the coast of Zanzibar the
traders in the interior appear to be acquainted with this long, but not
very high range, which extends between 6° and 26° south lat. to the
Factory of Lourenzo-Marques on the Rio de Espirito Santo (in the Delagoa
Bay of the English). The further the Lupata chain extends to the south,
the nearer it approaches the coast, until at Lourenzo-Marques it is only
15 leagues distant from it.”
Footnote 24:
p. 10.—“_The consequence of the great rotatory movement of the waters._”
The waters of the northern part of the Atlantic between Europe, Northern
Africa, and the New Continent, are agitated by a continually recurring
gyratory movement. Under the tropics the general current to which the
term _rotation-stream_ might appropriately be given in consideration of
the cause from which it arises, moves, as is well known, like the trade
wind from east to west. It accelerates the navigation of vessels sailing
from the Canary Isles to South America; while it is nearly impossible to
pursue a straight course against the current from Carthagena de Indias
to Cumana. This bend to the west, attributed to the trade winds, is
accelerated in the Caribbean Sea by a much stronger movement, which
originates in a very remote cause, discovered as early as 1560 by Sir
Humphrey Gilbert,[FE] and confirmed in 1832 by Rennell. The Mozambique
current, flowing from north to south between Madagascar and the eastern
coast of Africa, sets on the Lagullas Bank, and bends to the north of it
round the southern point of Africa. After advancing with much violence
along the western coast of Africa beyond the equator to the island of
St. Thomas, it gives a north-westerly direction to a portion of the
waters of the South Atlantic, causing them to strike Cape St. Augustin,
and follow the shores of Guiana beyond the mouth of the Orinoco, the
Boca del Drago, and the coast of Paria.[FF] The New Continent from the
Isthmus of Panama to the northern part of Mexico forms a dam or barrier
against the movements of the sea. Owing to this obstruction the current
is necessarily deflected in a northerly direction at Veragua, and made
to follow the sinuosities of the coast-line from Costa Rica, Mosquitos,
Campeche, and Tabasco. The waters which enter the Mexican Gulf between
Cape Catoche of Yucatan, and Cape San Antonio de Cuba, force their way
back into the open ocean north of the Straits of Bahama, after they have
been agitated by a great rotatory movement between Vera Cruz, Tamiagna,
the mouth of the Rio Bravo del Norte, and the Mississippi. Here they
form a warm, rapid current, known to mariners as the _Gulf Stream_,
which deflects in a diagonal direction further and further from the
shores of North America. Ships bound for this coast from Europe, and
uncertain of their geographical longitude, are enabled by this oblique
direction of the current to regulate their course as soon as they reach
the Gulf Stream by observations of latitude only. The bearings of this
current were first accurately determined by Franklin, Williams, and
Pownall.
From the parallel of 41° north lat. this stream of warm water follows an
easterly direction, gradually diminishing in rapidity as it increases in
breadth. It almost touches the southern edge of the Great Newfoundland
Bank, where I found the greatest amount of difference between the
temperature of the waters of the Gulf Stream and those exposed to the
cooling action of the banks. Before the warm current reaches the Western
Azores it separates into two branches, one of which turns at certain
seasons of the year towards Ireland and Norway, while the other flows in
the direction of the Canary Isles and the western coast of Northern
Africa.
The course of this Atlantic current, which I have described more fully
in the first volume of my travels in the regions of the tropics, affords
an explanation of the manner in which, notwithstanding the action of the
trade winds, stems of the South American and West Indian _dicotyledons_
have been found on the coasts of the Canary Islands. I made many
observations on the temperature of the Gulf Stream in the vicinity of
the Newfoundland Bank. This current bears the warmer water of lower
latitudes with great rapidity into more northern regions. The
temperature of the stream is therefore from about 4°½ to 7° Fahr. higher
than that of the contiguous and unmoved water which constitutes the
shore as it were of the warm oceanic current.
The flying-fish of the equinoctial zone (_Exocetus volitans_), is borne
by its predilection for the warmth of the water of the Gulf Stream far
to the north of the temperate zone. Floating sea-weed (_Fucus natans_),
chiefly taken up by the stream in the Mexican Gulf, makes it easy for
the navigator to recognize when he has entered the Gulf Stream, whilst
the position of the branches of the sea-weed indicate the direction of
the current. The mainmast of the English ship of war, the Tilbury, which
was destroyed by fire in the seven years’ war on the coasts of Saint
Domingo, was carried by the Gulf Stream to the northern coasts of
Scotland: and casks filled with palm-oil, the remains of the cargo of an
English ship wrecked on a rock off Cape Lopez in Africa, were in like
manner carried to Scotland, after having twice traversed the Atlantic
Ocean, once from east to west between 2° and 12° north lat., following
the course of the equinoctial current, and once from west to east
between 45° and 55° north lat. by help of the Gulf Stream. Rennell, in
the work already referred to, p. 347, relates the voyage of a bottle
inclosing a written paper which had been thrown from the English ship
Newcastle in 38° 52′ north lat., and 63° 58′ west long., on the 20th of
January, 1819, and which was first seen on the 2nd of June, 1820, at the
Rosses in the north-west of Ireland, near the Island of Arran. Shortly
before my arrival at Teneriffe a stem of South American cedar-wood
(_Cedrela odorata_), thickly covered with lichens, was cast ashore near
the harbour of Santa Cruz.
The effects of the Gulf Stream in stranding on the Azorean Islands of
Fayal, Flores, and Corvo, bamboos, artificially cut pieces of wood,
trunks of an unknown species of pine from Mexico or the West Indies, and
corpses of men of a peculiar race, having very broad faces, have mainly
contributed to the discovery of America, as they confirmed Columbus in
his belief of the existence of Asiatic countries and islands situated in
the west. The great discoverer even heard from a settler on the Cap de
la Verga in the Azores “that persons in sailing westward had met with
covered barks, which were managed by men of foreign appearance, and
appeared to be constructed in such a manner that they could not sink,
_almadias con casa movediza que nunca se hunden_.” There are well
authenticated proofs, however much the facts may have been called in
question, that natives of America (probably Esquimaux from Greenland or
Labrador), were carried by currents or streams from the north-west to
our own continent. James Wallace[FG] relates that in the year 1682 a
Greenlander in his canoe was seen on the southern extremity of the
Island of Eda by many persons, who could not, however, succeed in
reaching him. In 1684 a Greenland fisherman appeared near the Island of
Westram. In the church at Burra there was suspended an Esquimaux boat,
which had been driven on shore by currents and storms. The inhabitants
of the Orkneys call the Greenlanders who have appeared amongst them
_Finnmen_.
In Cardinal Bembo’s _History of Venice_ I find it stated, that in the
year 1508 a small boat, manned by seven persons of a foreign aspect, was
captured near the English coast by a French ship. The description given
of them applies perfectly to the form of the Esquimaux (_homines erant
septem mediocri statura, colore subobscuro, lato et patente vultu,
cicatriceque una violacea signato_). No one understood their language.
Their clothing was made of fish skins sewn together. On their heads they
wore _coronam e culmo pictam, septem quasi auriculis intextam_. They ate
raw flesh, and drank blood as we would wine. Six of these men perished
during the voyage, and the seventh, a youth, was presented to the King
of France, who was then at Orleans.[FH]
The appearance of men called _Indians_ on the coasts of Germany under
the Othos and Frederic Barbarossa in the tenth and twelfth centuries,
and as Cornelius Nepos (in his _Fragments_),[FI] Pomponius Mela,[FJ] and
Pliny[FK] relate, when Quintus Metellus Celer was Proconsul in Gaul, may
be explained by similar effects of oceanic currents and by the long
continuance of north-westerly winds. A king of the Boii, or, as others
say, of the Suevi, gave these stranded dark-coloured men to Metellus
Celer. Gomara[FL] regards these Indian subjects of the King of the Boii
as natives of Labrador. He writes, _Si ya no fuesen de Tierra del
Labrador, y los tuviesen los Romanos por Indianos engañados en el
color_. It may be inferred that the appearance of Esquimaux on the
northern shores of Europe was more frequent in earlier times, for we
learn from the investigations of Bask and Finn Magnusen, that this race
had spread in the eleventh and twelfth century in considerable numbers,
under the name of Skrälingers, from Labrador as far south as the Good
Vinland, _i.e._ the shore of Massachussets and Connecticut.[FM]
As the winter cold of the most northern part of Scandinavia is
ameliorated by the action of the Gulf Stream, which carries American
tropical fruits (as cocoa-nuts, seeds of _Mimosa scandens_ and
_Anacardium occidentale_) beyond 62° north lat.; so also Iceland enjoys
from time to time the genial influence of the diffusion of the warm
waters of the Gulf Stream far to the northward. The sea coasts of
Iceland, like those of the Faroe Isles, receive a large number of trunks
of trees, driven thither from America; and this drift-wood, which
formerly came in greater abundance, was used for the purposes of
building, and cut into boards and laths. The fruits of tropical plants
collected on the Icelandic shores, especially between Raufarhaven and
Vapnafiord, show that the movement of the water is from a southerly
direction.[FN]
Footnote 25:
p. 10.—“_Lecideæ and other Lichens._”
In northern regions, the absence of plants is compensated for by the
covering of _Bœomyces roseus_, _Cenomyce rangiferinus_, _Lecidea
muscorum_, _Lecidea icmadophila_, and other cryptogamia which are spread
over the earth, and which may be said to prepare the way for the growth
of grasses and other herbaceous plants. In the tropical world, where
mosses and lichens are only observed to abound in shady places, some few
oily plants supply the place of the lowly lichen.
Footnote 26:
p. 11.—“_The Care of Animals yielding milk._—_Ruins of the Aztek
fortress._”
The two oxen already named, _Bos americanus_ and _Bos moschatus_, are
peculiar to the northern part of the American continent. But the
natives—
_Queis neque mos, neque cultus erat, nec jungere tauros_
Virg. Æn. i. 316.
drank the fresh blood, and not the milk, of these animals. Some few
exceptions have indeed been met with, but only among tribes who at the
same time cultivated maize. I have already observed that Gomara speaks
of a people in the north-west of Mexico who possessed herds of tame
bisons, and derived their clothing, food, and drink from these animals.
This drink was probably the blood,[FO] for, as I have frequently
remarked, a dislike of milk, or at least the absence of its use, appears
before the arrival of Europeans to have been common to all the natives
of the New Continent, as well as to the inhabitants of China and Cochin
China, notwithstanding their great vicinity to true pastoral tribes. The
herds of tame lamas which were found in the highlands of Quito, Peru,
and Chili, belonged to a settled and agricultural population. Pedro de
Cieça de Leon[FP] seems to imply, although assuredly as a very rare
exception to the general mode of life, that lamas were employed on the
Peruvian mountain plain of Callao for drawing the plough.[FQ] Ploughing
was, however, generally conducted in Peru by men only.[FR] Barton has
made it appear probable that the American buffalo had from an early
period been reared among some West Canada tribes on account of its flesh
and hide.[FS] In Peru and Quito the lama is nowhere found in its
original wild condition. According to the statements made to me by the
natives, the lamas on the western declivity of the Chimborazo became
wild at the time when Lican, the ancient residence of the rulers of
Quito, was laid in ashes. In Central Peru, in the Ceja de la Montaña,
cattle have in like manner become completely wild; a small but daring
race that often attacks the Indians. The natives call them “Vacas del
Monte” or “Vacas Cimarronas.”[FT] Cuvier’s assertion that the lama had
descended from the guanaco, still in a wild state, which had
unfortunately been extensively propagated by the admirable observer,
Meyen,[FU] has now been completely refuted by Tschudi.
The Lama, the Paco or Alpaca, and the Guanaco are three originally
distinct species of animals.[FV] The Guanaco (Huanacu in the Quichua
language) is the largest of the three, and the Alpaca, measured from the
ground to the crown of the head, the smallest. The Lama is next to the
Guanaco in height. Herds of Lamas, when as numerous as I have seen them
on the elevated plateaux between Quito and Riobamba, are a great
ornament to the landscape. The Moromoro of Chili appears to be a mere
variety of the lama. The different species of camel-like sheep found
still wild at elevations of from 13,000 to upwards of 16,000 feet above
the level of the sea, are the Vicuña, the Guanaco, and the Alpaca; of
these the two latter species are also found tame, although this is but
rarely the case with the Guanaco. The alpaca does not bear a warm
climate as well as the lama. Since the introduction of the more useful
horse, mule, and ass (the latter of which exhibits great animation and
beauty in tropical regions), the lama and alpaca have been less
generally reared and employed as beasts of burden in the mining
districts. But their wool, which varies so much in fineness, is still an
important branch of industry among the inhabitants of the mountains. In
Chili the wild and the tame guanaco are distinguished by special names,
the former being called “Luan” and the latter “Chilihueque.” The wide
dissemination of the wild Guanacos from the Peruvian Cordilleras to
Tierra del Fuego, sometimes in herds of 500 heads of cattle, has been
facilitated by the circumstance that these animals can swim with great
facility from island to island, and are not therefore impeded in their
passage across the Patagonian channels or fiords.[FW]
South of the river Gyla, which together with the Rio Colorado pours
itself into the Californian Gulf (Mar de Cortes), lie in the midst of
the dreary steppe the mysterious ruins of the Aztek Palace, called by
the Spaniards “las Casas Grandes.” When, about the year 1160, the Azteks
first appeared in Anahuac, having migrated from the unknown land of
Aztlan, they remained for a time on the borders of the Gyla river. The
Franciscan monks, Garces and Font, who saw the “Casas Grandes” in 1778,
are the last travellers who have visited these remains. According to
their statement, the ruins extended over an area exceeding sixteen
square miles. The whole plain was covered with the broken fragments of
ingeniously painted earthenware vessels. The principal palace, if the
word can be applied to a house formed of unburnt clay, is 447 feet in
length and 277 feet in breadth.[FX]
The Tayé of California, a delineation of which is given by the Padre
Venegas, appears to differ but inconsiderably from the _Ovis musimon_ of
the Old Continent. The same animal has also been seen in the Stony
Mountains near the source of the River of Peace, and differs entirely
from the small white and black spotted goat-like animal found on the
Missouri and Arkansas. The synonyme of Antilope furcifer, A. tememazama.
(Smith,) and Ovis montana is still very uncertain.
Footnote 27:
p. 11.—“_The culture of farinaceous grasses._”
The original habitat of the farinaceous grasses, like that of the
domestic animals which have followed man since his earliest migrations,
is shrouded in obscurity. Jacob Grimm has ingeniously derived the German
name for corn, _Getraide_, from the old German “gitragidi,” “getregede.”
“It is as it were the _tame_ fruit (_fruges_, _frumentum_) that has
fallen into the hands of man, as we speak of tame animals in opposition
to those that are wild.”[FY]
“It is a most striking fact that on one half of our planet there should
be nations who are wholly unacquainted with the use of milk and of the
meal yielded by narrow-eared grasses, (_Hordeaceæ_ and _Avenacecæ_)
whilst in the other hemisphere nations may be found in almost every
region who cultivate cereals and rear milch cattle. The culture of
different cereals is common to both hemispheres; but while in the New
Continent we meet with only one species, maize, which is cultivated from
52° north to 46° south lat., we find that in the Old World the fruits of
Ceres, (wheat, barley, spelt, and oats,) have been everywhere cultivated
from the earliest ages recorded in history. The belief that wheat grew
_wild_ in the Leontine plains as well as in other parts of Sicily was
common to several ancient nations, and is mentioned as early as Diodorus
Siculus.”[FZ] Cereals were also found in the alpine meadow of Enna.
Diodorus says expressly, “The inhabitants of the Atlantis were
_unacquainted with the fruits of Ceres_, owing to their having separated
from the rest of mankind before those fruits were made known to
mortals.” Sprengel has collected several interesting facts from which he
is led to conjecture that the greater number of our European cereals
originally grew wild in Northern Persia and India. He supposes for
instance that summer wheat was indigenous in the land of the Musicani, a
province of Northern India;[GA] barley, _antiquissimum frumentum_, as
Pliny terms it, and which was also the only cereal known to the
Guansches of the Canaries, originated, according to Moses of
Chorene,[GB] on the banks of the Araxes or Kur in Georgia, and according
to Marco Polo in Balascham, in Northern India;[GC] and _Spelt_
originated in Hamadan.
My intelligent friend and teacher, Link, has however shown in a
comprehensive and critical treatise,[GD] that these passages are open to
much doubt. In a former essay of my own,[GE] I expressed doubts
regarding the existence of wild cereals in Asia, and considered them to
have become wild. Reinhold Forster, who before his voyage with Captain
Cook made an expedition for purposes of natural history into the south
of Russia by order of the Empress Catherine, reported that the two-lined
summer barley (_Hordeum distichon_) grew wild near the confluence of the
Samara and the Volga. At the end of September in the year 1829,
Ehrenberg and myself also herborised on the Samara, during our journey
from Orenburg and Uralsk to Saratow and the Caspian Sea. The quantity of
wheat and rye plants growing wild on uncultivated ground in this
district was certainly very remarkable; but the plants did not appear to
us to differ from the ordinary kinds. Ehrenberg received from M. Carelin
a species of rye, _Secale fragile_, that had been gathered on the
Kirghis Steppe, and which Marshal Bieberstein for some time conjectured
to be the mother plant of our cultivated rye, _Secale cereale_.
Michaux’s herbarium does not show (according to Achill Richard’s
testimony), that Spelt (_Triticum spelta_) grows wild at Hamadan in
Persia, as Olivier and Michaux have been supposed to maintain. More
confidence is due to the recent accounts obtained through the unwearied
zeal of the intelligent traveller, Professor Carl Koch. He found a large
quantity of rye (_Secale cereale var._ β, _pectinata_) in the Pontic
Mountains, at heights of more than 5000 or 6000 feet above the level of
the sea, on spots where this species of grain had not within the memory
of the inhabitants been previously cultivated. “Its appearance here is
the more important,” he remarks, “because with us this grain never
propagates itself spontaneously.” Koch collected in the Schirwan part of
the Caucasus a kind of grain which he calls _Hordeum spontaneum_, and
regards as the originally wild _Hordeum zeocriton_. (Linn.)[GF]
A negro slave of the great Cortes was the first who cultivated wheat in
New Spain, from three seeds which he found amongst some rice brought
from Spain for the use of the troops. In the Franciscan convent at Quito
I saw, preserved as a relic, the earthen vessel which had contained the
first wheat sowed in Quito by the Franciscan monk, Fray Jodoco Rixi de
Gante, a native of Ghent in Flanders. The first crop was raised in front
of the convent, on the “Plazuela de S. Francisco,” after the wood which
then extended from the foot of the Volcano of Pichincha had been
cleared. The monks, whom I frequently visited during my stay at Quito,
begged me to explain the inscription on the cup, which according to
their conjecture contained some hidden allusion to wheat. On examining
the vessel, I read in old German the words “Let him who drinks from me,
ne’er forget his God.” This old German drinking cup excited in me
feelings of veneration! Would that everywhere in the New Continent the
names of those were preserved who, instead of devastating the soil by
bloody conquests, confided to it the first fruits of Ceres! There are
“fewer examples of a general affinity of names in terms relating to the
different species of corn and objects of agriculture than to the rearing
of cattle. Herdsmen when they migrated to other regions had still much
in common, while the subsequent cultivators of the soil had to invent
special words. But the fact that in comparison with the Sanscrit, Romans
and Greeks seem to stand on the same footing with Germans and
Slavonians, speaks in favour of the very early contemporaneous
emigration of the two latter. Yet the Indian _java_ (_frumentum
hordeum_), when compared with the Lithuanian _jawai_, and the Finnish
_jywa_, affords a striking exception.”[GG]
Footnote 28:
p. 11.—“_Preferring to keep within a cooler climate._”
Throughout the whole of Mexico and Peru we find the trace of human
civilisation confined to the elevated table-lands. We saw the ruins of
palaces and baths on the sides of the Andes, at an elevation of from
10,230 to 11,510 feet. None but northern tribes migrating from the north
towards the equator could have remained from preference in such a
climate.
Footnote 29:
p. 12.—“_The history of the peopling of Japan._”
I believe I have succeeded in showing, in my work on the monuments of
the American primitive races,[GH] by an examination of the Mexican and
Thibetian-Japanese calendars, by a correct determination of the position
of the Scansile Pyramids, and by the ancient myths which record four
revolutions of the world and the dispersion of mankind after a great
deluge, that the western nations of the New Continent maintained
relations of intercourse with those of Eastern Asia, long before the
arrival of the Spaniards. These observations have derived additional
weight, since the appearance of my work, from the facts recently
published in England, France, and the United States, regarding the
remarkable pieces of sculpture carved in the Indian style, which have
been discovered in the ruins of Guatimala and Yucatan.[GI] The ancient
architectural remains found in the peninsula of Yucatan testify more
than those of Palenque, to an astonishing degree of civilization. They
are situated between Valladolid, Merida, and Campeche, chiefly in the
western portion of the country. But the monuments on the island of
Cozumel, (properly Cuzamil,) east of Yucatan, were the first which were
seen by the Spaniards in the expedition of Juan de Grijalva in 1518, and
in that of Cortes in 1519. Their discovery tended to diffuse throughout
Europe an exalted idea of the advanced condition of ancient Mexican
civilization. The most important ruins of the peninsula of Yucatan
(unfortunately not yet thoroughly measured and drawn by architects) are
those of the “Casa del Gobernador” of Uxmal, the Teocallis and vaulted
constructions at Kabah, the ruins of Labnan with its domed pillars,
those of Zayi which exhibit columns of an order of architecture nearly
approaching the Doric, and those of Chiche with large ornamented
pilasters. An old manuscript written in the Maya language by a Christian
Indian, which is still in the hands of the “Gefe politico” of Peto, Don
Juan Rio Perez, gives the different epochs (_Katunes_ of 52 years) at
which the Toltecs settled in different parts of the peninsula. Perez
would infer from these data that the architectural remains of Chiche go
back as far as the fourth century of our era, whilst those of Uxmal
belong to the middle of the tenth century; but the accuracy of these
historical deductions is open to great doubt.[GJ]
I regard the existence of a former intercourse between the people of
Western America and these of Eastern Asia as more than probable,
although it is impossible at the present time to say by what route and
with which of the tribes of Asia this intercourse was established. A
small number of individuals of the cultivated hierarchical castes may
perhaps have sufficed to effect great changes in the social condition of
Western America. The fabulous accounts formerly current regarding
Chinese expeditions to the New Continent refer merely to expeditions to
Fusang or Japan. It is, however, possible that Japanese and Sian-Pi may
have been driven by storms from the Corea to the American coasts. We
know as matters of history that Bonzes and other adventurers navigated
the Eastern Chinese seas in search of a remedial agent capable of making
man immortal. Thus under Tschin-chi-huang-ti three hundred young couples
were dispatched to Japan in the year 209 before our era, who, instead of
returning to China, settled on the Island of Nipon.[GK] May not accident
have led to similar expeditions to the Fox Islands, to Alaschka, or New
California? As the western coasts of the American continent incline from
north-west to south-east, and the eastern coasts of Asia from north-east
to south-west, the distance between the two continents in the milder
zone, which is most conducive to mental development (45° lat.), would
appear too considerable to admit of an accidental settlement having been
made in this latitude. We must therefore assume that the first landing
took place in the ungenial climate of 55° and 65°, and that cultivation,
like the general advance of population in America, progressed by gradual
stations from north to south.[GL] It was even believed in the beginning
of the sixteenth century that the fragments of ships from Catayo, _i.e._
from Japan or China, had been found on the coasts of the Northern
Dorado, called also Quivira and Cibora.[GM]
We know as yet too little of the languages of America entirely to
renounce the hope that, amid their many varieties, some idiom may be
discovered, that has been spoken with certain modifications in the
interior of South America and Central Asia, or that might at least
indicate an ancient affinity. Such a discovery would undoubtedly be one
of the most brilliant to which the history of the human race can hope to
attain! But analogies of language are only deserving of confidence where
mere resemblances of sound in the roots are not alone the object of
research, but attention is also directed to the organic structure, the
grammatical forms, and those elements of language which manifest
themselves as the product of the intellectual power of man.
Footnote 30:
p. 12—“_Many other forms of animal life._”
The Steppes of Caracas abound in flocks of the so-called _Cervus
mexicanus_. This stag when young is spotted, and resembles the roe. We
have frequently met with perfectly white varieties, which is a very
striking fact when the high temperature of this zone is taken into
consideration. The _Cervus mexicanus_ is not found on the declivities of
the Andes in the equatorial region, at an elevation exceeding from 4476
to 5115 feet, but another white deer, which I could scarcely distinguish
by any one specific characteristic from the European species, ascends to
an elevation of nearly 13,000 feet. The _Cavia capybara_ is known in the
province of Caracas by the name of _Chiguire_. This unfortunate animal
is pursued in the water by the crocodile, and on land by the tiger or
jaguar. It runs so badly that we were often able to catch it with our
hands. The extremities are smoked and eaten as hams, but have a most
unpleasant taste, owing to the flavour and smell of musk by which they
are impregnated; and on the Orinoco we gladly ate monkey-hams in
preference. These beautifully striped animals—the _Viverra mapurito_,
_Viverra zorilla_, and _Viverra vittata_—exhale a fetid odour.
Footnote 31:
p. 12—“_The Guaranes and the fan-palm Mauritia._”
The small coast tribe of the Guaranes (called in British Guiana, the
Warraws, or Guaranos, and by the Caribs U-ara-u) inhabit not only the
swampy delta and the river net-work of the Orinoco (more particularly
the banks of the Manamo grande and the Caño Macareo), but also extend,
with very slight differences in their mode of living, along the
sea-shore, between the mouths of the Essequibo and the Boca de Navios of
the Orinoco.[GN] According to the testimony of Schomburgk, the admirable
observer referred to in the note, there are still about 1700 Warraus or
Guaranos living in the vicinity of Cumaca, and along the banks of the
Barime river, which empties itself into the gulf of the Boca de Navios.
The social habits of the tribes settled in the delta of the Orinoco were
known to the great historian Cardinal Bembo, the cotemporary of
Christopher Columbus, Amerigo Vespucci, and Alonzo de Hojeda. He
says[GO] _quibusdam in locis propter paludes incolæ domus in arboribus
œdificant_. It is hardly probable that instead of the Guaranos at the
mouth of the Orinoco, Bembo should here allude to the natives of the
country near the mouth of the gulf of Maracaibo, where Alonzo de Hojeda,
in August, 1499, (when accompanied by Vespucci and Juan de la Cosa)
found a population having their dwellings _fondata sopra l’acqua come
Venezia_ (“built like Venice on the water”).[GP] Vespucci, in the
account of his travels, in which we meet with the first traces of the
etymology of the name of the province of _Venezuela_ (Little Venice) as
used for the province of Caracas, speaks only of houses built on a
foundation of piles, and makes no mention of habitations in trees.
Sir Walter Raleigh bears a subsequent and incontrovertible evidence to
the same fact, for he says expressly in his description of Guiana, that
on his second voyage in 1595, when in the mouth of the Orinoco, “he saw
the fire of the Tivitites and Qua-rawetes” (so he calls the Guaranes),
“high up in the trees.”[GQ] There is a drawing of the fire in the Latin
edition of this work,[GR] and Raleigh was the first who brought to
England the fruit of the Mauritia palm, which he very justly compared,
on account of its scales, to fir-cones. Father José Gumilla, who twice
visited the Guaranes as a missionary, says, indeed, that this tribe have
their dwelling in the Palmares (palm groves) of the morasses; but while
he speaks more definitely of pendent habitations supported by high
pillars, makes no mention of platforms attached to still growing
trees.[GS] Hillhouse and Sir Robert Schomburgk[GT] are of opinion that
Bembo, through the relations of others, and Raleigh, by his own
observation, were deceived into this belief in consequence of the high
tops of the palm trees being lighted up in such a manner by the fires
below them, that those sailing by thought the habitations of the
Guaranes were attached to the trees themselves. “We do not deny,” says
Schomburgk, “that in order to escape the attacks of the mosquitos, the
Indian sometimes suspends his hammock from the tops of trees, but on
such occasions no fires are made under the hammock.”[GU]
According to Martius, the beautiful Palm, Moriche, _Mauritia flexuosa_,
_Quieteva_, or _Ita_ Palm,[GV] belongs, together with Calamus, to the
family of the Lepidocaryæ or Corypheæ. Linnæus has described it very
imperfectly, as he erroneously considered it to be devoid of leaves. The
trunk is 26 feet high, but it probably does not attain this height in
less than 120 or even 150 years. The Mauritia extends high up the
declivity of the Duida, north of the Esmeralda mission, where I found it
in great beauty. It forms, in moist places, fine groups of a fresh and
shining verdure, reminding us of that of our alders. The trees preserve
the moisture of the ground by their shade, and hence the Indians believe
that the Mauritia draws water around its roots by some mysterious
attraction. In conformity with an analogous theory they advise, that
serpents should not be killed, because the destruction of these animals
is followed by the drying up of the lagoons. Thus do the rude children
of nature confound cause and effect! Gumilla calls the _Mauritia
flexuosa_ of the Guaranes the tree of life (“arbol de la vida”). It is
found on the mountains of Ronaima, east of the sources of the Orinoco,
as high as 4263 feet. On the unfrequented banks of the Rio Atabapo, in
the interior of Guiana, we discovered a new species of Mauritia having a
prickly stem; our _Mauritia aculeata_.[GW]
Footnote 32:
p. 13.—“_An American Stylite._”
The founder of the sect of Stylites, the fanatical Pillar-saint, Simeon
Sisanites of Syria, the son of a Syrian herdsman, is said to have passed
thirty-seven years in holy contemplation, elevated on five columns, each
higher than the preceding. He died in the year 461. The last of the
pillars which he occupied was 40 ells in height. For seven hundred years
there continued to be followers of this mode of life, who were called
_Sancti Columnares_, or Pillar-saints. Even in Germany, in the see of
Treves, attempts were made to found similar aërial cloisters; but the
dangerous practice met with the constant opposition of the bishops.[GX]
Footnote 33:
p. 14.—“_Towns on the banks of the Steppe-rivers._”
Families who live by raising cattle and do not take part in agricultural
pursuits have congregated together in the middle of the Steppe, in small
towns, which, in the cultivated parts of Europe, would scarcely be
regarded as villages. Among these are Calabozo, which, according to my
astronomical observations, is situated in 8° 56′ 14″ north lat., and 67°
43′ west long.; Villa del Pao (8° 38′ 1″ north lat., and 66° 57′ west
long.); Saint Sebastian, and others.
Footnote 34:
p. 14.—“_Funnel-shaped clouds._”
The singular phenomenon of these sand-spouts, of which we see something
analogous on the cross roads of Europe, is especially characteristic of
the Peruvian sandy desert between Amotape and Coquimbo. Such dense
clouds of sand may endanger the safety of the traveller who does not
cautiously avoid them. It is remarkable that these partial and opposing
currents of air should arise only when there is a general calm. The
aërial ocean resembles the sea in this respect; for here, too, we find
that the small currents (_filets de courant_) in which the water may
frequently be heard to flow with a splashing sound, occur only in a dead
calm (_calme plat_).
Footnote 35:
p. 14.—“_Increases the stifling oppression._”
I have observed in the Llanos de Apure, at the cattle farm of Guadalupe,
that the thermometer rose from 92°.7 to 97°.2 Fahr. whenever the hot
wind began to blow from the desert, which was covered either with sand
or short withered grass. In the middle of the sand-cloud the thermometer
stood for several minutes together at 111° Fahr. The dry sand in the
village of San Fernando de Apure had a temperature of 126° Fahr.
Footnote 36:
p. 15.—“_The phantom of a moving undulating surface._”
The well known phenomenon of the _mirage_ is called in Sanscrit “the
thirst of the gazelle.”[GY] All objects appear to float in the air,
while their forms are reflected in the lower stratum of the atmosphere.
At such times the whole desert resembles a vast lake, whose surface
undulates like waves. Palm trees, cattle, and camels sometimes appear
inverted in the horizon. In the French expedition to Egypt, this optical
illusion often nearly drove the faint and parched soldiers to
distraction. This phenomenon has been observed in all quarters of the
world. The ancients were also acquainted with the remarkable refraction
of the rays of light in the Lybian Desert. We find mention made in
Diodorus Siculus of strange illusive appearances, an African _Fata
Morgana_, together with still more extravagant explanations of the
conglomeration of the particles of air.[GZ]
Footnote 37:
p. 15.—“_The Melocactus._”
The _Cactus melocactus_ is frequently from 10 to 12 inches in diameter,
and has generally 14 ribs. The natural group of the Cactaceæ, the whole
family of the Nopaleæ of Jussieu, belongs exclusively to the New
Continent. The Cactus assumes a variety of shapes, being ribbed and
melon-like (_Melocacti_); articulated (_Opuntiæ_); upright-like columns
(_Cerei_); of a serpentine or creeping form (_Rhipsalides_); or provided
with leaves (_Pereskiæ_). Many extend high up the slopes of the
mountains. Near the foot of the Chimborazo, in the sandy table-land
around Riobamba, I found a new species of Pitahaya (_Cactus sepium_),
even at an elevation of 10,660 feet.[HA]
Footnote 38:
p. 16.—“_The scene suddenly changes in the Steppe._”
I have endeavoured to describe the approach of the rainy season, and the
signs by which it is announced. The deep blue of the heavens in the
tropics is occasioned by the imperfect solution of vapour. The
cyanometer indicates a lighter shade of blue as soon as the vapours
begin to fall. The dark spot in the constellation of the Southern Cross
becomes indistinct in proportion as the transparency of the atmosphere
decreases, and this change announces the approach of rain. The bright
radiance of the Magellanic clouds (_Nubecula major_ and _Nubecula
minor_) then gradually fades away. The fixed stars which had before been
shining with a calm, steady, planetlike light, are now seen to
scintillate in the zenith.[HB] All these phenomena are the result of the
increased quantity of aqueous vapour floating in the atmosphere.
Footnote 39:
p. 16.—“_The humid clay soil is seen to rise slowly in a broad flake._”
Drought produces the same phenomena in animals and plants as the
abstraction of heat. During the dry season many tropical plants lose
their leaves. The crocodile and other amphibious animals conceal
themselves in the mud and lie apparently dead, like animals in cold
regions who are thrown into a state of hybernation.[HC]
Footnote 40:
p. 17.—“_A vast inland sea._”
Nowhere are these inundations on a larger scale than in the net-work of
streams formed by the Apure, the Arachuna, the Payara, the Arauca, and
the Cabuliare. Large vessels sail across the country over the Steppe for
40 or 50 miles.
Footnote 41:
p. 17.—“_To the mountainous plain of Antisana._”
The great mountain plateau which surrounds the volcano of Antisana is
13,473 feet above the level of the sea. The pressure of the atmosphere
is so inconsiderable at this height, that blood will flow from the
nostrils and mouth of the wild bull when hunted with dogs.
Footnote 42:
p. 17.—“_The marshy waters of Bera and Rastro._”
I have elsewhere more circumstantially described the capture of the
gymnotus.[HD] Mons. Gay Lussac and myself were perfectly successful in
the experiments we conducted without a chain on a living gymnotus, which
was still very vigorous when it reached Paris. The discharge of
electricity is entirely dependent on the will of the animal. We did not
observe any electric sparks, but other physicists have done so on
numerous occasions.
Footnote 43:
p. 18.—“_Awakened by the contact of moist and dissimilar particles._”
In all organic bodies dissimilar substances come into contact with each
other, and solids are associated with fluids. Wherever there is
organization and life, there must be electric tension, or, in other
words, a voltaic pile must be brought into play, as the experiments of
Nobili and Matteucci, and more especially the late most admirable
labours of Emil Dubois, teach us. The last-named physicist has succeeded
in “manifesting the presence of the electric muscular current in living
and wholly uninjured animal bodies:” he shows that “the human body,
through the medium of a copper wire, can at will cause the magnetic
needle at a distance to deflect first in one direction and then in
another.”[HE] I have myself witnessed these movements produced at will,
and have thus unexpectedly seen much light thrown on phenomena, to which
I had laboriously and ardently devoted so many years of my earlier life.
Footnote 44:
p. 19.—“_The myth of Osiris and Typhon._”
Respecting the struggle of two human races, the Arabian shepherd tribes
of Lower Egypt and the cultivated agricultural races of Upper Egypt; on
the subject of the fair-haired Prince _Baby_ or _Typhon_, who founded
Pelusium; and on the dark-complexioned Dionysos or Osiris; I would refer
to Zoëga’s older and almost universally discarded views as set forth at
p. 577 of his masterly work “_De origine et usu obeliscorum_.”
Footnote 45:
p. 19—“_The boundaries of European semi-civilization._”
In the Capitania General de Caracas, as well as in all the eastern part
of America, the civilization formerly introduced by Europeans is limited
to the narrow strip of land which skirts the shore. In Mexico, New
Granada, and Quito on the other hand, European civilization has
penetrated far into the interior of the country and advanced up to the
ridges of the Cordilleras. There existed already in the fifteenth
century an earlier stage of civilization among the inhabitants of the
last-named region. Wherever the Spaniards perceived this culture they
pursued its track, regardless whether the seat of it was at a distance
from the sea, or in its vicinity. The ancient cities were enlarged and
their former significant Indian names mutilated, or exchanged for those
of Christian saints.
Footnote 46:
p. 19—“_Huge masses of leaden-coloured granite._”
In the Orinoco, and more especially at the cataracts of Maypures and
Atures (not in the Black River or Rio Negro), all blocks of granite,
even pieces of white quartz, wherever they come in contact with the
water, acquire a grayish black coating, which does not penetrate beyond
0·01 of a line into the interior of the rock. The traveller might almost
suppose that he was looking at basalt, or fossils coloured with
graphite. Indeed, the crust does actually appear to contain manganese
and carbon. I say “appears” to do so, because the phenomenon has not yet
been thoroughly investigated. Something perfectly analogous to this was
observed by Rozier in the syenitic rocks of the Nile (near Syene and
Philæ); by the unfortunate Captain Tuckey on the rocky banks of the
Zaire; and by Sir Robert Schomburgk at Berbice.[HF] On the Orinoco these
leaden-coloured rocks are supposed when wet to give forth noxious
exhalations, and their vicinity is believed to be conducive to the
generation of fevers.[HG] It is also remarkable that the South American
rivers generally, which have black waters (_aguas negras_), or waters of
a coffee brown or wine yellow tint, do not darken the granite rocks;
that is to say, they do not act upon the stone in such a manner as to
form from its constituent parts a black or leaden-coloured crust.
Footnote 47:
p. 20—“_The rain-foreboding howl of the bearded ape._”
Some hours before the commencement of rain, the melancholy cries of
various apes, as _Simia seniculus_, _Simia beelzebub_, &c., fall on the
ear like a storm raging in the distance. The intensity of the noise
produced by such small animals can only be explained by the circumstance
that one tree often contains a herd of seventy or eighty apes. I have
elsewhere spoken of the laryngeal sac, and the ossification of the
larynx of these animals.[HH]
Footnote 48:
p. 20—“_Its uncouth body often covered with birds._”
The crocodiles lie so motionless, that I have often seen flamingoes
(_Phœnicopterus_) resting on their heads, while the other parts of the
body were covered, like the trunk of a tree, with aquatic birds.
Footnote 49:
p. 20—“_Down its dilating throat._”
The saliva with which the boa covers its prey tends to promote rapid
decomposition. The muscular flesh is rendered gelatinously soft under
its action, so that the animal is able to force entire limbs of its
slain victim through its swelling throat. The Creoles call the giant boa
_Tragavenado_ (_stag-swallower_), and fabulously relate that the antlers
of a stag which could not be swallowed by the snake have been seen fixed
in its throat. I have frequently observed the boa constrictor swimming
in the Orinoco, and in the smaller forest streams, the Tuamini, the
Temi, and the Atabapo. It holds its head above water like a dog. Its
skin is beautifully speckled. It has been asserted, that the animal
attains a length of 48 feet, but the longest skins which have as yet
been carefully measured in Europe do not exceed from 21 to 23 feet. The
South American boa (a Python) differs from the East Indian.[HI]
Footnote 50:
p. 20—“_Living on gums and earth._”
It is currently reported throughout the coasts of Cumana, New Barcelona,
and Caracas (which the Franciscan monks of Guiana are in the habit of
visiting on their return from the missions,) that there are men living
on the banks of the Orinoco who eat earth. On the 6th of June, 1800, on
our return from the Rio Negro, when we descended the Orinoco in
thirty-six days, we spent the day at the mission inhabited by these
people (the Otomacs). Their little village, which is called La
Concepcion de Uruana, is very picturesquely built against a granite
rock. It is situated in 7° 8′ 3″ north lat.; and according to my
chronometrical determination, in 67° 18′ west longitude. The earth which
the Otomacs eat, is an unctuous, almost tasteless clay, true potter’s
earth, of a yellowish grey colour, in consequence of a slight admixture
of oxide of iron. They select it with great care, and seek it in certain
banks on the shores of the Orinoco and Meta. They distinguish the
flavour of one kind of earth from that of another; all kinds of clay not
being alike acceptable to their palate. They knead this earth into balls
measuring from four to six inches in diameter, and bake them before a
slow fire, until the outer surface assumes a reddish colour. Before they
are eaten, the balls are again moistened. These Indians are mostly wild,
uncivilized men, who abhor all tillage. There is a proverb current among
the most distant of the tribes living on the Orinoco, when they wish to
speak of anything very unclean, “so dirty that the Otomacs eat it.”
As long as the waters of the Orinoco and the Meta are low, these people
live on fish and turtles. They kill the former with arrows, shooting the
fish as they rise to the surface of the water with a skill and dexterity
that has frequently excited my admiration. At the periodical swelling of
the rivers, the fishing is stopped, for it is as difficult to fish in
deep river water as in the deep sea. It is during these intervals, which
last from two to three months, that the Otomacs are observed to devour
an enormous quantity of earth. We found in their huts considerable
stores of these clay balls piled up in pyramidal heaps. An Indian will
consume from three-quarters of a pound to a pound and a quarter of this
food daily, as we were assured by the intelligent monk, Fray Ramon
Bueno, a native of Madrid, who had lived among these Indians for a
period of twelve years. According to the testimony of the Otomacs
themselves, this earth constitutes their main support in the rainy
season. In addition, they however eat, when they can procure them,
lizards, several species of small fish, and the roots of a fern. But
they are so partial to clay, that even in the dry season, when there is
an abundance of fish, they still partake of some of their earth-balls,
by way of a _bonne bouche_ after their regular meals.
These people are of a dark, copper-brown colour, have unpleasant
Tartar-like features, and are stout, but not protuberant. The Franciscan
who had lived amongst them as a missionary, assured us that he had
observed no difference in the condition and well-being of the Otomacs
during the periods in which they lived on earth. The simple facts are
therefore as follows:—The Indians undoubtedly consume large quantities
of clay without injuring their health; they regard this earth as a
nutritious article of food, that is to say, they feel that it will
satisfy their hunger for a long time. This property they ascribe
exclusively to the clay, and not to the other articles of food which
they contrive to procure from time to time in addition to it. If an
Otomac be asked what are his winter provisions—the term winter in the
torrid parts of South America implying the rainy season—he will point to
the heaps of clay in his hut. These simple facts do not, however, by any
means decide the questions: whether clay can actually be a nutritious
substance; whether earths can be assimilated in the human body; whether
they only serve as ballast; or merely distend the walls of the stomach,
and thus appease the cravings of hunger? These are questions which I
cannot venture to decide.[HJ] It is singular, that Father Gumilla, who
is generally so credulous and uncritical, should have denied the fact of
earth being eaten by and for itself.[HK] He maintains that the
clay-balls are largely mixed with maize-flour, and crocodile’s fat. But
the missionary Fray Ramon Bueno, and our friend and fellow-traveller,
the lay-brother Fray Juan Gonzales, who perished at sea off the coast of
Africa (at the time we lost a portion of our collections), both assured
us, that the Otomacs never mix their clay cakes with crocodile’s fat,
and we heard nothing in Uruana of the admixture of flour.
The earth which we brought with us, and which was chemically
investigated by M. Vauquelin, is quite pure and unmixed. May not
Gumilla, by confounding heterogeneous facts, have intended to allude to
a preparation of bread from the long pod of a species of Inga? as this
fruit is certainly buried in the earth, in order to hasten its
decomposition. It appears to me especially remarkable, that the Otomacs
should not lose their health by eating so much earth. Has this tribe
been habituated for generations to this stimulus?
In all tropical countries men exhibit a wonderful and almost
irresistible desire to devour earth, not the so-called alkaline or
calcareous earth, for the purpose of neutralizing acidity, but unctuous,
strong-smelling clay. It is often found necessary to shut children up in
order to prevent their running into the open air to devour earth after
recent rain. The Indian women who are engaged on the river Magdalena, in
the small village of Banco, in turning earthenware pots, continually
fill their mouths with large lumps of clay, as I have frequently
observed, much to my surprise.[HL] Wolves eat earth, especially clay,
during winter. It would be very important, in a physiological point of
view, to examine the excrements of animals and men that eat earth.
Individuals of all other tribes, excepting the Otomacs, lose their
health if they yield to this singular propensity for eating clay. In the
mission of San Borja we found the child of an Indian woman, which,
according to the statement of its mother, would hardly eat anything but
earth. It was, however, much emaciated, and looked like a mere skeleton.
Why is it that in the temperate and cold zones this morbid eagerness for
eating earth is so much less frequently manifested, and is indeed
limited almost entirely to children and pregnant women, whilst it would
appear to be indigenous to the tropical lands of every quarter of the
earth? In Guinea the negroes eat a yellowish earth, which they call
_caouac_; and when they are carried as slaves to the West Indies they
even endeavour there to procure for themselves some similar species of
food, maintaining that the eating of earth is perfectly harmless in
their African home. The _caouac_ of the American islands, however,
deranges the health of the slaves who partake of it; for which reason
the eating of earth was long since forbidden in the West Indies,
notwithstanding which a species of red or yellowish tuff (_un tuf rouge
jaunâtre_) was secretly sold in the public market of Martinique in the
year 1751.
“The negroes of Guinea say that in their own country they _habitually_
eat a certain earth, the flavour of which is most agreeable to them, and
which does not occasion them any inconvenience. Those who have addicted
themselves to the excessive use of _caouac_ are so partial to it, that
no punishment can prevent them from devouring this earth.”[HM] In the
island of Java, between Sourabaya and Samarang, Labillardière saw small
square reddish cakes publicly sold in the villages. The natives called
them _tana ampo_ (_tanah_ signifies earth in Malay and Javanese); and on
examining them more closely, he found that they were cakes made of a
reddish clay, and intended for eating.[HN] The edible clay of Samarang
has recently (1847) beep sent, by Mohnike, to Berlin in the shape of
rolled tubes like cinnamon, and has been examined by Ehrenberg. It is a
fresh-water formation deposited in tertiary limestone, and composed of
microscopic polygastrica (Gallionella, Navicula) and of
Phytolitharia.[HO] The natives of New Caledonia, to appease their
hunger, eat lumps as large as the fist of friable steatite, in which
Vauquelin detected an appreciable quantity of copper.[HP] In Popayan and
many parts of Peru calcareous earth is sold in the streets as an article
of food for the Indians. This is eaten together with the Coca (the
leaves of the _Erythroxylon peruvianum_). We thus find that the practice
of eating earth is common throughout the whole of the torrid zone among
the indolent races who inhabit the most beautiful and fruitful regions
of the earth. But accounts have also come from the north, through
Berzelius and Retzius, from which we learn, that in the most remote
parts of Sweden hundreds of cartloads of earth containing infusoria are
annually consumed by the country people as bread-meal, more from fancy
(like the smoking of tobacco) than from necessity. In some parts of
Finland a similar kind of earth is mixed with the bread. It consists of
empty shells of animalcules, so small and soft, that they break between
the teeth without any perceptible noise, filling the stomach without
yielding any actual nourishment. Chronicles and archives often make
mention during times of war of the employment as food of infusorial
earth, which is spoken of under the indefinite and general term of
“mountain meal.” Such, for instance, was the case in the Thirty Years’
War, at Camin in Pomerania, Muskau in the Lausitz, and Kleiken in the
Dessau territory; and subsequently in 1719 and 1733, at the fortress of
Wittenberg.[HQ]
Footnote 51:
p. 20.—“_Images graven in rocks._”
In the interior of South America, between the parallels of 2° and 4°
north lat., lies a wooded plain inclosed by four rivers, the Orinoco,
the Atabapo, the Rio Negro, and the Cassiquiare. Here we find granitic
and syenitic rocks, which, like those of Caicara and Uruana, are covered
with colossal symbolical figures of crocodiles, tigers, utensils of
domestic use, signs of the sun and moon, &c. This remote portion of the
earth is at present wholly uninhabited throughout an extent of more than
8000 square miles. The neighbouring tribes, who occupy the lowest place
in the scale of humanity, are naked wandering savages, who could not
possibly have carved hieroglyphics in stone. A whole range of these
rocks covered with symbolical signs may be traced from Rupunuri,
Essequibo, and the mountains of Pacaraima, to the banks of the Orinoco
and of the Yupura, extending over more than eight degrees of longitude.
These carvings may belong to very different periods of time, for Sir
Robert Schomburgk even found on the Rio Negro representations of a
Spanish galliot,[HR] which must necessarily have been of a date
subsequent to the beginning of the sixteenth century, and that in a
wilderness where the inhabitants were probably as rude then as they now
are. But it must not be forgotten, as I have already elsewhere observed,
that nations of very different descent, but in similarly uncivilized
conditions, possessed of the same disposition to simplify and generalize
outlines, and urged by identical inherent mental tendencies, may be led
to produce similar signs and symbols.[HS]
At the meeting of the Society of Antiquaries in London a memoir was read
on the 17th of November, 1836, by Sir Robert Schomburgk, “On the
religious traditions of the Macusi Indians, who inhabit the Upper Mahu,
and a portion of the Pacaraima mountains,” and who have therefore not
changed their habitation for a century (since the journey of the
intrepid Hortsmann). “The Macusis,” says Sir Robert Schomburgk, “believe
that the only being who survived a general deluge, repeopled the earth
by converting stones into human beings.” This myth, which is the fruit
of the lively imagination of these tribes, and which reminds us of that
of Deucalion and Pyrrha, shows itself in a somewhat modified form among
the Tamanacs of the Orinoco. When these people are asked how the human
race survived this great flood, _the age of waters_ of the Mexicans,
they unhesitatingly reply, “that one man and one woman were saved by
taking refuge on the summit of the lofty mountain of Tamanacu, on the
banks of the Asiveru, and that they then threw over their heads the
fruits of the Mauritia palm, from the kernels of which sprang men and
women, who again peopled the earth.” Some miles from Encaramada there
rises in the midst of the savannah the rock of Tepu-Mereme; _i.e._, the
“painted rock,” which exhibits numerous figures of animals and
symbolical signs, having much resemblance to those which we observed at
some distance above Encaramada, near Caycara. (7° 5′ to 7° 40′ north
lat., and 66° 28′ to 67° 23′ west long.) Similarly carved rocks are
found between the Cassiquiare and the Atabapo (2° 5′ to 3° 20′ lat.);
and what is most striking, also 560 miles further eastward in the
solitudes of the Parime. The last-named fact is proved beyond a doubt,
by the journal of Nicolas Hortsmann of Hildesheim, of which I have seen
a copy in the handwriting of the celebrated d’Anville. That simple and
modest traveller wrote down every day on the spot whatever had struck
him as worthy of notice; and his narrative deserves perhaps the more
confidence from the fact that the great disappointment he experienced in
having failed in the object of his researches, which was the discovery
of the Lake of Dorado, with its lumps of gold and a diamond mine (which
proved to be merely rock crystal of a very pure kind), led him to look
with a certain degree of contempt on all that fell in his way. On the
bank of the Rupunuri, at the point where the river, winding between the
Macarana mountains, forms several small cascades; and before reaching
the country immediately surrounding the Lake of Amucu, he found, on the
16th of April, 1749, “rocks covered with figures,” or, as he says in
Portuguese, “_de varias letras_” (with various letters or characters).
We were shown, at the rock of Culimacari, on the banks of the
Cassiquiare, signs said to be characters drawn by line and rule: but
they were merely ill-formed figures of the heavenly bodies, crocodiles,
boa-constrictors, and utensils used in the preparation of manioc-meal. I
found among these painted rocks (_piedras pintadas_) neither a
symmetrical arrangement nor any trace of characters drawn with a regard
to regularity in space and size. The word “_letras_” in the journal of
the German Surgeon (Hortsmann) must not, therefore, I am disposed to
think, be taken in the strictest sense.
Schomburgk did not succeed in finding the rocks observed by Hortsmann,
but he has described others which he saw on the bank of the Essequibo,
near the cascade of Waraputa. “This cascade,” he says, “is celebrated
not only for its height, but also for the great number of figures hewn
in the rock, which bear a great resemblance to those that I have seen on
the island of St. John, (one of the Virgin Islands,) and which I
consider to be without doubt the work of the Caribs, by whom this part
of the Antilles was peopled in former times. I made the most strenuous
efforts to hew away a portion of the rock carved with inscriptions,
which I was desirous of taking with me; but the stone was too hard, and
my strength had been wasted by fever. Neither threats nor promises could
prevail on the Indians to aim a single stroke of the hammer against
these rocks—the venerable monuments of the culture and superior skill of
their forefathers. They regard them as the work of the Great Spirit; and
all the different tribes we met were acquainted with them, although
living at a great distance. Terror was painted on the faces of my Indian
companions who seemed to expect every moment that the fire of heaven
would fall on my head. I now saw clearly that all my efforts were
fruitless, and I was therefore obliged to content myself with bringing
away a complete drawing of these monuments.”
The last resolution was undoubtedly the best, and the editor of the
English journal, to my great satisfaction, subjoins in a note the
remark, “that it is to be wished that others may succeed no better than
Schomburgk, and that no traveller belonging to a civilized nation will
in future attempt the destruction of these monuments of the unprotected
Indians.”
The symbolical signs which Sir Robert Schomburgk found in the fluvial
valley of the Essequibo, near the rapids of Waraputa,[HT] resemble,
indeed, according to his observation, the genuine Carib carvings of one
of the smaller Virgin Islands (St. John); but notwithstanding the wide
extent of the Carib invasions, and the ancient power of that fine race,
I cannot believe that this vast belt of carved rocks which intersects a
great portion of South America from west to east, is actually to be
ascribed to the Caribs. These remains seem rather to be traces of an
ancient civilization, which may have belonged to an epoch when the
tribes, whom we now distinguish by various names and races, were still
unknown. The veneration which is everywhere shown by the Indians for
these rude carvings of their predecessors, proves that the present races
have no idea of the execution of similar works. Nay, more than this,
between Encaramada and Caycara, on the banks of the Orinoco, many of
these hieroglyphic figures are found sculptured on the sides of rocks at
a height which can now only be reached by means of extremely high
scaffolding. When asked who can have carved these figures, the natives
answer with a smile, as if it were a fact of which none but a white man
could be ignorant, that “in the days of the great waters their fathers
sailed in canoes at this height.” Here we find a geological dream
serving as a solution of the problem presented by a long extinct
civilization.
I would here be permitted to subjoin a remark, which I borrow from a
letter addressed to me by Sir Robert Schomburgk, the distinguished
traveller already mentioned. “The hieroglyphic figures are much more
widely extended than you probably have conjectured. During my
expedition, the object of which was the exploration of the river
Corentyn, I not only observed several gigantic figures on the rock of
Timeri (4° 30′ north lat. and 57° 30′ west long.), but I also discovered
similar ones in the vicinity of the great cataracts of the river
Corentyn (in 4° 21′ 30″ north lat. and 57° 55′ 30″ west long.) These
figures have been executed more carefully than any others which I met
with in Guiana. They are about 12 feet in height and appear to represent
human figures. The head-gear is extremely remarkable; it surrounds the
entire head, spreads far out, and is not unlike the glory represented
round the heads of Saints. I left drawings of these images in the
colony, which I hope some day to be able to lay collectively before the
public. I have seen less complete figures on the Cuyuwini, a river
which, flowing from the north-west, empties itself into the Essequibo in
2° 16′ north lat.; and I subsequently found similar figures on the
Essequibo itself in 1° 40′ north lat. These figures, therefore, as
appears from actual observations, extend from 7° 10′ to 1° 40′ north
lat., and from 57° 30′ to 66° 30′ west long. The zone (or belt) of the
sculptured rocks (as far as it has yet been investigated) thus extends
over an area of 192,000 square miles, and includes within its circuit
the basins of the Corentyn, Essequibo, and Orinoco—a circumstance that
enables us to judge of the former population of this portion of the
continent.”
Remarkable relics of a former culture, consisting of granitic vessels
ornamented with beautiful representations of labyrinths, and the
earthenware forms resembling the Roman masks, have been discovered among
the wild Indians on the Mosquito coast.[HU] I had them engraved in the
picturesque Atlas appended to the historical portion of my travels.
Antiquarians are astonished at the resemblance of these _algreco_
vessels to those which embellish the Palace of Mitla (near Oaxaca, in
New Spain). The large-nosed race, who are so frequently sculptured in
relief on the Palenque of Guatimala and in Aztec pictures, I have never
observed in Peruvian carvings. Klaproth recollects having noticed that
the Chalkas, a horde of Northern Mongolia, had similar large noses. It
is universally known, that many races of the North American, Canadian,
and copper-coloured Indians, have fine aquiline noses, which constitute
an essential physiognomical mark of distinction between them and the
present inhabitants of New Granada, Quito, and Peru. Are the large-eyed,
fair-skinned natives of the north-west coast of America, of whom
Marchand speaks as living in 54° and 58° north lat., descended from the
Usuns, an Alano-Gothic race of Central Asia?
Footnote 52:
p. 20.—“_Deal certain death with a poisoned thumb-nail._”
The Otomacs frequently poison their thumb-nails with _curare_. The mere
impress of the nail proves fatal, should the curare become mixed with
the blood. We have in our possession the creeping plant, from the juice
of which the curare is prepared, in the Esmeralda Mission, on the Upper
Orinoco, but, unfortunately, we did not find the plant when in blossom.
From its physiognomy, it seems to be allied to _Strychnos_.[HV]
Since I wrote the above notice of the _Curare_, or _Urari_, as the plant
and poison were called by Raleigh, the brothers Robert and Richard
Schomburgk have rendered important service to science by making us
accurately acquainted with the nature and mode of preparing this
substance, which I was the first to bring to Europe in any considerable
quantity. Richard Schomburgk found this creeping plant in flower in
Guiana, on the banks of the Pomeroon and Sururu, in the territory of the
Caribs, who are, however, ignorant of the mode of preparing the poison.
His instructive work[HW] gives the chemical analysis of the juice of the
_Strychnos toxifera_, which, notwithstanding its name and organic
structure, contains, according to Boussingault, no trace of strychnine.
Virchow’s and Münter’s interesting physiological experiments show that
the curare or urari poison does not appear to destroy by resorption from
without, but chiefly when it is absorbed by the animal substance after
the separation of the continuity of the latter; that curare does not
belong to tetanic poisons; and that it especially produces paralysis,
_i.e._, a cessation of voluntary muscular movement, while the function
of the involuntary muscles (as the heart and intestines) continues
unimpaired.[HX]
ON THE CATARACTS OF THE ORINOCO,
_Near Atures and Maypures_.
In the preceding section, which I made the subject of an Academical
Lecture, I have delineated those boundless plains, whose natural character
is so variously modified by climatic relations, that what in one region
appear as barren treeless wastes or deserts, in another are Steppes or
far-stretching Prairies. With the Llanos of the southern portion of the
New Continent, may be contrasted the fearful sandy deserts in the interior
of Africa; and these again with the Steppes of Central Asia, the
habitation of those world-storming herdsmen, who, once pouring forth from
the east, spread barbarism and devastation over the face of the earth.
While on that occasion (1806), I ventured to combine many massive features
in one grand picture of nature, and endeavoured to entertain a public
assembly with subjects, somewhat in accordance with the gloomy condition
of our minds at that period, I will now, confining myself to a more
limited circle of phenomena, pourtray in brighter tints the cheerful
picture of a luxuriant vegetation, and fluvial valleys with their foaming
mountain torrents. I will describe two scenes of Nature from the wild
regions of Guiana,—ATURES and MAYPURES, the far-famed CATARACTS OF THE
ORINOCO,—which, previously to my own travels, had been visited by few
Europeans.
The impression which is left on the mind by the aspect of natural scenery
is less determined by the peculiar character of the region, than by the
varied nature of the light through which we view, or mountain or plain,
sometimes beaming beneath an azure sky, sometimes enveloped in the gloom
of lowering clouds. Thus, too, descriptions of nature affect us more or
less powerfully, in proportion as they harmonize with the condition of our
own feelings. For the physical world is reflected with truth and animation
on the inner susceptible world of the mind. Whatever marks the character
of a landscape: the profile of mountains, which in the far and hazy
distance bound the horizon; the deep gloom of pine forests; the mountain
torrent, which rushes headlong to its fall through overhanging cliffs: all
stand alike in an ancient and mysterious communion with the spiritual life
of man.
From this communion arises the nobler portion of the enjoyment which
nature affords. Nowhere does she more deeply impress us with a sense of
her greatness, nowhere does she speak to us more forcibly than in the
tropical world, beneath the “Indian sky,” as the climate of the torrid
zone was called in the early period of the Middle Ages. While I now,
therefore, venture to give a delineation of these regions, I am encouraged
to hope that the peculiar charm which belongs to them will not be unfelt.
The remembrance of a distant and richly endowed land, the aspect of a free
and powerful vegetation, refreshes and strengthens the mind; even as our
soaring spirit, oppressed with the cares of the present, turns with
delight to contemplate the early dawn of mankind and its simple
grandeur.[HY]
Western currents and tropical winds favour the passage over that pacific
arm of the sea[53] which occupies the vast valley stretching between the
New Continent and Western Africa. Before the shore is seen to emerge from
the highly curved expanse of waters, a foaming rush of conflicting and
intermingling waves is observed. The mariner who is unacquainted with this
region would suspect the vicinity of shoals, or a wonderful burst of fresh
springs, such as occur in the midst of the Ocean among the Antilles[54].
On approaching nearer to the granitic shores of Guiana, he sees before him
the wide mouth of a mighty river, which gushes forth like a shoreless sea,
flooding the ocean around with fresh water. The green waves of the river,
which assume a milky white hue as they foam over the shoals, contrast with
the indigo-blue of the sea, which marks the waters of the river in sharp
outlines.
The name Orinoco, which the first discoverers gave to this river, and
which probably owes its origin to some confusion of language, is unknown
in the interior of the country. For in their condition of animal rudeness,
savage tribes only designate by peculiar geographical names, those objects
which might be confounded with others. Thus the Orinoco, the Amazon, and
the Magdalena, are each simply termed _The River_, the _Great River_, and
_The Great Water_; whilst, those who dwell on the banks of even the
smallest streams distinguish them by special names.
The current produced by the Orinoco between the South American Continent
and the asphaltic island of Trinidad is so powerful, that ships, with all
their canvass spread, and a westerly breeze in their favour, can scarcely
make way against it. This desolate and fearful spot is called the Bay of
Sadness (_Golfo Triste_), and its entrance the _Dragon’s Mouth_ (_Boca del
Drago_). Here isolated cliffs rise tower-like in the midst of the rushing
stream. They seem to mark the old rocky barrier[55] which, before it was
broken through by the current, connected the island of Trinidad with the
coast of Paria.
The appearance of this region first convinced the bold navigator Columbus
of the existence of an American continent. “Such an enormous body of fresh
water,” concluded this acute observer of nature, “could only be collected
from a river having a long course; the land, therefore, which supplied it
must be a continent, and not an island.” As, according to Arrian, the
companions of Alexander, when they penetrated across the snow-crowned
summits of Paropanisus[56], believed that they recognized in the
crocodile-teeming Indus a part of the Nile,[HZ] so Columbus, in his
ignorance of the similarity of physiognomy which characterises all the
products of the climate of palms, imagined that the New Continent was the
eastern coast of the far projecting Asia. The grateful coolness of the
evening air, the ethereal purity of the starry firmament, the balmy
fragrance of flowers, wafted to him by the land breeze—all led him to
suppose. (as we are told by Herrera, in the Decades[57],) that he was
approaching the garden of Eden, the sacred abode of our first parents. The
Orinoco seemed to him one of the four rivers, which, according to the
venerable tradition of the ancient world, flowed from Paradise, to water
and divide the surface of the earth, newly adorned with plants. This
poetical passage in the Journal of Columbus, or rather in a letter to
Ferdinand and Isabella, written from Haiti in October, 1498, presents a
peculiar psychological interest. It teaches us anew, that the creative
fancy of the poet manifests itself in the discoverer of a world, no less
than in every other form of human greatness.
When we consider the great mass of water poured into the Atlantic Ocean by
the Orinoco, we are naturally led to ask which of the South American
rivers is the greatest—the Orinoco, the Amazon, or the La Plata? The
question is as indeterminate as the idea of greatness itself. The Rio de
la Plata has undoubtedly the widest mouth, its width measuring 92 miles
across; but this river, like those of Great Britain, is comparatively of
but inconsiderable length. Its shallowness, too, is so great as to impede
navigation at Buenos Ayres. The Amazon, which is the longest of all
rivers, measures 2880 miles from its rise in the Lake of Lauricocha to its
estuary. Yet its width in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros, near the
cataract of Rentama, where I measured it at the foot of the picturesque
mountain of Patachuma, is scarcely equal to that of the Rhine at Mayence.
The Orinoco is narrower at its mouth than either the La Plata or the
Amazon, while its length, according to my astronomical observations, does
not exceed 1120 geographical miles. But in the interior of Guiana, 560
miles from its estuary, I found that at high water the width of the river
measured upwards of 17,265 feet. Its periodical swelling here raises the
level of the waters every year from 30 to 36 feet above the lowest
water-mark. We are still without sufficient data for an accurate
comparison between the enormous rivers which traverse the South American
Continent. For such a comparison it would be necessary to ascertain the
profile of the river-bed, as well as the velocity of the water, which
varies very considerably at different points.
If the Orinoco, in the Delta formed by its variously divided and still
unexplored branches, as well as in the regularity of its rise and fall,
and in the number and size of its crocodiles, exhibits numerous points of
resemblance to the Nile; there is this further analogy between the two
rivers, that they for a long distance wind their impetuous way, like
forest torrents, between granitic and syenitic rocks, till, slowly rolling
their waters over an almost horizontal bed, skirted by treeless banks,
they reach the sea.
An arm of the Nile (the Green Nile, Bahr-el-Azrek), from the celebrated
mountain lake, near Gondar, in the Gojam Alps, in Abyssinia, to Syene and
Elephantis, winds its way through the mountain range of Schangalla and
Sennar; and in like manner the Orinoco rises on the southern slope of a
mountain chain, which stretches between the parallels of 4° and 5° north
lat., from French Guiana, in a westerly direction towards the Andes of New
Granada. The sources of the Orinoco have never been visited by any
European[58], nor even by any natives who have held intercourse with
Europeans.
When, in the summer of 1800, we ascended the Upper Orinoco, we passed the
mission of Esmeralda, and reached the mouths of the Sodomoni and the
Guapo. Here soars high above the clouds, the mighty peak of the Yeonnamari
or Duida; a mountain which presents one of the grandest spectacles in the
natural scenery of the tropical world. Its altitude, according to my
trigonometrical measurement, is 8278 (8823 English) feet above the level
of the sea. Its southern slope is a treeless grassy plain, redolent with
the odour of pine-apples, whose fragrance scents the humid evening air.
Among lowly meadow plants rise the juicy stems of the _anana_, whose
golden yellow fruit gleams from the midst of a bluish green diadem of
leaves. Where the mountain springs break forth from beneath the grassy
covering, rise isolated groups of lofty fan-palms, whose leaves, in this
torrid region, are never stirred by a cooling breeze.
To the east of the Duida mountain, begins a thicket of wild cacao trees,
among which are found the celebrated almond tree, _Bertholletia excelsa_,
the most luxurious product of a tropical vegetation[59]. Here the Indians
collect colossal stalks of grass, whose joints measure upwards of 18 feet
from knot to knot, which they use as blow-pipes for the discharge of their
arrows[60]. Some Franciscan monks have penetrated as far as the mouth of
the Chiguire, where the river is already so narrow that the natives have
suspended over it, near the waterfall of the Guaharibes, a bridge woven of
the stems of twining plants. The Guaicas, of palish complexion and short
stature, armed with poisoned arrows, oppose all further progress eastward.
Therefore, all that has been advanced to prove that the Orinoco derives
its source from a lake must be regarded as a fable[61]. In vain the
traveller seeks to discover the Lake of El Dorado, which, in Arrowsmith’s
maps, is set down as an inland sea measuring upwards of 20 geographical
(80 English) miles. Can the little reed-covered lake of Amucu, near which
rises the Pirara (a branch of the Mahu), have given rise to this myth?
This swamp lies, however, 4° to the east of the region in which we may
suppose the sources of the Orinoco to be situated. Here tradition placed
the island of Pumacena, a rock of micaceous schist, whose shining
brightness has played a memorable, and, for the deluded adventurers, often
a fatal, part in the fable of _El Dorado_, current since the sixteenth
century.
According to the belief of many of the natives, the Magellanic clouds of
the southern sky, and even the glorious nebulæ in the constellation Argo,
are mere reflections of the metallic brilliancy of these silver mountains
of the Parime. It was besides an ancient custom of dogmatising geographers
to make all the most considerable rivers of the world originate in lakes.
The Orinoco is one of those remarkable rivers which, after numerous
windings, first towards the west and then to the north, finally return
towards the east in such a manner as to bring both its estuary and its
source into nearly the same meridian. From the Chiguire and the Gehette as
far as the Guaviare, the course of the Orinoco inclines westward, as if it
would pour its waters into the Pacific. Here branches off to the south,
the Cassiquiare, a remarkable river, but little known to Europeans, which
unites with the Rio Negro, or as the natives call it, the Guainia:
furnishing the only example of a bifurcation which forms in the very
interior of a continent a natural connection between two great river
valleys.
The nature of the soil, and the junction of the Guaviare and Atabapo with
the Orinoco, cause the latter to deflect suddenly northwards. From a want
of correct geographical data, the Guaviare, flowing in from the west, was
long regarded as the true source of the Orinoco. The doubts advanced since
1797 by an eminent geographer, M. Buache, regarding the possibility of a
connection with the Amazon, have, I trust, been completely set at rest by
my expedition. In an uninterrupted voyage of 920 miles, I penetrated
through a remarkable net-work of rivers, from the Rio Negro, along the
Cassiquiare, into the Orinoco; across the interior of the continent, from
the Brazilian boundary to the coast of Caracas.
In the upper portion of this fluvial district, between 3° and 4° north
lat., nature has exhibited, at many different points, the puzzling
phenomenon of the so-called _black waters_. The Atabapo, whose banks are
adorned with _Carolinias_ and arborescent _Melastomas_, the Temi, Tuamini,
and Guainia, are all rivers of a brown or coffee colour, which, under the
deep shade of the palms, assumes a blackish, inky tint. When placed in a
transparent vessel, the water appears of a golden yellow colour. These
black streams reflect the images of the southern stars with the most
remarkable clearness. Where the waters flow gently they afford the
astronomer, who is making observations with reflecting instruments, a most
excellent artificial horizon.
An absence of crocodiles as well as of fish—greater coolness—less torment
from stinging mosquitoes—and salubrity of atmosphere, characterize the
region of the black rivers. They probably owe their singular colour to a
solution of carburetted hydrogen, to the rich luxuriance of tropical
vegetation, and to the abundance of plants on the soil over which they
flow. Indeed, I have observed that on the western declivity of the
Chimborazo, towards the shores of the Pacific, the overflowing waters of
the Rio de Guayaquil gradually assume a golden yellow, approaching to a
coffee colour, after they have covered the meadows for several weeks.
Near the mouths of the Guaviare and Atapabo grows one of the noblest forms
of the palm-tree, the Piriguao[62], whose smooth stem, which is nearly 70
feet in height, is adorned with delicate flag-like leaves having curled
margins. I know no palm which bears equally large and beautifully coloured
fruits. They resemble peaches in their blended tints of yellow and
crimson. Seventy or eighty of these form one enormous cluster, of which
each stem annually ripens three. This noble tree might be termed the
peach-palm. It s fleshy fruit, owing to the extreme luxuriance of
vegetation, is generally devoid of seed; and it yields the natives a
nutritious and farinaceous article of food which, like the banana and the
potato, is capable of being prepared in many different ways.
To this point, that is, as far as the mouth of the Guaviare, the Orinoco
flows along the southern declivity of the chain of the Parime. From its
left bank, across the equator, and as far us the parallel of 15° south
lat., extends the boundless wooded plain of the river Amazon. At San
Fernando de Atabapo the Orinoco, turning off abruptly in a northerly
direction, intersects a portion of the mountain chain itself. Here are the
great waterfalls of Atures and Maypures, and here the bed of the river is
everywhere contracted by colossal masses of rocks, which give it the
appearance of being divided by natural dams into separate reservoirs.
At the entrance of the Meta stands, in the midst of an enormous whirlpool,
an isolated rock, which the natives very aptly term the “Rock of
Patience,” because when the waters are low, it sometimes retards for two
whole days the ascent of the navigator. Here the Orinoco, biting deep into
its shores, forms picturesque rocky bays. Opposite the Indian mission of
Carichana, the traveller is surprised by a most remarkable prospect.
Involuntarily his eye is arrested by a steep granite rock, “El Mogote de
Cocuyza,” a cubiform mass, which rises precipitously to a height of more
than 200 feet; and whose summit is crowned with a luxuriant forest. Like a
Cyclopic monument of simple grandeur, this bold promontory towers high
above the tops of the surrounding palms, cutting the deep azure of the sky
with its strongly marked outlines, and lifting, as it were, forest upon
forest.
On descending beyond Carichana, the traveller arrives at a point where the
river has opened itself a passage through the narrow pass of Baraguan.
Here we everywhere recognise traces of chaotic devastation. To the north,
towards Uruana and Encaramada, rise granite rocks of grotesque appearance,
which, in singularly formed crags of dazzling whiteness, gleam brightly
from amidst the surrounding groves.
At this point, near the mouth of the Apure, the stream leaves the granitic
chain, and flowing eastward, separates as far as the Atlantic, the
impenetrable forests of Guiana from the Savannahs, on whose far distant
horizon the vault of heaven seems to rest. Thus the Orinoco surrounds on
the south, west, and north, the high mountain chain of the Parime, which
occupies the vast space between the sources of the Jao and of the Caura.
No cliffs or rapids obstruct the course of the river from Carichana to its
mouth, excepting, indeed, the “Hell’s Mouth” (Boca del Inferno) near
Muitaco, a whirlpool occasioned by rocks, as at Atures and Maypures, which
does not, however, block up the whole breadth of the stream. In this
district, which is contiguous to the sea, the only dangers encountered by
the boatmen arise from the natural timber-floats, against which canoes are
often wrecked at night. These floats consist of forest trees which have
been uprooted and torn away from the banks by the rising of the waters.
They are covered, like meadows, with blooming water-plants, and remind us
of the floating gardens of the Mexican lakes.
After this brief glance at the course of the Orinoco and its general
features, I pass to the waterfalls of Maypures and Atures.
From the high mountain-group of Cunavami, between the sources of the
rivers Sipapo and Ventuari, a granite ridge projects to the far west
towards the mountain of Uniama. From this ridge descend four streams,
which mark, as it were, the limits of the cataracts of Maypures; two bound
Sipapo and Sanariapo, on the eastern shore of the Orinoco; and two the
Cameji and Toparo, on the western side. At the site of the missionary
village of Maypures the mountains form a wide bay opening towards the
south-west.
Here the stream rushes foaming down the eastern declivity of the mountain,
while far to the west traces remain of the ancient and now forsaken bank
of the river. An extensive Savannah stretches between the two chains of
hills, at an elevation of scarcely 30 feet above the upper water-level of
the river, and here the Jesuits have erected a small church formed of the
trunks of palms.
The geognostical aspect of this region, the insular form of the rocks of
Keri and Oco, the cavities worn in the former by the current, and which
are situated at exactly the same level as those in the opposite island of
Uivitari; all these indications tend to prove that the Orinoco once filled
the whole of this now dried-up bay. It is probable that the waters formed
a wide lake, as long as the northern dam withstood their passage. When
this barrier gave way, the Savannah now inhabited by the Guareke Indians
emerged as an island. The river may perhaps long after this have continued
to surround the rocks of Keri and Oco, which now picturesquely project,
like castellated fortresses, from its ancient bed. After the gradual
diminution of the waters, the river withdrew wholly to the eastern side of
the mountain chain.
This conjecture is confirmed by various circumstances. Thus, for instance,
the Orinoco, like the Nile at Philæ and Syene, has the singular property
of colouring black the reddish-white masses of granite, over which it has
flowed for thousands of years. As far as the waters reach one observes on
the rocky shore a leaden-coloured manganeseous and perhaps carbonaceous
coating which has penetrated scarcely onetenth of a line into the stone.
This black coloration, and the cavities already alluded to, show the
former water level of the Orinoco.
These black cavities may be traced at elevations of from 160 to 192 feet
above the present level of the river on the rocks of Keri, in the islands
of the cataracts; in the gneiss-like hills of Cumadanimari, which extend
above the island of Tomo; and lastly at the mouth of the Jao. Their
existence proves, what indeed we learn from all the river-beds of Europe,
that those streams which still excite our admiration by their magnitude,
are but inconsiderable remains of the immense masses of water belonging to
a former age.
These simple facts have not escaped even the rude natives of Guiana.
Everywhere the Indians drew our attention to these traces of the ancient
water-level. Nay, in a Savannah near Uruana there rises an isolated rock
of granite, which, according to the testimony of persons worthy of credit,
exhibits at an elevation of between 80 and 90 feet, a series of figures of
the sun and moon, and of various animals, especially crocodiles and
boa-constrictors, graven, almost in rows. At the present day this
perpendicular rock, which well deserves the careful examination of future
travellers, cannot be ascended without the aid of scaffolding. In a
similarly remarkable elevated position, the traveller can trace
hieroglyphic characters carved on the mountains of Uruana and Encaramada.
If the natives are asked how these characters could have been graven
there, they answer that it was done in former times, when the waters were
so high that their fathers’ canoes floated at that elevation. Such lofty
condition of the water level must therefore have been coeval with these
rude memorials of human skill. It indicates an ancient distribution of
land and water over the surface of the globe widely different from that
which now exists; but which must not be confounded with that condition
when the primeval vegetation of our planet, the colossal remains of
extinct terrestrial animals, and the oceanic creatures of a chaotic world,
found one common grave in the indurating crust of our earth.
At the most northern extremity of the cataracts our attention is attracted
by what are called the natural representations of the Sun and Moon. The
rock of Keri, to which I have more than once referred, derives its name
from a glistening white spot seen at a considerable distance, and in which
the Indians profess to recognize a striking resemblance to the disc of the
full moon. I was not myself able to climb this precipitous rock, but it
seems probable that the white spot is a large knot of quartz, formed by a
cluster of veins in the greyish-black granite.
Opposite to the Keri rock, on the twin mountain of the island of Uivitari,
which has a basaltic appearance, the Indians point, with mysterious
admiration, to a similar disc, which they venerate as the image of the
Sun, _Camosi_. The geographical position of these two rocks may have
contributed to their respective appellations, for I found that Keri was
turned towards the west, and Camosi towards the east. Some etymological
inquirers have thought they could recognize an analogy between the
American word Camosi and the word Camosh, a name applied in one of the
Phœnician dialects to the sun, and identical with the Apollo Chomeus or
Beelphegor and Amun.
The lofty falls of Niagara, which are 150 feet in height, derive their
origin, as is well known, from the combined precipitation of one enormous
mass of water. Such, however, is not the case with respect to the
cataracts of Maypures, nor are they narrow straits or passes through which
the stream rushes with increasing velocity, like the Pongo of Manseriche
on the Amazon, but rather to be regarded as a countless number of small
cascades succeeding each other like steps. The _Raudal_, (as the Spaniards
term this kind of cataract,) is formed by an archipelago of islands and
rocks, which so contract the bed of the river that its natural width of
more than 8500 feet is often reduced to a channel scarcely navigable to
the extent of 20 feet. At the present day the eastern side is far less
accessible and far more dangerous than the western.
At the mouth of the Cameji the boatmen unload their cargo that they may
leave the empty canoe, or, as it is here called, the _Piragua_, to be
piloted by Indians well acquainted with the Raudal, as far as the mouth of
the Toparo, where all danger is supposed to be past. Where the rocks or
shelvy ledges, (each of which has its particular name,) are not above two
or three feet in height, the natives venture to shoot the rapid with their
canoes. When, however, they have to ascend the stream, they swim in
advance of the piragua, and after much labour, and, perhaps, many
unsuccessful efforts, succeed in throwing a rope round a point of rock
projecting above the breakers, and by this means draw the canoe against
the stream, which, in this arduous operation, is often water-logged, or
upset.
Sometimes the canoe is dashed to pieces on the rock, and this is the only
danger the natives fear. With bleeding bodies they then strain every nerve
to escape the fury of the whirlpool and swim to land. Where the rocky
ledges are very high and form a barrier by extending across the entire bed
of the river, the light canoe is hauled to land and dragged for some
distance along the shore on branches of trees which serve the purpose of
rollers.
The most celebrated and most perilous ledges are those of Purimarimi and
Manimi, which are between nine and ten feet in height. It was with
surprise I found, by barometrical measurements, that the entire fall of
the Raudal, from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the Toparo, scarcely
amounted to more than 30 or 32 feet. (A geodesic levelling is not
practicable, owing to the inaccessibility of the locality and the
pestiferous atmosphere, which swarms with mosquitoes.) I say with
surprise, for I hence discovered that the tremendous roar and wild dashing
of the stream arose from the contraction of its bed by numerous rocks and
islands, and the counter-currents produced by the form and position of the
masses of rock. The truth of my assertion regarding the inconsiderable
height of the whole fall will be best verified by observing the cataracts,
in descending to the bed of the river, from the village of Maypures,
across the rocks of Manimi.
At this point the beholder enjoys a most striking and wonderful prospect.
A foaming surface, several miles in length, intersected with iron-black
masses of rock projecting like battlemented ruins from the waters, is seen
at one view. Every islet and every rock is adorned with luxuriant forest
trees. A perpetual mist hovers over the watery mirror, and the summits of
the lofty palms pierce through the clouds of vapoury spray. When the rays
of the glowing evening sun are refracted in the humid atmosphere, an
exquisite optical illusion is produced. Coloured bows appear, vanish, and
reappear, while the ethereal picture dances, like an ignis fatuus, with
every motion of the sportive breeze.
During the long rainy seasons, the falling waters carry down quantities of
vegetable mould, which accumulating, form islands of the naked rocks;
adorning the barren stone with blooming beds of Melastomes and Droseras,
silver-leaved _Mimosæ_, and a variety of ferns. They recal to the mind of
the European those groups of vegetation which the inhabitants of the Alps
term _courtils_, blocks of granite bedecked with flowers which project
solitarily amid the Glaciers of Savoy.
In the blue distance the eye rests on the mountain chain of Cunavami, a
far-stretching chain of hills which terminates abruptly in a sharply
truncated cone. We saw this conical hill, called by the Indians
Calitamini, glowing at sunset as if in crimson flames. This appearance
daily returns. No one has ever been in the immediate neighbourhood of this
mountain. Possibly its dazzling brightness is produced by the reflecting
surface of decomposing talc, or mica schist.
During the five days that we passed in the neighbourhood of the cataracts,
we were much struck by the fact that the roar of the rushing torrent was
three times as great by night as by day. The same phenomenon is observed
in all European waterfalls. To what can we ascribe this effect in a
solitude where the repose of nature is undisturbed? Probably to ascending
currents of warm air, which producing an unequal density of the elastic
medium, obstruct the propagation of sound by displacing its waves; causes
which cease after the nocturnal cooling of the earth’s surface.
The Indians showed us traces of ruts caused by wheels. They speak with
wonder of the horned cattle, (oxen,) which at the period of the Jesuit
missions used to draw the trucks, that conveyed the canoes, along the left
shore of the Orinoco, from the mouth of the Cameji to that of the Toparo.
The canoes at that time were transported without the discharge of their
cargoes, and were not as now injured by being constantly dragged over
sharp-pointed rocks, or stranded.
The topographical plan which I have sketched of the locality, shews that a
canal might be opened between the Cameji and the Toparo. The valley in
which these two abundantly watered rivers flow is a gentle level; and the
canal, of which I suggested a plan to the Governor-General of Venezuela,
would become a navigable arm of the Orinoco, and supersede the old and
dangerous bed of the river.
The Raudal of Atures is exactly similar to that of Maypures, like which it
consists of a cluster of islands between which the river forces itself a
passage extending from 18,000 to 24,000 feet. Here too a forest of palm
trees rises from the midst of the foaming surface of the waters. The most
celebrated ledges of the cataract are situated between the islands of
Avaguri and Javariveni, between Suripamana and Uirapuri.
When M. Bonpland and myself were returning from the banks of the Rio
Negro, we ventured to pass the latter, that is the lower half, of the
Raudal of Atures in our loaded canoe. We several times disembarked to
climb over rocks, which, like dykes, connected one island with another. At
one time the water shoots over these dykes; at another it falls into their
cavities with a deafening hollow sound. In some places considerable
portions of the bed of the river are perfectly dry, in consequence of the
stream having opened for itself a subterranean passage. In this solitude
the golden-coloured Rock Manakin (_Pipra rupicola_) builds its nest. This
bird, which is as pugnacious as the East India cock, is one of the most
beautiful birds of the tropics, and is remarkable for its double moveable
crest of feathers with which its head is decorated.
In the Raudal of Canucari the dyke is formed of piled-up granitic
boulders. We crept into the interior of a cavern, whose humid walls were
covered with confervæ and phosphorescent Byssus. The river rushed over our
heads with a terrible and stunning noise. By accident we had an
opportunity of contemplating this grand scene longer than we desired. The
Indian boatmen had left us in the middle of the cataract, to take the
canoe round a small island, at the other extremity of which, after a
considerable circuit, we were to re-embark. For an hour and a half we
remained exposed to a fearful thunder-storm. Night was approaching, and we
in vain sought shelter in the fissures of the rocks. The little apes which
we had carried with us for months in wicker cages, attracted by their
plaintive cries large crocodiles, whose size and leaden-grey colour
indicated their great age. I should not have alluded to the appearance of
these animals in the Orinoco, where they are of such common occurrence,
were it not that the natives had assured us that no crocodiles had ever
been seen among the cataracts; indeed, on the strength of that assertion,
we had repeatedly ventured to bathe in this portion of the river.
Meanwhile our anxiety increased every moment, lest, drenched as we were
and deafened by the thundering roar of the falling waters, we should be
compelled to spend the long tropical night in the midst of the Raudal. At
length, however, the Indians made their appearance with our canoe. Their
delay had been occasioned by the inaccessibility of the steps they had to
descend, owing to the low state of the water; which had obliged them to
seek in the labyrinth of channels a more practicable passage.
Near the southern entrance of the Raudal of Atures, on the right bank of
the river, lies the cavern of Ataruipe, so celebrated among the Indians.
The surrounding scenery has a grand and solemn character, which seems to
mark it as a national burial-place. With difficulty, and not without
danger of being precipitated into the depths below, we clambered a steep
and perfectly bare granite rock, on whose smooth surface it would be
hardly possible to keep one’s footing were it not for large crystals of
feldspar, which, defying the action of weather, project an inch or more
from the mass.
On gaining the summit, a wide prospect of the surrounding country
astonishes the beholder. From the foaming bed of the river rise hills
richly crowned with woods, while beyond its western bank the eye rests on
the boundless Savannah of the Meta. On the horizon loom like threatening
clouds the mountains of Uniama. Such is the distant view; but immediately
around all is desolate and contracted. In the deep ravines of the valley
moves no living thing save where the vulture and the whirring goat-sucker
wing their lonely way, their heavy shadows gleaming fitfully past the
barren rock.
The cauldron-shaped valley is encompassed by mountains, whose rounded
summits bear huge granite boulders, measuring from 40 to more than 50 feet
in diameter. They appear poised on only a single point of their surface,
as if the slightest shock of the earth would hurl them down.
The further side of this rocky valley is thickly wooded. It is in this
shady spot that the cave of the Ataruipe is situated; properly speaking,
however, it is not a cave, but a vault formed by a far projecting and
overhanging cliff,—a kind of bay hollowed out by the waters when formerly
at this high level. This spot is the grave of an extinct tribe[63]. We
counted about six hundred well-preserved skeletons, placed in as many
baskets, formed of the stalks of palm-leaves. These baskets, called by the
Indians _mapires_, are a kind of square sack varying in size according to
the age of the deceased. Even new-born children have each their own
mapire. These skeletons are so perfect, that not a rib or a finger is
wanting.
The bones are prepared in three different ways: some are bleached, some
dyed red with onoto, the pigment of the _Bixa Orellana_; others like
mummies, are anointed with fragrant resin and wrapped in banana leaves.
The Indians assured me that the corpse was buried during several months in
a moist earth, which gradually destroyed the flesh; and that after being
disinterred, any particles of flesh still adhering to the bones were
scraped off with sharp stones. This practice is still continued among many
tribes of Guiana. Besides these baskets or mapires, we saw many urns of
half-burnt clay, which appear to contain the bones of whole families. The
largest of these urns are upwards of three feet in height and nearly six
feet in length, of an elegant oval form, and greenish colour; with handles
shaped like crocodiles and serpents, and the rims bordered with flowing
scrolls and labyrinthine figures. These ornaments are precisely similar to
those which cover the walls of the Mexican palace at Mitla. They are found
in every clime and every stage of human culture,—among the Greeks and
Romans, no less than on the shields of Otaheitans, and other South Sea
islanders,—in all regions where a rhythmical repetition of regular forms
delights the eye. The causes of these resemblances, as I have explained
elsewhere, are rather to be referred to psychical conditions, and to the
inner nature of our mental qualifications, than as affording evidence in
favour of a common origin and the ancient intercourse of nations.[IA]
Our interpreters could give us no certain information regarding the age of
these vessels; but that of the skeletons did not in general appear to
exceed a hundred years. There is a legend amongst the Guareke Indians,
that the brave Atures, when closely pursued by the cannibal Caribs, took
refuge on the rocks of the cataracts,—a mournful place of abode, in which
this oppressed race perished, together with its language![64] In the most
inaccessible portion of the Raudal other graves of the same character are
met with; indeed it is probable that the last descendants of the Atures
did not become extinct until a much more recent period. There still lives
and it is a singular fact, an old parrot in Maypures which cannot be
understood, because, as the natives assert, it speaks the language of the
Atures!
We left the cave at nightfall, after having collected, to the extreme
annoyance of our Indian guides, several skulls and the perfect skeleton of
an aged man. One of these skulls has been delineated by Blumenbach in his
admirable craniological work;[IB] but the skeleton, together with a large
portion of our natural history collections, especially the entomological,
was lost by shipwreck off the coast of Africa on the same occasion when
our friend and former travelling companion, the young Franciscan monk,
Juan Gonzalez, lost his life.
As if with a presentiment of this painful loss, we turned from the grave
of a departed race with feelings of deep emotion. It was one of those
clear and deliciously cool nights so frequent beneath the tropics. The
moon stood high in the zenith, encircled by a halo of coloured rings, her
rays gilding the margins of the mist, which in well defined outline
hovered like clouds above the foaming flood. Innumerable insects poured
their red phosphorescent light over the herb-covered surface, which glowed
with living fire, as though the starry canopy of heaven had sunk upon the
grassy plain. Climbing Bignonia, fragrant Vanillas, and golden-flowered
Banisterias, adorned the entrance of the cave, while the rustling
palm-leaves waved over the resting-place of the dead.
Thus pass away the generations of men!—thus perish the records of the
glory of nations! Yet when every emanation of the human mind has
faded—when in the storms of time the monuments of man’s creative art are
scattered to the dust—an ever new life springs from the bosom of the
earth. Unceasingly prolific nature unfolds her germs,—regardless though
sinful man, ever at war with himself, tramples beneath his foot the
ripening fruit!
ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
Footnote 53:
p. 154—“_Across that pacific arm of the sea_.”
The Atlantic Ocean, between the parallels of 23° south lat. and 70°
north lat., has the form of a furrowed longitudinal valley, in which the
advancing and receding angles are opposite to each other. I first
developed this idea in my work entitled _Essai d’un Tableau Géologique
de l’Amérique méridionale_, which was published in the _Journal de
Physique_, t. liii. p. 61.[IC] From the Canary Isles, especially from
21° north lat., and 23° west long., to the north-east coast of South
America, the surface of the ocean is so calm, and the waves so gentle,
that an open boat might navigate it in safety.
Footnote 54:
p. 155—“_Fresh springs among the Islands of the Antilles_.”
On the southern coast of the island of Cuba, south-west of the harbour
of Batabano, in the Gulf of Xagua, at a distance of eight to twelve
miles from the shore, springs of fresh water gush from the bed of the
ocean, probably from the action of hydrostatic pressure. The jet is
propelled with such force that boats use extreme caution in approaching
this spot, which is well known for its counter current producing a heavy
swell. Trading vessels sailing along the coast, which do not purpose
putting into port, sometimes visit these springs, in order to provide
themselves, in the midst of the ocean, with a supply of fresh water. The
freshness of the water increases with the depth from which it is drawn.
River cows (_Trichecus manati_), which do not generally inhabit salt
water, are frequently killed here. This singular phenomenon (the fresh
springs), of which no mention had hitherto been made, was most
accurately investigated by my friend, Don Francisco Lemaur, who made a
trigonometrical survey of the Bahia de Xagua. I did not myself visit
Xagua, but remained in the insular group situated further to the south
(the so-called _Jardines del Rey_), to make astronomical determinations
of their latitude and longitude.
Footnote 55:
p. 155—“_Ancient rocky barrier_.”
Columbus, whose unwearied spirit of observation was directed on every
side, proposes in his letters to the Spanish monarchs, a geognostic
hypothesis regarding the configuration of the larger Antilles. Being
fully impressed with the idea of the strength of the Equinoctial
current, which has often a westerly direction, he ascribes to it the
disintegration of the group of the smaller Antilles, and the singularly
lengthened configuration of the southern coasts of Porto Rico, Haiti,
Cuba, and Jamaica, all of which follow almost exactly the direction of
parallels of latitude. On his third voyage (from the end of May, 1498,
to the end of November, 1500), when, from the Boca del Drago to the
Island of Margarita, and afterwards from that island to Haiti, he felt
the whole force of the equinoctial current, “that movement of the waters
which accords with the movement of the heavens—_movimiento de los
cielos_,” he says expressly that the violence of the current has torn
the Island of Trinidad from the mainland. He refers the sovereigns to a
chart which he sends them—a “_pintura de la tierra_,” drawn by himself,
to which frequent reference is made in the celebrated lawsuit against
Don Diego Colon respecting the rights of the first Admiral. “Es la carta
de marear y figura que hizo el Almirante señalando los rumbos y vientos
por los quales vino á Paria, que dicen parte del Asia.”[ID]
Footnote 56:
p. 156—“_Across the snow-crowned Paropanisus_.”
In Diodorus’ description of the Paropanisus,[IE] we seem to recognise a
delineation of the Peruvian chain of the Andes. The army passed through
inhabited districts in which snow daily fell!
Footnote 57:
p. 156—“_Herrera in his Decades_.”
_Historia general de las Indias Occidentales_, Dec. i. lib. iii. cap. 12
(ed. 1601, p. 106); Juan Batista Muñoz, _Historia del Nuevo Mundo_, lib.
vi. c. 31, p. 301; Humboldt, _Examen Crit._, t. iii. p. 111.
Footnote 58:
p. 158—“_The Sources of the Orinoco have never been visited by any
European_.”
Thus I wrote respecting these sources in the year 1807, in the first
edition of the _Ansichten der Natur_, and I repeat with equal truth the
same statement after an interval of forty-one years. The travels of the
brothers Robert and Richard Schomburgk, so important in reference to all
departments of natural science and geography, have established other and
more interesting facts; but the problem of the situation of the sources
of the Orinoco has been only partially solved by Sir Robert Schomburgk.
M. Bonpland and myself advanced from the west as far as Esmeralda, or
the confluence of the Orinoco with the Guapo; and I was enabled, by the
aid of well-attested information, to describe the upper course of the
Orinoco to above the mouth of the Gehette, and to the small waterfall
(Raudal) de los Guaharibos. From the east Sir Robert Schomburgk,
proceeding from the mountains of the Majonkong Indians, the inhabited
portion of which he estimated by the boiling point of water to be 3517
feet in height, succeeded in reaching the Orinoco by the Padamo River,
which the Majonkongs and Guinaus (Guaynas?) call Paramu.[IF] I had
placed this confluence of the Padamo with the Orinoco in my Atlas, in 3°
12′ N. lat., and 65° 46′ W. long. but Schomburgk found it by direct
observation in 2° 53′ lat. and 65° 48′ W. long. The main object of this
traveller’s journey was not ‘natural history,’ but the solution of the
prize question proposed by the Royal Geographical Society of London, in
November, 1834,—on the connection of the coast of British Guiana with
the easternmost point which I had reached on the Upper Orinoco. After
undergoing many sufferings, this object was thoroughly achieved. Robert
Schomburgk reached Esmeralda, with his instruments, on the 22nd of
February, 1839. His determinations of the latitude and longitude of the
place agreed more closely with mine than I had anticipated. Let us here
allow the observer to speak for himself:—“Words are inadequate to
describe the feelings which overwhelmed me when I sprang on shore. My
object was attained; my observations, begun on the coast of Guiana, were
brought into connection with those of Humboldt at Esmeralda, and I
freely admit that at a time when my physical powers had almost entirely
deserted me, and when I was surrounded by dangers and difficulties of no
ordinary kind, the recognition which I hoped for from him, was the sole
inducement which inspired me with a fixed determination to press forward
towards the goal which I had now reached. The emaciated figures of my
Indian companions and my faithful guides proclaimed more fully than any
words could do, what difficulties we had had to surmount, and had
surmounted.” After citing expressions so gratifying, I must be permitted
to subjoin the opinions I expressed regarding this great undertaking
promoted by the Royal Geographical Society of London, in my Preface to
the German edition of Robert Schomburgk’s Account of his Travels,
published in 1841. “Immediately after my return from Mexico, I indicated
the direction and the routes by which the unknown portion of the South
American Continent between the sources of the Orinoco, the mountain
chain of Pacaraima, and the sea-shore near Essequibo, might be explored.
These wishes, so strongly expressed in the personal narrative of my
journey, have at length, after the lapse of nearly half a century, been
for the most part fulfilled. I rejoice that I have been spared to see so
important an enlargement of our geographical knowledge; I rejoice too in
seeing a courageous and well-conducted enterprise, requiring the most
devoted perseverance, executed by a young man, to whom I feel bound no
less by the ties of similarity of pursuits than those of country. These
circumstances were alone able to overcome the aversion and
disinclination which I entertain, perhaps unjustly, for introductory
prefaces by a different hand than that of the author himself. But I
could not resist the impulse of expressing thus publicly my sincere
esteem for the accomplished traveller who, led on by the meritorious
idea of penetrating from east to west, from the Valley of the Essequibo
to Esmeralda, has succeeded, after five years of efforts and of
sufferings (the extent of which I well appreciate from my own
experience), in attaining the object of his ambition. Courage for the
sudden accomplishment of a hazardous undertaking is easier to find, and
implies less inward strength, than the resolution to endure with
resignation long-continued physical sufferings, excited by absorbing
mental interest; and still to press forward, undismayed by the certainty
of having to retrace his steps under equally great privations and with
enfeebled powers. Serenity of mind, which is almost the first requisite
for an enterprise in inhospitable regions, a passionate love for any
department of scientific labour (be it natural history, astronomy,
hypsometrics, or magnetism), a pure feeling for the enjoyment which
nature is capable of imparting, are elements which, when they combine
together in one individual, ensure valuable results from a great and
important journey.”
I will preface my consideration of the question of the sources of the
Orinoco with my own conjectures in relation to the subject. The perilous
route travelled in 1739 by the surgeon Nicolas Hortsmann, of Hildesheim;
in 1775 by the Spaniard Don Antonio Santos, and his friend Nicolas
Rodriguez; in 1793 by the Lieutenant-Colonel of the 1st Regiment of the
Line of Para, Don Francisco José Rodriguez Barata; and (according to
manuscript maps, for which I am indebted to the former Portuguese
Ambassador in Paris, Chevalier de Brito) by several English and Dutch
settlers, who in 1811 travelled from Surinam to Para by the portage of
the Rupunuri and by the Rio Branco;—divides the _terra incognita_ of the
Parime into two unequal parts, and serves to mark the position of a very
important point in the geography of those regions—viz., the sources of
the Orinoco, which it is no longer possible to remove to an indefinite
distance towards the east, without intersecting the bed of the Rio
Branco, which flows from north to south through the fluvial district of
the Upper Orinoco; while this portion of the great river itself pursues
for the most part a direction from east to west. The Brazilians, since
the beginning of the present century, have from political motives
manifested a vivid interest in the extensive plains east of the Rio
Branco.[IG] Owing to the position of Santa Rosa on the Uraricapara,
whose course appears to have been pretty accurately determined by
Portuguese engineers, the sources of the Orinoco cannot be situated east
of the meridian of 63° 8′ west long. This is the eastern limit beyond
which they cannot be placed, and taking into consideration the state of
the river at the Raudal de los Guaharibos (above Caño Chiguire, in the
country of the strikingly fair-skinned Guaycas Indians, and 52′ east of
the great Cerro Duida), it appears to me probable that the Orinoco in
its upper part does not extend, at the utmost, beyond the meridian of
64° 8′ west long. This point is, according to my combinations, 4° 12′
west of the little lake of Amucu, which was reached by Sir Robert
Schomburgk.
I will now detail the conjectures of that traveller, after having first
given my own earlier ones. According to him the course of the Upper
Orinoco, to the east of Esmeralda, is directed from south-east to
north-west; my estimations of latitude for the mouths of the Padamo and
the Gehette appear to be respectively 19′ and 36′ too small. Schomburgk
conjectures that the sources of the Orinoco are situated in lat. 2° 30′,
and the fine “Map of Guayana, to illustrate the route of R. H.
Schomburgk,” which accompanies the splendid English work entitled _Views
in the Interior of Guiana_, places its geographical sources in 64° 56′
west long., _i.e._, 1° 6′ west of Esmeralda, and only 48′ of longitude
nearer to the Atlantic than I had determined the position of this point.
Astronomical combinations led Schomburgk to place the mountain of
Maravaca, which is about ten thousand feet high, in 3° 41′ lat. and 65°
48′ west long. The Orinoco was scarcely three hundred yards wide near
the mouth of the Padamo or Paramu, and more to the west, where it
expands to a width of from four to six hundred yards, it was so shallow,
and so full of sandbanks, that the expedition was obliged to dig
channels, as the river bed was only fifteen inches deep. Fresh-water
dolphins were still to be seen in great numbers everywhere—a phenomenon
which the zoologists of the eighteenth century would not have expected
to find in the Orinoco and the Ganges.
Footnote 59:
p. 158—“_The most luxurious product of a tropical climate_.”
The _Bertholletia excelsa_ (Juvia), of the family of Myrtaceæ (and
placed in Richard Schomburgk’s proposed division of Lecythideæ), was
first described in _Plantes Equinoxiales_, t. i. 1808, p. 122, tab. 36.
This colossal and magnificent tree offers, in the perfect development of
its cocoa-like, round, close-grained, woody fruit, inclosing the
three-cornered and also woody seed-vessels, the most remarkable example
of luxuriant organic development. The Bertholletia grows in the forests
of the Upper Orinoco, between the Padamo and the Ocamu, in the vicinity
of the mountain of Mapaya, as well as between the rivers Amaguaca and
Gehette.[IH]
Footnote 60:
p. 158—“_Grass stalks, whose joints measure upwards of eighteen feet
from knot to knot_.”
Robert Schomburgk, when visiting the small mountainous country of the
Majonkongs, on his route to Esmeralda, was fortunate enough to determine
the species of Arundinaria, which furnishes the material for these
blowing-tubes. He says of this plant: “It grows in large tufts, like the
bambusa; the first joint rises, in the old cane, without a knot, to a
height of from 16 to 17 feet before it begins to bear leaves. The entire
height of the Arundinaria, growing at the foot of the great
mountain-cluster of Maravaca, is from 30 to 40 feet, with a thickness of
scarcely half an inch in diameter. The top is always inclined; and this
species of grass is peculiar to the sandstone mountains between the
Ventuari, the Paramu (Padamo), and the Mavaca. The Indian name is
Curata, and, therefore, from the excellence of these celebrated long
blowing-tubes, the Majonkongs and Guinaus of these districts have
acquired the name of the Curata nation.”[II]
Footnote 61:
p. 159—“_Fabulous origin of the Orinoco from a lake_.”
The lakes of these regions (some of which are wholly imaginary, while
the real size of others has been much exaggerated by theoretical
geographers) may be divided into two groups. The first of these groups
comprise those situate between Esmeralda (the most easterly mission on
the Upper Orinoco), and the Rio Branco; to the second, belong the lakes
presumed to exist in the district between the Rio Branco and French,
Dutch, and British Guiana. This general view, of which travellers should
never lose sight, proves that the question of whether there is another
Lake Parime eastward of the Rio Branco, besides the Lake Amucu, seen by
Hortsmann, Santos, Colonel Barata, and Schomburgk, has nothing whatever
to do with the problem of the sources of the Orinoco. As the name of my
distinguished friend the former Director of the Hydrographic Office at
Madrid, Don Felipe Bauza, is of great weight in questions of geography,
the impartiality which ought to influence every scientific investigation
makes it incumbent on me to mention that this learned man was inclined
to the view that there must be lakes west of the Rio Branco, at no great
distance from the sources of the Orinoco. He wrote to me from London
shortly before his death, “I wish you were here that I might converse
with you respecting the geography of the Upper Orinoco, which has
occupied you so much. I have been fortunate enough to rescue from entire
destruction the papers of the General of Marine, Don José Solano, father
of the Solano who perished in so melancholy a manner at Cadiz. These
documents relate to the settlement of the boundary line between the
Spaniards and Portuguese, with which Solano had been charged since 1754,
in conjunction with the Escadre Chef Yturriaga and Don Vicente Doz. In
all these plans and sketches I find a Laguna Parime sometimes as a
source of the Orinoco, and sometimes as wholly detached from it. Are we
then to assume that there is another lake further eastward to the
north-east of Esmeralda?”
Löffling, the celebrated pupil of Linnæus, accompanied the last-named
expedition to Cumana in the capacity of botanist. He died on the 22nd of
February, 1756, at the mission of Santa Eulalia de Murucuri (somewhat to
the south of the confluence of the Orinoco and Caroni), after traversing
the missions on the Piritu and Caroni. The documents of which Bauza
speaks are the same as those on which the great map of De la Cruz
Olmedilla is based. They have served as the foundation of all the maps
of South America, which appeared in England, France, and Germany, before
the end of the last century; and have also served for the two maps
executed in 1756 by Father Caulin, the historiographer of Solano’s
expedition, and by M. de Surville, Keeper of the Archives in the
Secretary of State’s Office at Madrid, who was but an unskilful
compiler. The contradictions abounding in these maps show the little
reliance that can be placed on the results of this expedition. Nay more,
Father Caulin, above referred to, acutely details the circumstances
which gave rise to this fable of the lake of Parime; and the map of
Surville, which accompanies his work, not only restores this lake, under
the name of the White Lake, and the Mar Dorado, but indicates another
smaller one, from which flow partly by means of collateral branches, the
Orinoco, Siapa, and Ocamo. I was able to convince myself on the spot of
the following facts well known in the missions; that Don José Solano did
not do more than cross the cataracts of Atures and Maypures; that he did
not reach the confluence of the Guaviare and the Orinoco in 4° 3′ north
lat., and 68° 9′ west long.; and that the astronomical instruments of
the boundary expedition were neither carried to the isthmus of the
Pimichin and the Rio Negro, nor to the Cassiquiare; and even on the
Upper Orinoco, not beyond the mouth of the Atabapo. This vast extent of
territory was not made the scene of any accurate observations before my
journey, and has subsequently to Solano’s expedition been traversed only
by some few soldiers who had been sent on exploring expeditions; while
Don Apolinario de Fuente, whose journal I obtained from the archives of
the province of Quixos, has gathered without discrimination everything
from the fallacious narratives of the Indians that could flatter the
credulity of the Governor Centurion. No member of the expedition had
seen a lake, and Don Apolinario was unable to advance beyond the Cerro
Yumarique and Gehette.
Although a line of separation, formed by the basin of the Rio Branco, is
now established throughout the whole extent of the country, to which we
are desirous of directing the inquiring zeal of travellers, it must yet
be admitted, that our geographical knowledge of the district west of
this valley between 62° and 66° long., has made no advance whatever for
at least a century. The repeated attempts made by the Government of
Spanish Guiana since the expeditions of Iturria and Solano, to reach and
to pass over the Pacaraima Mountains, have been attended by very
unimportant results. When the Spaniards, in proceeding to the missions
of the Catalonian capuchins of Barceloneta, at the confluence of the
Caroni and the Rio Paragua, ascended the last-named river southward to
its junction with the Paraguamusi, they founded at this point the
mission of Guirion, which, at first, bore the pompous appellation of
Ciudad de Guirion. I place it in about 4° 30′ north latitude. From
thence the Governor Centurion, in consequence of the exaggerated
accounts given by two Indian chiefs, Paranacare and Arimuicapi,
respecting the powerful tribe of the Ipurucotos, was excited to search
for ‘El Dorado,’ and in carrying what were then called spiritual
conquests still further, founded, beyond the Pacaraima Mountains, the
two villages of Santa Rosa and San Bautista de Caudacacla. The former
was situate on the upper eastern bank of the Uraricapara, a tributary of
the Uraricuera, which I find in the journal of Rodriguez under the name
of the Rio Curaricara; the latter, at from 24 to 28 miles further
east-south-east. The astronomo-geographer of the Portuguese Boundary
Commission, Captain Don Antonio Pires de Sylva Pontes Leme, and the
Captain of Engineers, Don Ricardo Franco d’Almeida de Serra, who between
1787 and 1804, surveyed with the greatest care the whole course of the
Rio Branco and its upper tributaries, call the most western part of the
Uraricapara, “The Valley of Inundation.” They place the Spanish mission
of Santa Rosa in 3° 46′ north lat., and mark the route that leads from
thence northward across the mountain chain to the Caño Anocapra, a
branch of the Paraguamusi, which forms a connecting passage between the
basin of the Rio Branco and that of the Caroni. Two maps of these
Portuguese officers, embracing all the details of the trigonometrical
survey of the bends of the Rio Branco, the Uraricuera, the Tacutu, and
the Mahu, were most kindly communicated to Colonel Lapie and myself by
the Count of Linhares. These valuable unpublished documents, of which I
have availed myself, are still in the hands of the learned geographer,
who long since began to have them engraved at his own expense. The
Portuguese sometimes call the whole of the Rio Branco by the name of Rio
Parime, and sometimes limit this appellation to one branch only, the
Uraricuera, somewhat below the Caño Mayari and above the old mission of
San Antonio. As the words _Paragua_ and _Parime_ alike imply water,
great water, lake, and sea, we cannot wonder at finding them so often
repeated among tribes living at great distances from each other; as, for
instance, by the Omaguas on the Upper Marañon, by the Western Guaranis,
and by the Caribs. In all parts of the world, as I have already
remarked, large rivers are called by those who live on their banks “the
River,” without any specific denomination. Paragua, the name of a branch
of the Caroni, is also the term applied by the natives to the Upper
Orinoco. The name Orinucu is Tamanakish; and Diego de Ordaz first heard
it used in the year 1531, when he ascended to the mouth of the Meta.
Besides the Valley of Inundation above mentioned we find other large
pieces of water between the Rio Xumuru and the Parime. One of these bays
is a branch of the Tacutu, and the other of the Uraricuera. Even at the
base of the Pacaraima Mountains the rivers are subject to great
periodical overflowings; and the Lake Amucu, of which we shall
subsequently speak more fully, exhibits exactly the same character at
the commencement of the plains. The Spanish missions, Santa Rosa and San
Bautista de Caudacacla, or Cayacaya, founded in the years 1770 and 1773,
by the Governor Don Manuel Centurion, were destroy ed before the close
of the last century; and since that time, no new attempt has been made
to advance from the basin of the Caroni to the southern declivity of the
Pacaraima Mountains.
The territory east of the valley of the Rio Branco has of late years
been made the subject of several successful explorations. Mr. Hillhouse
navigated the Massaruni as far as the Bay of Caranang, whence, as he
says, a path would lead the traveller, in two days, to the source of the
Massaruni; and, in three days, to the tributaries of the Rio Branco.
With respect to the windings of the great river Massaruni, described by
Mr. Hillhouse, he himself observes, in a letter addressed to me from
Demerara, 1st January, 1831, that “the Massaruni, reckoning from its
sources, flows first to the west, then for one degree of latitude to the
north; afterwards nearly 200 miles eastward; and, finally, to the north
and north-north-east till it merges in the Essequibo.” As Mr. Hillhouse
was unable to reach the southern declivity of the Pacaraima chain, he
was not acquainted with the Amucu Lake; and he says himself, in his
printed report, that “from the accounts given him by the Accaouais, who
are continually traversing the country between the shore and the Amazon
River, he is convinced there is no lake in this district.” This
assertion occasioned me some surprise, as it was directly opposed to the
views I had previously formed regarding the Lake Amucu, from which flows
the Caño Pirara, according to the accounts given by the travellers
Hortsmann, Santos, and Rodriguez (and which had inspired me with the
more confidence, because they entirely coincide with the recent
Portuguese manuscript charts). Finally, after five years of expectation,
Schomburgk’s journey has removed all farther doubt.
“It is difficult to believe,” says Mr. Hillhouse, in his interesting
memoir on the Massaruni, “that the tradition of a large inland sea is
wholly unfounded. According to my views, the following circumstance may
have given rise to the belief in the existence of the fabulous lake of
the Parime. At some distance from the rocky fall of Teboco the waters of
the Massaruni present to the eye as little motion as the calm surface of
a lake. If at a more or less remote period the horizontal granitic
strata of Teboco had been totally compact and without fissures, the
waters must have been at least 50 feet above their present level, and
there would have been formed an immense lake 10 or 12 miles in width,
and 1500 or 2000 miles in length.”[IJ] The extent of this supposed
inundation is not the only reason which prevents me from acceding to
this explanation; for I have seen plains (Llanos), where, during the
rainy season, the overflowing of the tributaries of the Orinoco annually
covered a surface of 6400 square miles. The labyrinth of ramifications
between the Apure, Arauca, Capanaparo, and Sinaruco (see maps 17 and 18
of my Physical Atlas), is then wholly lost sight of; the configuration
of the river beds can no longer be traced, and the whole appears like
one vast lake. But the locality of the fabulous Dorado, and of the Lake
Parime, belongs historically to quite a different part of Guiana,
namely, that lying south of the Pacaraima mountains. This myth of the
White Sea and of the Dorado of the Parime, has arisen, as I endeavoured
thirty years ago to show in another work, from the appearance of the
micaceous rocks of the Ucucuamo, the name _Rio Parime_ (Rio Branco), the
inundations of the tributaries; and especially from the existence of the
lake _Amucu_, which is in the neighbourhood of the Rio Rupunuwini
(Rupunuri), and is connected by means of the Pirara with the Rio Parime.
I have had much pleasure in finding that the travels of Sir Robert
Schomburgk have fully corroborated these early views. The section of his
map which gives the course of the Essequibo and of the Rupunuri is quite
new, and of great importance in a geographical point of view. It places
the Pacaraima chain between 3° 52′and 4° north lat., while I had given
its mean direction from 4° to 4° 10′. The chain reaches the confluence
of the Essequibo and Rupunuri in 3° 57′ north lat., and 58° 1′ west
longitude; I had placed it half a degree too far to the north.
Schomburgk calls the last-named river Rupununi, according to the
pronunciation of the Macusis; and gives as the synonymes Rupunuri,
Rupunuwini and Opununy, which have arisen from the difficulty the Carib
tribes of these districts find in pronouncing the letter “r.” The
position of the lake Amucu and its relations to the Mahu (Maou) and
Tacutu (Tacoto) correspond perfectly with my map of Colombia drawn in
1825. We agree equally well regarding the latitude of the lake of Amucu,
for while he places it in 3° 33′, I considered it to be in 3° 35′; the
Caño Pirara (Pirarara) which connects the Amucu with the Rio Branco,
flows from it towards the north, and not to the west as I had marked it.
The Sibarana of my map, the sources of which Hortsmann placed to the
north of the Cerro Ucucuamo near a fine mine of rock crystal, is the
Siparuni of Schomburgk’s map. His Waa-Ekuru is the Tavaricaru of the
Portuguese geographer Pontes Leme, and is the branch of the Rupunuri
which lies the nearest to the lake of Amucu.
The following remarks from the report of Sir Robert Schomburgk throw
some light on the subject in question. “The lake of Amucu,” says this
traveller, “is without doubt the nucleus of the Lake of Parime and of
the supposed White Sea. In December and January, when we visited it, it
was scarcely a mile in length, and was half covered with reeds.” The
same observation occurs on D’Anville’s map of 1748. “The Pirara flows
from the lake to the W.N.W. of the Indian village of Pirara and falls
into the Maou or Mahu. The last-named river rises, according to the
information given me, north of the ridge of the Pacaraima mountains,
which in their eastern portion do not attain a greater elevation than
about 1600 feet. The sources of the river are on a plateau, from whence
it is precipitated in a beautiful waterfall, known as the Corona. We
were on the point of visiting this fall, when on the third day of our
excursion to the mountains, the indisposition of one of my companions
compelled me to return to the station at the lake Amucu. The Mahu has
black coffee-coloured water, and its current is more impetuous than that
of the Rupunuri. In the mountains through which it pursues its course it
is about 60 yards in breadth. Its environs are here extremely
picturesque. This valley as well as the bank of the Buroburo, which
flows into the Siparuni, are inhabited by the Macusis. In April the
whole Savannahs are overflowed, and then present the peculiar phenomenon
of the waters belonging to two different river basins commingling
together. It is probable that the vast extent of this temporary
inundation may have given rise to the fable of the lake of Parime.
During the rainy season a water communication is formed in the interior
of the country between the Essequibo, the Rio Branco, and the Gran Para.
Some groups of trees, rising like Oases on the sand-hills of the
Savannahs, present, at the time of the inundation, the appearance of
islands scattered over a lake; and these are without doubt the Ipomucena
islands of Don Antonio Santos.”
In D’Anville’s manuscripts, which his heirs kindly allowed me to
examine, I find that Hortsmann of Hildesheim, who described these
districts with great care, saw a second Alpine lake, which he places two
day’s journey above the confluence of the Mahu with the Rio Parime
(Tacutu?). It is a black water lake, situated on the summit of a
mountain. He explicitly distinguishes it from the lake of Amucu, which
he describes as “covered with rushes.” The descriptions given by
Hortsmann and Santos coincide with the Portuguese manuscript maps of the
Marine Bureau at Rio Janeiro, in not indicating the existence of an
uninterrupted connection between the Rupunuri and the lake of Amucu. In
D’Anville’s maps of South America, the rivers are better drawn in the
first edition published in 1748, than in the more extensively circulated
one of 1760. Schomburgk’s travels fully confirm the independence of the
basin of the Rupunuri and Essequibo; but he draws attention to the fact
that, during the rainy season, the Rio Waa-Ekuru, a tributary of the
Rupunuri, is in connection with the Caño Pirara. Such is the condition
of these river-channels, which are still but little developed, and
almost entirely without separating ridges.
The Rupunuri and the village of Anai, 3° 56′ north latitude, 58° 34′
west longitude, are at present recognised as the political boundaries
between the British and Brazilian domains in these desert regions. Sir
Robert Schomburgk was compelled by severe illness to make a protracted
stay at Anai. He bases his chronometrical determinations of the position
of the lake of Amucu on the mean of many lunar distances, east and west,
which he measured during his sojourn at Anai. His determinations of
longitude for these points of the Parime are in general one degree more
east than those in my map of Colombia. While I am far from calling in
question the result of these lunar observations taken at Anai, I may be
allowed to observe that the calculation of these distances is of
importance, when it is desired to carry the comparison from the lake of
Amucu to Esmeralda, which I found in 66° 19′ west longitude.
Thus then we see the great _Mar de la Parima_, (which it was so
difficult to remove from our maps, that even after my return from
America it was still supposed to be 160 miles in length,) reduced by
recent investigations to the lake of Amucu, measuring only two or three
miles in circumference. The illusions entertained for nearly two hundred
years, and which in the last Spanish expedition, in 1775, for the
discovery of El Dorado, cost several hundred lives, have finally
terminated by enriching geography with some few results. In the year
1512 thousands of soldiers perished in the expedition, undertaken by
Ponce de Leon, to discover the “Fountain of Youth,” on one of the Bahama
Islands, called Binimi, which is hardly to be found on any of our maps.
This expedition led to the conquest of Florida, and to the knowledge of
the great oceanic current, or gulf-stream, which flows through the
Straights of Bahama. The thirst after gold, and the desire of
rejuvenescence—the _Dorado_ and the _Fountain of Youth_—stimulated, to
an almost equal extent, the passions of mankind.
Footnote 62:
p. 161—“_The Piriguao, one of the noblest forms of the Palm_.”
Compare Humboldt, Bonpland, and Kunth, _Nova Genera Plantarum_, and
_Plant. æquinoct._, t. i. p. 315.
Footnote 63:
p. 171—“_The grave of an extinct race_.”
During my stay in the forests of the Orinoco, researches were being
made, by royal command, in reference to these bone-caves. The missionary
of the cataracts had been falsely accused of having discovered in these
caves treasures which the Jesuits had concealed there prior to their
flight.
Footnote 64:
p. 172—“_When his language perished with him_.”
The parrot of the Atures has been made the subject of a charming poem by
my friend Professor Ernst Curtius, the tutor of the promising young
Prince Friedrick Wilhelm of Prussia. The author will forgive me for
closing the present section of the “Views of Nature” with this poem,
which was not designed for publication, and was communicated to me by
letter.
THE PARROT OF ATURES.
Where, through deserts wild and dreary,
Orinoco dashes on,
Sits a Parrot old and weary,
Like a sculptur’d thing of stone.
Through its rocky barriers flowing,
Onward rolls the foaming stream;
Waving palms on high are glowing
In the sun’s meridian beam.
Ceaselessly the waves are heaving,
Sparkling up in antic play;
While the sunny rays are weaving
Rainbows in the feathery spray.
Where yon billows wild are breaking,
Sleeps a tribe for evermore,
Who, their native land forsaking,
Refuge sought on this lone shore.
As they lived, free, dauntless ever,
So the brave Aturians died;
And the green banks of the river
All their mortal relics hide.
Yet the Parrot, ne’er forgetting
Those who loved him, mourns them still;
On the stone his sharp beak whetting,
While the air his wailings fill.
Where are now the youths who bred him,
To pronounce their mother tongue,—
Where the gentle maids who fed him,
And who built his nest when young?
All, alas! are lifeless lying,
Stretch’d upon their grassy bed;
Nor can all his mournful crying,
E’er awake the slumbering dead.
Still he calls with voice imploring,
To a world that heeds him not;
Nought replies but waters roaring—
No kind soul bewails his lot.
Swift the savage turns his rudder,
When his eyes the bird behold;
None e’er saw without a shudder
That Aturian Parrot old!
THE NOCTURNAL LIFE OF ANIMALS
IN THE
PRIMEVAL FOREST.
If the faculty of appreciating nature, in different races of man, and if
the character of the countries they now inhabit, or have traversed in
their earlier migrations, have more or less enriched the respective
languages by appropriate terms, expressive of the forms of mountains, the
state of vegetation, the appearances of the atmosphere, and the contour
and grouping of the clouds, it must be admitted that by long use and
literary caprice many of these designations have been diverted from the
sense they originally bore. Words have gradually been regarded as
synonymous, which ought to have remained distinct; and languages have thus
lost a portion of the expressiveness and force which might else have
imparted a physiognomical character to descriptions of natural scenery. As
an evidence of the extent to which a communion with nature, and the
requirements of a laborious nomadic life, may enrich language, I would
recall the abundance of characteristic denominations employed in Arabic
and Persian, to distinguish plains, steppes, and deserts[65], according as
they are entirely bare, covered with sand, or intersected by tabular
masses of rock; or as they are diversified by spots of pasture land and
extended tracts of social plants. The old Castilian dialects are no less
remarkable[66] for the copiousness of their terms descriptive of the
physiognomy of mountains, especially in reference to those features which
recur in all regions of the earth, and which proclaim afar off the nature
of the rock. As the declivities of the Andes and the mountainous parts of
the Canaries, the Antilles, and the Philippines, are all inhabited by
races of Spanish descent; and as the nature of the soil has there
influenced the mode of life of the inhabitants to a greater degree than in
other parts of the world, excepting perhaps in the Himalaya and the
Thibetian Highlands; so also the designations expressive of the forms of
mountains in trachytic, basaltic, and porphyritic districts, as well as in
schistose, calcareous, and sandstone formations, have been happily
preserved in daily use. Under such circumstances, newly formed words
become incorporated with the common stock. Speech acquires life from
everything which bears the true impress of nature, whether it be by the
definition of sensuous impressions received from the external world, or by
the expression of thoughts and feelings that emanate from our inner being.
In descriptions of natural phenomena, as well as in the choice of the
expressions employed, this truth to nature should be especially kept in
view. The object will be the best attained by simplicity in the narration
of whatever we have ourselves observed and experienced, and by closely
examining the locality with which the subject-matter is connected.
Generalisation of physical views, and the enumeration of results, belong
principally to the study of the Cosmos, which, indeed, must still be
regarded as an inductive science; but the vivid delineation of organic
forms (animals and plants,) in their picturesque and local relations to
the multiform surface of the earth, although limited to a small section of
terrestrial life, still affords materials for this study. It acts as a
stimulus to the mind wherever it is capable of appreciating the great
phenomena of nature in an æsthetic point of view.
To these phenomena belongs especially the boundless forest district which,
in the torrid zone of South America, connects the river basins of the
Orinoco and the Amazon. This region deserves, in the strictest sense of
the word, to be called a _primeval_ forest—a term that has, in recent
times, been so frequently misapplied. Primeval (or primitive), as applied
to a forest, a nation, or a period of time, is a word of rather indefinite
signification, and generally but of relative import. If every wild forest,
densely covered with trees, on which man has never laid his destroying
hand, is to be regarded as a primitive forest, then the phenomenon is
common to many parts both of the temperate and the frigid zones; if,
however, this character consists in impenetrability, through which it is
impossible to clear with the axe, between trees measuring from 8 to 12
feet in diameter, a path of any length, primitive forests belong
exclusively to tropical regions. This impenetrability is by no means, as
is often erroneously supposed in Europe, always occasioned by the
interlaced climbing “lianes,” or creeping plants, for these often
constitute but a very small portion of the underwood. The chief obstacles
are the shrub-like plants which fill up every space between the trees, in
a zone where all vegetable forms have a tendency to become arborescent. If
travellers, the moment they set foot in a tropical region, and even while
on islands, in the vicinity of the sea-coast, imagine that they are within
the precincts of a primeval forest, the misconception must be ascribed to
their ardent desire of realizing a long-cherished wish. Every tropical
forest is not _primeval_ forest. I have scarcely ever used the latter term
in the narrative of my travels; although, I believe, that of all
investigators of nature now living, Bonpland, Martius, Pöppig, Robert and
Richard Schomburgk, and myself, have spent the longest period of time in
primeval forests in the interior of a great continent.
Notwithstanding the striking richness of the Spanish language in
designations, (descriptive of natural objects, of which I have already
spoken), yet one and the same word _monte_ is employed for a mountain and
a forest, for _cerro_ (_montaña_), and for _selva_. In a work on the true
breadth and the greatest extension of the chain of the Andes towards the
east, I have shown how this twofold signification of the word _monte_ has
led to the error, in a fine and extensively circulated English map of
South America, of marking ranges of high mountains in districts occupied
only by plains. Where the Spanish map of La Cruz Olmedilla, which formed
the basis of so many others, indicated Cacao Woods, _Montes de Cacao_[67],
Cordilleras were supposed to exist, although the Cacao-tree affects only
the hottest of the low lands.
If we comprehend, in one general view, the woody region which embraces the
whole of South America, between the grassy plains of Venezuela (_los
Llanos de Caracas_) and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, lying between 8° north
and 19° south latitude, we perceive that this connected _Hylæa_ of the
tropical zone is unequalled in extent by any other on the surface of the
earth. Its area is about twelve times that of Germany. Traversed in all
directions by rivers, some of whose direct and indirect tributary streams
(as well those of the second as of the first order) surpass the Danube and
Rhine in the abundance of their waters, it owes the wonderful luxuriance
of its vegetation to the twofold influence of great humidity and high
temperature. In the temperate zone, particularly in Europe and Northern
Asia, forests may be named from particular genera of trees which grow
together as social plants (_plantæ sociales_), and form separate woods. In
the Oak, Pine, and Birch forests of the northern regions, and in the
Linden or Lime Woods of the eastern, there usually predominates only one
species of Amentaceæ, Coniferæ or Tiliaceæ; while sometimes a single
species of Piniferæ is intermixed with trees of deciduous foliage. Such
uniformity of association is unknown in tropical forests. The excessive
variety of their rich sylvan flora renders it vain to ask, of what do the
primeval forests consist. Numberless families of plants are here crowded
together; and even in small spaces, plants of the same species are rarely
associated. Every day, and with every change of place, new forms present
themselves to the traveller’s attention; often flowers, beyond his reach,
although the shape of the leaf and the ramifications of the plant excite
his curiosity.
The rivers, with their innumerable branches, are the only means of
traversing the country. Astronomical observations, or in the absence of
these, determinations by compass of the bends of the rivers, between the
Orinoco, the Cassiquiare, and the Rio Negro, have shewn that two lonely
mission-stations might be situated only a few miles apart, and yet the
monks thereof, in visiting each other would require a day and a half to
make the passage in their hollow-tree canoes, along the windings of small
streams. The most striking evidence of the impenetrability of some
portions of these forests, is afforded by a trait in the habits of the
American tiger, or panther-like Jaguar. While the introduction of European
horned cattle, horses, and mules, has yielded so abundant a supply of food
to the beasts of prey in the extensive grassy and treeless plains of
Varinas, Meta, and Buenos Ayres; that these animals, (owing to the unequal
contest between them and their prey,) have considerably increased since
the discovery of America; other individuals of the same species lead a
toilsome life in the dense forests contiguous to the sources of the
Orinoco. The distressing loss of a large mastiff, the faithful companion
of our travels, while we were bivouacking near the junction of the
Cassiquiare with the Orinoco, induced us on our return from the
insect-swarming Esmeralda, to pass another night on the same spot
(uncertain whether he was devoured by a tiger) where we had already long
sought him in vain. We again heard in the immediate neighbourhood the
cries of the Jaguar, probably the very same animal to which we owed our
loss. As the cloudy state of the sky rendered it impossible to conduct
astronomical observations, we made our interpreter (_lenguaraz_) repeat to
us what the natives, our boatmen, related of the tigers of the country.
The so called black Jaguar is, as we learnt, not unfrequently found among
them. It is the largest and most blood-thirsty variety, and has a dark
brown skin marked with scarcely distinguishable black spots. It lives at
the foot of the mountain ranges of Maraguaca and Unturan. “The love of
wandering, and the rapacity of the Jaguars,” said our Indian narrator, one
of the Durimond tribe; “often lead them into such impenetrable thickets of
the forest, that they can no longer hunt on the ground, and then live for
a long time in the trees—the terror of the families of monkeys, and of the
prehensile-tailed viverra. (_Cercoleptes._)”
The journal which I wrote at the time in German, and from which I borrow
these extracts, was not entirely exhausted in the narrative of my travels
(published in French). It contains a circumstantial description of the
nocturnal life of animals; I might say, of their nocturnal voices in the
tropical forests. And this sketch seems to me to be especially adapted to
constitute one of the chapters of the _Views of Nature_. That which is
written down on the spot, or soon after the impression of the phenomena
has been received, may at least claim to possess more freshness than what
is produced by the recollection of long passed events.
We reached the bed of the Orinoco by descending from west to east along
the Rio Apure, whose inundations I have noticed in the sketch of the
Deserts and Steppes. It was the period of low water, and the average
breadth of the Apure was only a little more than 1200 feet; while the
Orinoco, at its confluence with the Apure (near the granite rocks of
Curiquima, where I was able to measure a base-line), was still upwards of
12,180 feet. Yet this point (the rock of Curiquima,) is 400 miles in a
straight line from the sea and from the delta of the Orinoco. Some of the
plains, watered by the Apure and the Payara, are inhabited by Yaruros and
Achaguas, who are called savages in the mission-villages established by
the monks, because they will not relinquish their independence. In
reference to social culture, they however occupy about the same scale as
those Indians, who, although baptized and living “under the bell” (_baxo
la campana_), have remained strangers to every form of instruction and
cultivation.
On leaving the Island del Diamante, where the Zambos, who speak Spanish,
cultivate the sugar-cane, we entered into a grand and wild domain of
nature. The air was filled with countless flamingoes (_Phœnicopterus_) and
other water-fowl, which seemed to stand forth from the blue sky like a
dark cloud in ever-varying outlines. The bed of the river had here
contracted to less than 1000 feet, and formed a perfectly straight canal,
which was inclosed on both sides by thick woods. The margin of the forest
presents a singular spectacle. In front of the almost impenetrable wall of
colossal trunks of Cæsalpinia, Cedrela, and Desmanthus, there rises with
the greatest regularity on the sandy bank of the river, a low hedge of
Sauso, only four feet high; it consists of a small shrub, _Hermesia
castanifolia_, which forms a new genus[68] of the family of Euphorbiaceæ.
A few slender, thorny palms, called by the Spaniards Piritu and Corozo
(perhaps species of _Martinezia_ or _Bactris_) stand close alongside; the
whole resembling a trimmed garden hedge, with gate-like openings at
considerable distances from each other, formed undoubtedly by the large
four-footed animals of the forests, for convenient access to the river. At
sunset, and more particularly at break of day, the American Tiger, the
Tapir, and the Peccary (_Pecari_, _Dicotyles_) may be seen coming forth
from these openings accompanied by their young, to give them drink. When
they are disturbed by a passing Indian canoe, and are about to retreat
into the forest, they do not attempt to rush violently through these
hedges of Sauso, but proceed deliberately along the bank, between the
hedge and river, affording the traveller the gratification of watching
their motions for sometimes four or five hundred paces, until they
disappear through the nearest opening. During a seventy-four days’ almost
uninterrupted river navigation of 1520 miles up the Orinoco, to the
neighbourhood of its sources, and along the Cassiquiare, and the Rio
Negro—during the whole of which time we were confined to a narrow
canoe—the same spectacle presented itself to our view at many different
points, and, I may add, always with renewed excitement. There came to
drink, bathe, or fish, groups of creatures belonging to the most opposite
species of animals; the larger mammalia with many-coloured herons,
palamedeas with the proudly-strutting curassow (_Crax Alector_, _C.
Pauxi_). “It is here as in Paradise” (_es como en el Paradiso_), remarked
with pious air our steersman, an old Indian, who had been brought up in
the house of an ecclesiastic. But the gentle peace of the primitive golden
age does not reign in the paradise of these American animals, they stand
apart, watch, and avoid each other. The Capybara, a cavy (or river-hog)
three or four feet long (a colossal repetition of the common Brazilian
cavy, (_Cavia Aguti_), is devoured in the river by the crocodile, and on
the shore by the tiger. They run so badly, that we were frequently able to
overtake and capture several from among the numerous herds.
Below the mission of Santa Barbara de Arichuna we passed the night as
usual in the open air, on a sandy flat, on the bank of the Apure, skirted
by the impenetrable forest. We had some difficulty in finding dry wood to
kindle the fires with which it is here customary to surround the bivouac,
as a safeguard against the attacks of the Jaguar. The air was bland and
soft, and the moon shone brightly. Several crocodiles approached the bank;
and I have observed that fire attracts these creatures as it does our
crabs and many other aquatic animals. The oars of our boats were fixed
upright in the ground, to support our hammocks. Deep stillness prevailed,
only broken at intervals by the blowing of the fresh-water dolphins[69],
which are peculiar to the river net-work of the Orinoco (as, according to
Colebrooke, they are also to the Ganges, as high up the river as Benares);
they followed each other in long tracks.
After eleven o’clock, such a noise began in the contiguous forest, that
for the remainder of the night all sleep was impossible. The wild cries of
animals rung through the woods. Among the many voices which resounded
together, the Indians could only recognise those which, after short
pauses, were heard singly. There was the monotonous, plaintive, cry of the
Aluates (howling monkeys), the whining, flute-like notes of the small
sapajous, the grunting murmur of the striped nocturnal ape[70]
(_Nyctipithecus trivirgatus_, which I was the first to describe), the
fitful roar of the great tiger, the Cuguar or maneless American lion, the
peccary, the sloth, and a host of parrots, parraquas (_Ortalides_), and
other pheasant-like birds. Whenever the tigers approached the edge of the
forest, our dog, who before had barked incessantly, came howling to seek
protection under the hammocks. Sometimes the cry of the tiger resounded
from the branches of a tree, and was then always accompanied by the
plaintive piping tones of the apes, who were endeavouring to escape from
the unwonted pursuit.
If one asks the Indians why such a continuous noise is heard on certain
nights, they answer, with a smile, that “the animals are rejoicing in the
beautiful moonlight, and celebrating the return of the full moon.” To me
the scene appeared rather to be owing to an accidental, long-continued,
and gradually increasing conflict among the animals. Thus, for instance,
the jaguar will pursue the peccaries and the tapirs, which, densely
crowded together, burst through the barrier of tree-like shrubs which
opposes their flight. Terrified at the confusion, the monkeys on the tops
of the trees join their cries with those of the larger animals. This
arouses the tribes of birds who build their nests in communities, and
suddenly the whole animal world is in a state of commotion. Further
experience taught us, that it was by no means always the festival of
moonlight that disturbed the stillness of the forest; for we observed that
the voices were loudest during violent storms of rain, or when the thunder
echoed and the lightning flashed through the depths of the woods. The
good-natured Franciscan monk who (notwithstanding the fever from which he
had been suffering for many months), accompanied us through the cataracts
of Atures and Maypures to San Carlos, on the Rio Negro, and to the
Brazilian coast, used to say, when apprehensive of a storm at night, “May
Heaven grant a quiet night both to us and to the wild beasts of the
forest!”
A singular contrast to the scenes I have here described, and which I had
repeated opportunities of witnessing, is presented by the stillness which
reigns within the tropics at the noontide of a day unusually sultry. I
borrow from the same journal the description of a scene at the Narrows of
Baraguan. Here the Orinoco forms for itself a passage through the western
part of the mountains of the Parime. That which is called at this
remarkable pass a Narrow (_Angostura del Baraguan_), is, however, a basin
almost 5700 feet in breadth. With the exception of an old withered stem of
Aubletia (_Apeiba Tiburbu_), and a new Apocinea (_Allamanda Salicifolia_),
the barren rocks were only covered with a few silvery croton shrubs. A
thermometer observed in the shade, but brought within a few inches of the
lofty mass of granite rock, rose to more than 122° Fahr. All distant
objects had wavy undulating outlines, the optical effect of the _mirage_.
Not a breath of air moved the dust-like sand. The sun stood in the zenith;
and the effulgence of light poured upon the river, and which, owing to a
gentle ripple of the waters, was brilliantly reflected, gave additional
distinctness to the red haze which veiled the distance. All the rocky
mounds and naked boulders were covered with large, thick-scaled Iguanas,
Gecko-lizards, and spotted Salamanders. Motionless, with uplifted heads
and widely extended mouths, they seemed to inhale the heated air with
ecstasy. The larger animals at such times take refuge in the deep recesses
of the forest, the birds nestle beneath the foliage of the trees, or in
the clefts of the rocks; but if in this apparent stillness of nature we
listen closely for the faintest tones, we detect, a dull, muffled sound, a
buzzing and humming of insects close to the earth, in the lower strata of
the atmosphere. Everything proclaims a world of active organic forces. In
every shrub, in the cracked bark of trees, in the perforated ground
inhabited by hymenopterous insects, life is everywhere audibly manifest.
It is one of the many voices of nature revealed to the pious and
susceptible spirit of man.
ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
Footnote 65:
p. 191.—“_Characteristic denominations in Arabic and Persian._”
More than twenty words might be cited by which the Arabs distinguish
between a Steppe (tanufah), according as it may be a Desert without
water, entirely bare, or covered with siliceous sand, and interspersed
with spots of pasture land (Sahara, Kafr, Mikfar, Tih, Mehme). Sahl is a
depressed plain; Dakkah a desolate elevated plateau. In Persian Beyaban
is an arid sandy waste (as the Mongolian Gobi and the Chinese Han-hai
and Scha-mo); Yaila is a Steppe covered with grass rather than with
low-growing plants (like the Mongolian Küdah, the Turkish Tala or
Tschol, and the Chinese Huang). Deschti-reft is a naked elevated
plateau.[IK]
Footnote 66:
p. 191.—“_The old Castilian dialects._”
Pico, picacho, mogote, cucurucho, espigon, loma tendida, mesa,
panecillo, farallon, tablon, peña, peñon, peñasco, peñoleria, roca
partida, laxa, cerro, sierra, serrania, cordillera, monte, montaña,
montañuela, cadena de montes, los altos, malpais, reventazon, bufa, &c.
Footnote 67:
p. 194.—“_Where the map had indicated Montes de Cacao._”
On the range of hills from which the lofty Andes de Cuchao have
originated, see my _Relation historique_, t. iii. p. 238.
Footnote 68:
p. 197.—“_Hermesia._”
The genus Hermesia, the Sauso, has been described by Bonpland, and is
delineated in our _Plantes équinoxiales_, t. i. p. 162, tab. xlvi.
Footnote 69:
p. 199.—“_The fresh-water dolphin._”
These are not sea dolphins, which, like some species of Pleuronectes
(flat fish which invariably have both eyes on one side of the body),
ascend the rivers to a great distance, as, for instance, the Limande
(_Pleuronectes Limanda_), which is found as far inland as Orleans. Some
forms of sea fish, as the dolphin and skate (_Raia_), are met with in
the great rivers of both continents. The fresh-water dolphin of the
Apure and the Orinoco differs specifically from the _Delphinus
gangeticus_ as well as from all sea dolphins.[IL]
Footnote 70:
p. 199.—“_The striped nocturnal monkey._”
This is the Douroucouli or Cusi-cusi of the Cassiquiare which I have
elsewhere described as the _Simia trivirgata_,[IM] from a drawing made
by myself of the living animal. We have since seen the nocturnal monkey
living in the menagerie of the Jardin des Plantes at Paris.[IN] Spix
also met with this remarkable little animal on the Amazon River and
called it _Nyctipithecus vociferans_.
POTSDAM, JUNE 1849.
HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA.
I am indebted to Mr. Pentland, whose scientific labours have thrown so
much light on the geology and geography of Bolivia, for the following
determinations of position, which he communicated to me in a letter from
Paris (October 1848), subsequent to the publication of his great map.
Nevado of Sorata, South Latitude. Longitude. Height.
or Ancohuma.
South Peak 15° 51′ 33″ 68° 33′ 55″ 21,286
North Peak 15° 49′ 18″ 68° 33′ 52″ 21,043
Illimani.
South Peak 16° 38′ 52″ 67° 49′ 18″ 21,145
Middle Peak 16° 38′ 26″ 67° 49′ 17″ 21,094
North Peak 16° 37′ 50″ 67° 49′ 39″ 21,060
The numbers representing the heights are, with the exception of the
unimportant difference of a few feet in the South Peak of Illimani, the
same as those in the map of the Lake of Titicaca. A sketch of the
Illimani, as it appears in all its majesty from La Paz, was given at an
earlier date by Mr. Pentland in the Journal of the Royal Geographical
Society.[IO] But this was five years after the publication of the first
measurements in the _Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes_ for 1830, p.
323, which results I myself hastened to disseminate in Germany.[IP] The
Nevado de Sorata lies to the east of the village of Sorata or Esquibel,
and is called in the Ymarra language, according to Pentland, Ancomani,
Itampu, and Illhampu. In _Illimani_ we recognize the Ymarra word _illi_,
snow.
If, however, in the _eastern_ chain of Bolivia the Sorata was long
assumed to be 3962 feet, and the Illimani 2851 feet too high, there are
in the western chain of Bolivia, according to Pentland’s map of Titicaca
(1848), four peaks east of Arica between the latitudes 18° 7′ and 18°
25′, all of which exceed Chimborazo in height, which itself is 21,422
feet.
These four peaks are:—
English feet. French feet.
Pomarape 21,700 20,360
Gualateiri 21,960 20,604
Parinacota 22,030 20,670
Sahama 22,350 20,971
Berghaus has applied to the chains of the Andes in Bolivia, the
investigation which I published[IQ] regarding the proportion, which
varies extremely in different mountain-chains, of the mountain ridge
(the mean height of the passes), to the highest summits (or the
culminating points). He finds,[IR] according to Pentland’s map, that the
mean height of the passes in the eastern chain is 13,505, and in the
western chain 14,496 feet. The culminating points are 21,285 and 22,350
feet; consequently the ratio of the height of the ridge to that of the
highest summit is, in the eastern chain, as 1 : 1·57, and in the western
chain as 1 : 1·54. This ratio, which is, as it were, the measure of the
subterranean upheaving force, is very similar to that in the Pyrenees,
but very different from the plastic form of the Alps, the mean height of
whose passes is far less in comparison with the height of Mont Blanc. In
the Pyrenees these ratios are as 1 : 1·43, and in the Alps as 1 : 2·09.
But, according to Fitzroy and Darwin, the height of the Sahama is still
surpassed by 848 feet by that of the volcano Aconcagua (south lat. 32°
39′), in the north-east of Valparaiso in Chili. The officers of the
expedition of the Adventure and Beagle found, in August 1835, that the
Aconcagua was between 23,000 and 23,400 feet in height. If we reckon it
at 23,200 feet it is 1776 feet, higher than Chimborazo.[IS] According to
more recent calculations,[IT] Aconcagua is determined to be 23,906 feet.
Our knowledge regarding the systems of mountains, which, north of the
parallels of 30° and 31°, are distinguished as the _Rocky Mountains_ and
the _Sierra Nevada of California_, has been vastly augmented during the
last few years in the astronomico-geographical, hypsometric, geognostic,
and botanical departments, by the excellent works of Charles
Frémont,[IU] of Dr. Wislizenus,[IV] and of Lieutenants Abert and
Peck.[IW] There prevails throughout these North American works a
scientific spirit deserving of the warmest acknowledgment. The
remarkable plateau, referred to in p. 34, between the Rocky Mountains
and the Sierra Nevada of California, which rises uninterruptedly from
4000 to 5000 French (4260 to 5330 English) feet high, and is termed the
Great Basin, presents an interior closed river-system, thermal springs,
and salt lakes. None of its rivers, Bear River, Carson River, and
Humboldt River, find a passage to the sea. That which, by a process of
induction and combination, I represented in my great map of Mexico,
executed in 1804, as the Lake of Timpanogos, is the _Great Salt Lake_ of
Frémont’s map. It is 60 miles long from north to south, and 40 miles
broad, and it communicates with the fresh-water Lake of Utah, which lies
at a higher level, and into which the Timpanogos or Timpanaozu River
enters from the eastward, in lat. 40° 13′. The fact of the Lake of
Timpanogos not having been placed in my map sufficiently to the north
and west, arose from the entire absence, at that period, of all
astronomical determinations of position of Santa Fé in New Mexico. For
the western margin of the lake the error amounts to almost fifty
minutes, a difference of absolute longitude which will appear less
striking when it is remembered that my itinerary map of Guanaxuato could
only be based for an extent of 15° of latitude on determinations made by
the compass (magnetic surveys), instituted by Don Pedro de Rivera.[IX]
These determinations gave my talented and prematurely lost
fellow-labourer, Herr Friesen, 105° 36′ as the longitude of Santa Fé,
while, by other combinations, I calculated it at 104° 51′. According to
actual astronomical determinations the true longitude appears to be
106°. The relative position of the strata of rock salt found in thick
strata of red clay, south-east of the Great Salt Lake (Laguna de
Timpanogos), with its many islands, and near the present Fort Mormon and
the Utah Lake, is accurately given in my large map of Mexico. I may
refer to the most recent evidence of the traveller who made the first
trustworthy determinations of position in this region. “The mineral or
rock salt, of which a specimen is placed in Congress Library, was found
in the place marked by Humboldt in his map of New Spain (northern half),
as derived from the journal of the Missionary Father Escalante, who
attempted (1777) to penetrate the unknown country from Santa Fé of New
Mexico to Monterey of the Pacific Ocean. South-east of the Lake
Timpanogos is the chain of the Wha-satch Mountains; and in this, at the
place where Humboldt has written _Montagnes de sel gemme_, this mineral
is found.”[IY]
A great historical interest is attached to this part of the highland,
especially to the neighbourhood of the Lake of Timpanogos, which is
probably identical with the Lake of Teguayo, the ancestral seat of the
Aztecs. This people, in their migration from Aztlan to Tula, and to the
valley of Tenochtitlan in Mexico, made three stations at which the ruins
of _Casas grandes_ are still to be seen. The first halting-place of the
Aztecs was at the Lake of Teguayo, south of Quivira, the second on the
Rio Gila, and the third not far from the Presidio de Llanos. Lieutenant
Abert found on the banks of the Rio Gila the same immense quantity of
elegantly painted fragments of delf and pottery scattered over a large
surface of country, which, at the same place, had excited so much
astonishment in the missionaries Francisco Garces and Pedro Fonte. From
these products of the hand of man, it may be inferred that there was a
time when a higher human civilization existed in this now desolate
region. Repetitions of the singular architectural style of the Aztecs,
and of their houses of seven stories, are at the present time to be
found far to the east of the Rio Grande del Norte; as, for instance, at
Taos.[IZ] The Sierra Nevada of California is parallel to the coast of
the Pacific; but between the latitudes of 34° and 41°, between San
Buenaventura and the Bay of Trinidad, there runs, west of the Sierra
Nevada, a small coast chain whose culminating point, _Monte del Diablo_,
is 3674 feet high. In the narrow valley, between this coast chain and
the great Sierra Nevada, flow from the south the Rio de San Joaquin, and
from the north the Rio del Sacramento. It is in the alluvial soil on the
banks of the latter river that the rich goldwashings occur, which are
now proceeding with so much activity.
Besides the hypsometric levelling and the barometric measurements to
which I have already referred (see page 33), between the mouth of the
Kanzas River in the Missouri and the coast of the Pacific, throughout
the immense expanse of 28° of longitude, Dr. Wislizenus has successfully
prosecuted the levelling commenced by myself in the equinoctial zone of
Mexico, to the north as far as to lat. 35° 38′, and consequently to
Santa Fé del Nuevo Mexico. We learn with astonishment that the plateau
which forms the broad crest of the Mexican Andes by no means sinks down
to an inconsiderable height, as was long supposed to be the case. I give
here, for the first time, according to recent measurements, the line of
levelling from the city of Mexico to Santa Fé, which is within 16 miles
from the Rio del Norte.
French feet. English feet.
Mexico 7008 7469 Ht.
Tula 6318 6733 Ht.
San Juan del Rio 6090 6490 Ht.
Queretaro 5970 6362 Ht.
Celaya 5646 6017 Ht.
Salamanca 5496 5761 Ht.
Guanaxuato 6414 6836 Ht.
Silao 5546 5911 Br.
Villa de Leon 5755 6133 Br.
Lagos 5983 6376 Br.
Aguas Calientes 5875 6261 Br.
San Luis Potosi 5714 6090 Br.
Zacatecas 7544 8038 Br.
Fresnillo 6797 7244 Br.
Durango 6426 6848 (Oteiza)
Parras 4678 4985 Ws.
Saltillo 4917 5240 Ws.
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
El Bolson de Mapimi from 3600 3836 Ws.
to 4200 4476
───────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────
Chihuahua 4352 4638 Ws.
Cosiquiriachi 5886 6273 Ws.
Passo del Norte (on the Rio Grande 3577 3810 Ws.
del Norte)
Santa Fé del Nuevo Mexico 6612 7047 Ws.
The attached letters Ws., Br., and Ht., indicate the barometric
measurements of Dr. Wislizenus, Obergrath Burkart, and myself. To the
valuable memoir of Dr. Wislizenus there are appended three profile
delineations of the country; one from Santa Fé to Chihuahua over Passo
del Norte; one from Chihuahua over Parras to Reynosa; and one from Fort
Independence (a little to the east of the confluence of the Missouri and
the Kanzas River) to Santa Fé. The calculation is based on daily
corresponding observations of the barometer, made by Engelmann at St.
Louis, and by Lilly in New Orleans. If we consider that in the north and
south direction the difference of latitude between Santa Fé and Mexico
is more than 16°, and that, consequently, the distance in a direct
meridian direction, independently of curvatures on the road, is more
than 960 miles; we are led to ask whether, in the whole world, there
exists any similar formation of equal extent and height (between 5000
and 7500 feet above the level of the sea). Four-wheeled waggons can
travel from Mexico to Santa Fé. The plateau, whose levelling I have here
described, is formed solely by the broad, undulating, flattened crest of
the chain of the Mexican Andes; it is not the swelling of a valley
between two mountain-chains, such as the “Great Basin” between the Rocky
Mountains and the Sierra Nevada of California, in the Northern
Hemisphere, or the elevated plateau of the Lake of Titicaca, between the
eastern and western chains of Bolivia, or the plateau of Thibet, between
the Himalaya and the Kuen-lün, in the Southern Hemisphere.
IDEAS
FOR A
PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS.
When the active spirit of man is directed to the investigation of
nature, or when in imagination he scans the vast fields of organic
creation, among the varied emotions excited in his mind there is none
more profound or vivid than that awakened by the universal profusion of
life. Everywhere—even near the ice-bound poles,—the air resounds with
the song of birds and with the busy hum of insects. Not only the lower
strata, in which the denser vapours float, but also the higher and
ethereal regions of the air, teem with animal life. Whenever the lofty
crests of, the Peruvian Cordilleras, or the summit of Mont Blanc, south
of Lake Leman, have been ascended, living creatures have been found even
in these solitudes. On the Chimborazo[71], which is upwards of eight
thousand feet higher than Mount Etna, we saw butterflies and other
winged insects. Even if they are strangers carried by ascending currents
of air to those lofty regions, whither a restless spirit of inquiry
leads the toilsome steps of man, their presence nevertheless proves that
the more pliant organization of animals may subsist far beyond the
limits of the vegetable world. The Condor[72], that giant among the
vultures, often soared above us at a greater altitude than the summits
of the Andes, and even higher than would be the Peak of Teneriffe were
it piled upon the snow-crowned summits of the Pyrenees. Rapacity and the
pursuit of the soft-woolled Vicunas, which herd, like the chamois, on
the snow-covered pastures, allure this powerful bird to these regions.
But if the unassisted eye shows that life is diffused throughout the
whole atmosphere, the microscope reveals yet greater wonders.
Wheel-animalcules, _brachioni_, and a host of microscopic insects are
lifted by the winds from the evaporating waters below. Motionless and to
all appearance dead, they float on the breeze, until the dew bears them
back to the nourishing earth, and bursting the tissue which incloses
their transparent rotating[73] bodies, instils new life and motion into
all their organs, probably by the action of the vital principle inherent
in water. The yellow meteoric sand or mist (dust nebulæ) often observed
to fall on the Atlantic near the Cape de Verde Islands, and not
unfrequently borne in an easterly direction as far as Northern Africa,
Italy, and Central Europe, consists, according to Ehrenberg’s brilliant
discovery, of agglomerations of siliceous-shelled microscopic organisms.
Many of these perhaps float for years in the highest strata of the
atmosphere, until they are carried down by the Etesian winds or by
descending currents of air, in the full capacity of life, and actually
engaged in organic increase by spontaneous self division.
Together with these developed creatures, the atmosphere contains
countless germs of future formations; eggs of insects, and seeds of
plants, which, by means of hairy or feathery crowns, are borne forward
on their long autumnal journey. Even the vivifying pollen scattered
abroad by the male blossoms, is carried by winds and winged insects over
sea and land, to the distant and solitary female plant[74]. Thus,
wheresoever the naturalist turns his eye, life or the germ of life lies
spread before him.
But if the moving sea of air in which we are immersed, and above whose
surface we are unable to raise ourselves, yields to many organic beings
their most essential nourishment, they still require therewith a more
substantial species of food, which is provided for them only at the
bottom of this gaseous ocean. This bottom is of a twofold kind: the
smaller portion constituting the dry earth, in immediate contact with
the surrounding atmosphere; the larger portion consisting of
water,—formed, perhaps, thousands of years ago from gaseous matters
fused by electric fire, and now incessantly undergoing decomposition in
the laboratory of the clouds and in the pulsating vessels of animals and
plants. Organic forms descend deep into the womb of the earth, wherever
the meteoric rain-waters can penetrate into natural cavities, or into
artificial excavations and mines. The domain of the subterranean
cryptogamic flora was early an object of my scientific researches.
Thermal springs of the highest temperature nourish small Hydropores,
Confervæ and Oscillatoræ. Not far from the Arctic circle, at Bear Lake,
in the New Continent, Richardson saw flowering plants on the ground
which, even in summer, remains frozen to the depth of twenty inches.
It is still undetermined where life is most abundant: whether on the
earth or in the fathomless depths of the ocean. Ehrenberg’s admirable
work on the relative condition of animalcular life in the tropical ocean
and the floating and solid ice of the Antarctic circle, has spread the
sphere and horizon of organic life before our eyes. Siliceous-shelled
Polygastrica and even Coscinodiscæ, alive, with their green ovaries,
have been found enveloped in masses within twelve degrees of the Pole;
even as the small black glacier flea, _Desoria Glacialis_, and
Podurellæ, inhabit the narrow tubules of ice of the Swiss glaciers, as
proved by the researches of Agassiz. Ehrenberg has shown that on some
microscopic infusorial animalcules (_Synedra_ and _Cocconeis_), other
species live parasitically; and that in the Gallionellæ the
extraordinary powers of division and development of bulk are so great,
that an animalcule invisible to the naked eye can in four days form two
cubic feet of the Bilin polishing slate.
In the ocean, gelatinous sea-worms, living and dead, shine like luminous
stars[75], converting by their phosphorescent light the green surface of
the ocean into one vast sheet of fire. Indelible is the impression left
on my mind by those calm tropical nights of the Pacific, where the
constellation of Argo in its zenith, and the setting Southern Cross,
pour their mild planetary light through the ethereal azure of the sky,
while dolphins mark the foaming waves with their luminous furrows.
But not alone the depths of ocean, the waters, too, of our own swamps
and marshes, conceal innumerable worms of wonderful form. Almost
indistinguishable by the eye are the Cyclidiæ, the Euglenes, and the
host of Naiads divisible by branches like the _Lemna_ (Duckweed), whose
leafy shade they seek. Surrounded by differently composed atmospheres,
and deprived of light, the spotted Ascaris breathes in the skin of the
earth-worm, the silvery and bright Leucophra exists in the body of the
shore Nais, and a Pentastoma in the large pulmonary cells of the
tropical rattle-snake[76]. There are animalcules in the blood of frogs
and salmon, and even, according to Nordmann, in the fluid of the eyes of
fishes, and in the gills of the bream. Thus are even the most hidden
recesses of creation replete with life. We purpose in the following
pages to consider the different families of plants, since on their
existence entirely depends that of the animal creation. Incessantly are
they occupied in organizing the raw material of the earth, assimilating
by vital forces those elements which after a thousand metamorphoses
become ennobled into active nervous tissue. The glance which we direct
to the dissemination of vegetable forms, reveals to us the fulness of
that animal life which they sustain and preserve.
The verdant carpet which a luxuriant Flora spreads over the surface of
the earth is not woven equally in all parts; for while it is most rich
and full where, under an ever-cloudless sky, the sun attains its
greatest height, it is thin and scanty near the torpid poles, where the
quickly-recurring frosts too speedily blight the opening bud or destroy
the ripening fruit. Yet everywhere man rejoices in the presence of
nourishing plants. Even where from the depths of the sea, a volcano
bursting through the boiling flood, upheaves a scoriaceous rock. (as
once happened in the Greek Islands); or, to instance a more gradual
phenomenon, where the united labours of the coral animal
(Lithophytes)[77] have piled up their cellular dwellings, on the crests
of submarine mountains, until after toiling for thousands of years their
edifice reaches the level of the ocean, when its architects perish, and
leave a coral island. Thus are organic forces ever ready to animate with
living forms the naked rock. How seeds are so suddenly transported to
these rocks, whether by birds, or by winds, or by the waves of ocean, is
a question that cannot be decided, owing to the great distance of these
islands from the coasts. But no sooner has the air greeted the naked
rock, than, in our northern countries, it gradually acquires a covering
of velvet-like fibres, which appear to the eye to be coloured spots.
Some of these are bordered by single and others by double rows, while
others again are traversed by furrows and divided into compartments. As
they increase in age their colour darkens. The bright glittering yellow
becomes brown, and gradually the bluish-grey mass of the Leprariæ
changes to a dusty black. As the outlines of this vegetable surface
merge into each other with increasing age, the dark ground acquires a
new covering of fresh circular spots of dazzling whiteness. Thus one
organic tissue rises, like strata, over the other; and as the human race
in its development must pass through definite stages of civilization, so
also is the gradual distribution of plants dependent on definite
physical laws. In spots where lofty forest trees now rear their towering
summits, the sole covering of the barren rock was once the tender
lichen; the long and immeasurable interval was filled up by the growth
of grasses, herbaceous plants, and shrubs. The place occupied in
northern regions by mosses and lichens is supplied in the tropics by
Portulacas, Gomphrenas, and other low and oleaginous marine plants. The
history of the vegetable covering and of its gradual extension over the
barren surface of the earth, has its epochs, as well as that of the
migratory animal world.
But although life is everywhere diffused, and although the organic
forces are incessantly at work in combining into new forms those
elements which have been liberated by death; yet this fulness of life
and its renovation differ according to difference of climate. Nature
undergoes a periodic stagnation in the frigid zones; for fluidity is
essential to life. Animals and plants, excepting indeed mosses and other
Cryptogamia, here remain many months buried in a winter sleep. Over a
great portion of the earth, therefore, only those organic forms are
capable of full development, which have the property of resisting any
considerable abstraction of heat, or those which, destitute of
leaf-organs, can sustain a protracted interruption of their vital
functions. Thus, the nearer we approach the tropics, the greater the
increase in variety of structure, grace of form, and mixture of colours,
as also in perpetual youth and vigour of organic life.
This increase may readily be doubted by those who have never quitted our
own hemisphere, or who have neglected the study of physical geography.
When in passing from our thickly foliated forests of oak, we cross the
Alps or the Pyrenees and enter Italy or Spain, or when the traveller
first directs his eye to some of the African coasts of the
Mediterranean, he may easily be led to adopt the erroneous inference
that absence of trees is a characteristic of hot climates. But they
forget that Southern Europe wore a different aspect, when it was first
colonised by Pelasgian or Carthaginian settlers; they forget too that an
earlier civilization of the human race sets bounds to the increase of
forests, and that nations, in their change-loving spirit, gradually
destroy the decorations which rejoice our eye in the North, and which,
more than the records of history, attest the youthfulness of our
civilization. The great catastrophe by which the Mediterranean was
formed, when the swollen waters of an inland sea burst their way through
the Dardanelles and the Pillars of Hercules, appears to have stripped
the contiguous lands of a large portion of their alluvial soil. The
records of the Samothracian traditions[78] preserved by Greek writers
seem to indicate the recent date of this great convulsion of nature.
Moreover, in all the lands bathed by the Mediterranean, and which are
characterised by the tertiary and cretaceous formations (Nummulites and
Neocomian rocks), a great portion of the earth’s surface is naked rock.
The picturesque beauty of Italian scenery depends mainly on the pleasing
contrast between the bare and desolate rock and the luxuriant vegetation
which, island-like, is scattered over its surface. Where the rock is
less intersected by fissures, so that the water rests longer on its
surface, and where it is covered with earth (as on the enchanting banks
of Lake Albano), there even Italy has her oak-forests, as shady and
verdant as could be desired by an inhabitant of the North.
The boundless plains or steppes of South America, and the deserts beyond
the Atlas range of mountains, can only be regarded as mere local
phenomena. The former are found to be covered, at least in the rainy
season, with grasses and low almost herbaceous Mimosæ; while the latter
are seas of sand in the interior of the Old Continent,—vast arid tracts
surrounded by borders of evergreen forests. Here and there only a few
isolated fan-palms remind the wanderer that these dreary solitudes are a
portion of animated nature. Amid the optical delusions occasioned by the
radiation of heat, we see the bases of these trees at one moment
hovering in the air, at the next their inverted image reflected in the
undulating strata of the atmosphere. To the west of the Peruvian Andes,
on the shores of the Pacific, I have passed weeks in traversing these
waterless deserts.
The origin of this absence of plants over large tracts of land, in
regions characterised on every side by the most exuberant vegetation, is
a geological phenomenon which has hitherto received but little
attention; it undoubtedly arises from former revolutions of nature, such
as inundations, or from volcanic convulsions of the earth’s surface.
When once a region loses its vegetable covering, if the sand is loose
and devoid of springs, and if vertically ascending currents of heated
air prevent the precipitation of vapour[79], thousands of years may
elapse before organic life can penetrate from the green shores to the
interior of the dreary waste.
Those who are capable of surveying nature with a comprehensive glance,
and abstract their attention from local phenomena, cannot fail to
observe that organic development and abundance of vitality gradually
increase from the poles towards the equator, in proportion to the
increase of animating heat. But in this distribution every different
climate has allotted to it some beauty peculiar to itself: to the
Tropics belong variety and magnitude in vegetable forms; to the North
the aspect of its meadows and the periodical renovation of nature at the
first genial breath of spring. Every zone, besides its own peculiar
advantages, has its own distinctive character. The primeval force of
organization, notwithstanding a certain independence in the abnormal
development of individual parts, binds all animal and vegetable
structures to fixed ever-recurring types. For as in some individual
organic beings we recognise a definite physiognomy, and as descriptive
botany and zoology are, strictly speaking, analyses of animal and
vegetable forms, so also there is a certain natural physiognomy peculiar
to every region of the earth.
That which the painter designates by the expressions “Swiss scenery” or
“Italian sky” is based on a vague feeling of the local natural
character. The azure of the sky, the effects of light and shade, the
haze floating on the distant horizon, the forms of animals, the
succulence of plants, the bright glossy surface of the leaves, the
outlines of mountains, all combine to produce the elements on which
depends the impression of any one region. It must be admitted, however,
that in all latitudes the same kind of rocks, as trachyte, basalt,
porphyritic schist, and dolomite, form mountain groups of exactly
similar physiognomy. Thus the greenstone cliffs of South America and
Mexico resemble those of the Fichtel mountains of Germany, in like
manner as among animals, the form of the Allco, or the original canine
race of the New Continent, is analogous to that of the European race.
The inorganic crust of the earth is as it were independent of climatic
influences; perhaps, because diversity of climate arising from
difference of latitude is of more recent date than the formations of the
earth, or that the hardening crust, in solidifying and discharging its
caloric, acquired its temperature from internal and not from external
causes[80]. All formations are, therefore, common to every quarter of
the globe and assume the like forms. Everywhere basalt rises in twin
mountains and truncated cones; everywhere trap-porphyry presents itself
to the eye under the form of grotesquely-shaped masses of rock, while
granite terminates in gently rounded summits. Thus, too, similar
vegetable forms, as pines and oaks, alike crown the mountain declivities
of Sweden and those of the most southern portion of Mexico[81]. But
notwithstanding all this coincidence of form, and resemblance of the
outlines of individual portions, the grouping of the mass, as a whole,
presents the greatest diversity of character.
As the oryctognostic knowledge of minerals differs from geology, so also
does the general study of the physiognomy of nature differ from the
individual branches of the natural sciences. The character of certain
portions of the earth’s surface has been described with inimitable
truthfulness by George Forster in his travels and smaller works, by
Goethe in the descriptive passages which so frequently occur in his
immortal writings, by Buffon, Bernardin de St. Pierre, and
Chateaubriand. Such descriptions are not only calculated to yield an
enjoyment of the noblest kind, but the knowledge of the character of
nature in different regions is also most intimately associated with the
history of the human race and its mental culture. For although the dawn
of this culture cannot have been determined solely by physical
influence, climatic relations have at any rate to a great extent
influenced its direction, as well as the character of nations, and the
degree of gloom or cheerfulness in the dispositions of men. How
powerfully did the skies of Greece act on its inhabitants! Was it not
among the nations who settled in the beautiful and happy region between
the Euphrates, the Halys, and the Ægean Sea, that social polish and
gentler feelings were first awakened? and was it not from these genial
climes that our forefathers, when religious enthusiasm had suddenly
opened to them the Holy Lands of the East, brought back to Europe, then
relapsing into barbarism, the seeds of a gentler civilization? The
poetical works of the Greeks and the ruder songs of the primitive
northern races owe much of their peculiar character to the forms of
plants and animals, to the mountain-valleys in which their poets dwelt,
and to the air which surrounded them. To revert to more familiar
objects, who is there that does not feel himself differently affected
beneath the embowering shade of the beechen grove, or on hills crowned
with a few scattered pines, or in the flowering meadow where the breeze
murmurs through the trembling foliage of the birch? A feeling of
melancholy, or solemnity, or of light buoyant animation is in turn
awakened by the contemplation of our native trees. This influence of the
physical on the moral world—this mysterious reaction of the sensuous on
the ideal, gives to the study of nature, when considered from a higher
point of view, a peculiar charm which has not hitherto been sufficiently
recognised.
However much the character of different regions of the earth may depend
upon a combination of all these external phenomena, and however much the
total impression may be influenced by the outline of mountains and
hills, the physiognomy of plants and animals, the azure of the sky, the
form of the clouds, and the transparency of the atmosphere, still it
cannot be denied that it is the vegetable covering of the earth’s
surface which chiefly conduces to the effect. The animal organism is
deficient in mass, while the mobility of its individual members and
often their diminutiveness remove them from the sphere of our
observation. Vegetable forms, on the other hand, act on the imagination
by their enduring magnitude—for here massive size is indicative of age,
and in the vegetable kingdom alone are age and the manifestation of an
ever-renewed vigour linked together. The colossal Dragon Tree[82], which
I saw in the Canary Isles, and which measured more than sixteen feet in
diameter, still bears, as it then did, the blossoms and fruit of
perpetual youth. When the French adventurers, the Béthencourts,
conquered these Fortunate Isles in the beginning of the fifteenth
century, the Dragon Tree of Orotava, regarded by the natives with a
veneration equal to that bestowed on the olive tree of the Acropolis at
Athens, or the elm at Ephesus, was of the same colossal magnitude as at
present. In the tropics a grove of Hymeneæ and Cesalpiniæ is probably a
memorial of more than a thousand years.
On taking one general view of the different phanerogamic species which
have already been collected into our herbariums[83], and which may now
be estimated at considerably more than 80,000, we find that this
prodigious quantity presents some few forms to which most of the others
may be referred. In determining those forms, on whose individual beauty,
distribution, and grouping, the physiognomy of a country’s vegetation
depends, we must not ground our opinion (as from other causes is
necessarily the case in botanical systems) on the smaller organs of
propagation, that is, the blossoms and fruit; but must be guided solely
by those elements of magnitude and mass from which the total impression
of a district receives its character of individuality. Among the
principal forms of vegetation there are, indeed, some which constitute
entire families, according to the so-called “natural system” of
botanists. Bananas and Palms, Casuarineæ and Coniferæ, form distinct
species in this mode of arrangement. The systematising botanist,
however, separates into different groups many plants which the student
of the physiognomy of nature is compelled to associate together. Where
vegetable forms occur in large masses, the outlines and distribution of
the leaves, and the form of the stems and branches lose their
individuality and become blended together. The painter—and here his
delicate artistical appreciation of nature comes especially into
play—distinguishes between pines or palms and beeches in the background
of a landscape, but not between forests of beech and other thickly
foliated trees.
The physiognomy of nature is principally determined by sixteen forms of
plants. I merely enumerate such as I have observed in my travels through
the old and new world during many years’ study of the vegetation of
different latitudes, between the parallels of 60° north and 12° south.
The number of these forms will no doubt be considerably increased by
travellers penetrating further into the interior of continents, and
discovering new genera of plants. We are still wholly ignorant of the
vegetation of the south-east of Asia, the interior of Africa and New
Holland, and of South America from the Amazon to the province of
Chiquitos. Might not a region be some day discovered in which ligneous
fungi, _Cenomyce rangiferina_, or mosses, form high trees? _Neckera
dendroïdes_, a German species of moss, is in fact arborescent, and the
sight of a wood of lofty mosses could hardly afford greater astonishment
to its discoverers than that experienced by Europeans at the aspect of
arborescent grasses (bamboos) and the tree-ferns of the tropics, which
are often equal in height to our lindens and alders. The maximum size
and degree of development attainable by organic forms of any genus,
whether of animals or plants, are determined by laws with which we are
still unacquainted. In each of the great divisions of the animal
kingdom, as insects, reptiles, crustacea, birds, fishes, or mammalia,
the dimensions of the body oscillate between certain extreme limits. But
these limits, based on the observations hitherto contributed to science,
may be enlarged by new discoveries of species with which we are at
present unacquainted.
In land animals a high degree of temperature, depending on latitude,
appears to have exercised a favourable influence on the genetic
development of organization. Thus the small and slender form of our
lizards expands in the south into the colossal, unwieldy, and mail-clad
body of the formidable crocodile. In the huge cats of Africa and
America, the tiger, lion, and jaguar, we find, repeated on a larger
scale, the form of one of the smallest of our domestic animals. But if
we penetrate into the recesses of the earth, and search the tombs of
plants and animals, the fossil remains thus brought to light not only
manifest a distribution of forms at variance with the present climates,
but they also reveal colossal structures, which exhibit as marked a
contrast with the small types that now surround us, as does the simple
yet dignified heroism of the ancient Greeks, when compared with what is
recognized at the present day as “greatness of character.” If the
temperature of the earth has undergone considerable, perhaps
periodically recurring changes, and, if even the relations between sea
and land, and the height and pressure of the atmospheric ocean[84], have
not always been the same, then the physiognomy of nature, and the
magnitude and forms of organic bodies, must also have been subject to
many variations. Enormous Pachydermata, elephantine Mastodons, Owen’s
Mylodon robustus, and the Colossochelys,[JA] a land tortoise upwards of
six feet in height, once inhabited forests of colossal Lepidodendra,
cactus-like Stigmariæ, and numerous genera of Cycadeæ. Unable accurately
to delineate the physiognomy of our aging and altering planet according
to its present features, I will only attempt to bring prominently
forward those characteristics which specially appertain to each
individual group of plants. Notwithstanding all the richness and
adaptability of our language, the attempt to designate in words, that
which, in fact, appertains only to the imitative art of the painter, is
always fraught with difficulty. I would also wish to avoid that wearying
effect which is almost unavoidably inseparable from a long enumeration
of individual forms.
We will begin with Palms[85], the loftiest and most stately of all
vegetable forms. To these, above all other trees, the prize of beauty
has always been awarded by every nation; and it was from the Asiatic
palm-world, or the adjacent countries, that human civilization sent
forth the first rays of its early dawn. Marked with rings, and not
unfrequently armed with thorns, the tall and slender shaft of this
graceful tree rears on high its crown of shining, fan-like, or pinnated
leaves, which are often curled like those of some gramineæ. Smooth stems
of the palm, which I carefully measured, rose to a height of 190 feet.
The palm diminishes in size and beauty as it recedes from the equatorial
towards the temperate zones. Europe owns amongst its indigenous trees
only one representative of this form of vegetation, the dwarfish coast
palm (_Chamæops_), which, in Spain and Italy, is found as far north as
44° lat. The true palm climate has a mean annual temperature of 78° to
81°.5 Fahr., but the date-palm, which has been brought to us from
Africa, and is less beautiful than other species of this family,
vegetates in the south of Europe in districts whose mean temperature is
only from 59° to 62°.4 Fahr. Stems of palms and skeletons of elephants
are found buried in the interior of the earth in Northern Europe; their
position renders it probable that they were not drifted from the tropics
towards the north, but that, in the great revolutions of our planet,
climates, and the physiognomy of nature which is regulated by climate,
have been, in many respects, altered.
In all regions of the earth the palm is found associated with the
plantain or banana; the _Scitamineæ_ and _Musaceæ_ of botanists,
_Heliconia_, _Amomum_, and _Strelitzia_. This form has a low, succulent,
and almost herbaceous stem, the summit of which is crowned with
delicately striped, silky, shining leaves of a thin and loose texture.
Groves of bananas form the ornament of humid regions; and on their fruit
the natives of the torrid zone chiefly depend for subsistence. Like the
farinaceous cereals or corn-yielding plants of the north, the banana has
accompanied man from the earliest infancy of his civilization[86]. By
some Semitic traditions the primitive seat of these nutritious tropical
plants has been placed on the shores of the Euphrates, and by others,
with greater probability, in India, at the foot of the Himalaya
mountains. Greek legends cite the plains of Enna as the home of the
cereals. Whilst, however, the cereals, spread by culture over the
northern regions, in monotonous and far extending tracts, add but little
to the beauty of the landscape; the inhabitant of the tropics, on the
other hand, is enabled, by the propagation of the banana, to multiply
one of the noblest and most lovely of vegetable productions.
The form of the Malvaceæ[87] and Bombaceæ, represented by _Ceiba_,
_Cavanillesia_, and the Mexican hand tree (_Cheirostemon_), has
immensely thick stems, with lanuginous, large, cordate, or indented
leaves, and magnificent flowers, frequently of a purple-red. To this
group belongs the Baobab, or monkey bread-tree, _Adansonia digitata_,
which, with a moderate height, has occasionally a diameter of 32
feet,[JB] and may probably be regarded as at once the largest and most
ancient organic memorial of our planet. The Malvaceæ already begin to
impart to the vegetation of Italy a peculiarly southern character.
The temperate zone in our old continent unfortunately is wholly devoid
of the delicately pinnate Mimosas[88], whose predominating forms are
_Acacia_, _Desmanthus_, _Gleditschia_, _Porleria_, and _Tamarindus_.
This beautiful form occurs in the United States of North America, where,
under equal parallels of latitude, vegetation is more varied and
luxuriant than in Europe. The Mimosas are generally characterised, like
the Italian pine, by an umbellate expansion of their branches. An
extremely picturesque effect is produced by the deep blue of a tropical
sky gleaming through the delicate tracery of their foliage.
Heaths[89], which more especially belong to an African group of plants,
include, according to physiognomic character and general appearance, the
Epacrideæ and Diosmeæ, many Proteaceæ, and the Australian Acacias, which
have no leaves but mere flattened petioles (phyllodia). This group bears
some resemblance to acicular-leaved forms, with which it contrasts the
more gracefully by the abundance of its campanulate blossoms. The
arborescent heaths, like some few other African plants, extend as far as
the northern shores of the Mediterranean. They adorn the plains of
Italy, and the Cistus groves of southern Spain, but I have nowhere seen
them growing more luxuriantly than on the declivities of the Peak of
Teyde at Teneriffe. In the countries bordering on the Baltic, and
further northward, the appearance of this form of plants is regarded
with apprehension, as the precursor of drought and barrenness. Our
heaths, _Erica (Calluna) vulgaris_, and _Erica tetralix_, _E. carnea_
and _E. cinerea_, are social plants, against whose extension
agricultural nations have contended for centuries, with but little
success. It is singular that the principal representative of this family
should be peculiar to one side of our planet alone. There is only one of
the three hundred known species of _Erica_ to be met with in the new
continent, from Pennsylvania and Labrador to Nootka Sound and Alaschka.
The _Cactus_ form[90], on the other hand, is almost peculiar to the new
continent; it is sometimes globular, sometimes articulated, sometimes
rising in tall polygonal columns not unlike organ-pipes. This group
forms the most striking contrast with the Lily and Banana families, and
belongs to that class of plants which Bernardin de St. Pierre
felicitously terms vegetable fountains of the Desert. In the parched
arid plains of South America, the thirsting animals eagerly seek the
_Melon-cactus_, a globular plant half-buried in the dry sand, whose
succulent interior is concealed by formidable prickles. The stems of the
columnar cactus attain a height of more than 30 feet; their
candelabra-like ramifications, frequently covered with lichens,
reminding the traveller, by some analogy in their physiognomy, of
certain of the African Euphorbias.
While these plants form green Oases in the barren desert, the
Orchideæ[91] shed beauty over the most desolate rocky clefts, and the
seared and blackened stems of those tropical trees which have been
discoloured by the action of light. The _Vanilla_ form is distinguished
by its light green succulent leaves, and by its variegated and
singularly shaped blossoms. Some of the orchideous flowers resemble in
shape winged insects, while others look like birds, attracted by the
fragrance of the honey vessels. An entire life would not suffice to
enable an artist, although limiting himself to the specimens afforded by
one circumscribed region, to depict the splendid Orchideæ which
embellish the deep alpine valleys of the Peruvian Andes.
The form of the Casuarineæ[92], leafless, like almost all the species of
Cactus, comprises a group of trees having branches resembling the
Equisetum, and is peculiar to the islands of the Pacific and to the East
Indies. Traces of this type, which is certainly more singular than
beautiful, may however be found in other regions of the earth. Plumier’s
_Equisetum altissimum_, Forskäl’s _Ephedra aphylla_ of North Africa, the
Peruvian _Colletia_, and the Siberian _Calligonum Pallasia_, are nearly
allied to the form of the Casuarinas.
While the Banana form presents us with the greatest degree of expansion,
the Casuarinas and the acicular-leaved[93] trees exhibit the greatest
contraction of the leaf-vessels. Pines, Thujas, and Cypresses constitute
a northern form but rarely met with in the tropics and in some coniferæ
(_Dammara Salisburia_), the leaves are both broad and acicular. Their
evergreen foliage enlivens the gloom of the dreary winter landscape,
while it proclaims to the natives of the polar regions that, although
snow and ice cover the surface, the inner life of plants, like the
Promethean fire, is never wholly extinct on our planet.
Besides the Orchideæ, the Pothos tribe of plants[94] also yields a
graceful covering to the aged stems of forest trees in the tropical
world, like the parasitic mosses and lichens of our own climes. Their
succulent herbaceous stalks are furnished with large leaves,
arrow-shaped, digitate, or elongated, and invariably furnished with
thick veins. The blossoms of the Aroideæ are inclosed in spathes, by
which their vital heat is increased; they are stemless, and send forth
aërial roots. Pothos, Dracontium, Caladium, and Arum are all kindred
forms; and the last-named extends as far as the coasts of the
Mediterranean, contributing, together with succulent Tussilago
(Coltsfoot), high thistles, and the Acanthus, to give a luxuriant
southern character to the vegetation of Spain and Italy.
This Arum form is associated, in the torrid regions of South America,
with the tropical _Lianes_ or creeping plants[95], which exhibit the
utmost luxuriance of vegetation in Paullinias, Banisterias, Bignonias,
and Passion-flowers. Our tendrilled hops and vines remind us of this
tropical form. On the Orinoco the leafless branches of the Bauhinia are
often upwards of 40 feet in length, sometimes hanging perpendicularly
from the summit of lofty Swieteniæ, (Mahogany trees), sometimes
stretched obliquely like ropes from a mast; along these the tiger-cat
may be seen climbing to and fro with wonderful agility.
The self-sustaining form of the bluish-flowered Aloe tribe[96] presents
a marked contrast to the pliant climbing lianes with their fresh and
brilliant verdure. When there is a stem it is almost branchless, closely
marked with spiral rings, and surrounded by a crown of succulent,
fleshy, long-pointed leaves, which radiate from a centre. The
lofty-stemmed aloe does not grow in clusters like other social plants,
but stands isolated in the midst of dreary solitudes, imparting to the
tropical landscape a peculiar melancholy (one might almost say African)
character.
To this aloe form belong, in reference to physiognomic resemblance and
the impression they produce on the landscape: the Pitcairnias, from the
family of the Bromeliaceæ, which in the chain of the Andes grow out of
clefts in the rock; the great _Pournetia pyramidata_ (the _Atschupalla_
of the elevated plateaux of New Grenada); the American aloe (Agave),
_Bromelia Ananas_ and _B. Karatas_; those rare species of the family of
the Euphorbiaceæ, which have thick, short, candelabra-like divided
stems; the African aloe, and the Dragon tree, _Dracæna Draco_, of the
family of the Asphodeleæ; and lastly the tall flowering Yucca, allied to
the Liliaceæ.
While the Aloe form is characterised by an air of solemn repose and
immobility, the grass form[97], especially as regards the physiognomy of
the arborescent grasses, is expressive of buoyant lightness and flexible
slenderness. In both the Indies, bamboo groves form arched and shady
walks.
The smooth and often inclined and waving stem of the tropical grasses
exceeds in height our alders and oaks. As far north as Italy, this form
already begins, in the _Arundo Donax_, to raise itself from the ground,
and to determine, by height as well as mass, the natural character of
the country.
The form of Ferns[98], like that of grasses, also assumes nobler
dimensions in the torrid regions of the earth, and the arborescent
ferns, which frequently attain the height of above forty feet, have a
palm-like appearance, although their stem is thicker, shorter, and more
rough and scaly, than that of the palm. The leaf is more delicate, of a
loose and more transparent texture, and sharply serrated on the margins.
These colossal ferns belong almost exclusively to the tropics, but there
they prefer the temperate localities. As in these latitudes diminution
of heat is merely the consequence of an increase of elevation, we may
regard mountains that rise 2000 or 3000 feet above the level of the sea
as the principal seat of these plants. Arborescent ferns grow in South
America, side by side with that beneficent tree whose stem yields the
febrifuge bark, and both forms of vegetation are indicative of the happy
region where reigns the genial mildness of perpetual spring.
I have now to mention the form of the Liliaceous plants[99],
_Amaryllis_, _Ixia_, _Gladiolus_, and _Pancratium_, with their flag-like
leaves and splendid blossoms, the principal home of which is Southern
Africa; also the Willow form[100], which is indigenous in all latitudes,
and is represented in the plateaux of Quito, not by the shape of its
leaves, but in the form of its ramification, in Schinus Molle; also the
Myrtle-form[101] (_Metrosideros_, _Eucalyptus_, _Escallonia
myrtelloides_); Melastomaceæ[102]; and the Laurel form[103].
It would be an undertaking worthy of a great artist to study the
character of all these vegetable groups, not in hothouses, or from the
descriptions of botanists, but on the grand theatre of tropical nature.
How interesting and instructive to the landscape painter[104] would be a
work that should present to the eye accurate delineations of the sixteen
principal forms enumerated, both individually and in collective
contrast! What can be more picturesque than the arborescent Ferns, which
spread their tender foliage above the Mexican laureloak! what more
charming than the aspect of banana-groves, shaded by those lofty
grasses, the Guadua and Bamboo! It is peculiarly the privilege of the
artist to separate these into groups, and thus the beautiful images of
nature, if we may be permitted the simile, resolve themselves beneath
his touch, like the written works of man, into a few simple elements.
It is beneath the glowing rays of a tropical sun, that the noblest forms
of vegetation are developed. In the cold North the bark of trees is
covered only with dry lichens and mosses, while beneath the tropics the
Cymbidium and the fragrant Vanilla adorn the trunks of the Anacardias
and the gigantic Fig-tree. The fresh green of the Pothos leaves and of
the Dracontias contrast with the many coloured blossoms of the Orchideæ;
climbing Bauhinias, Passion-flowers and golden flowered Banisterias
encircle every tree of the forest. Delicate blossoms unfold themselves
from the roots of the _Theobroma_, and from the thick and rough bark of
the _Crescentia_ and _Gustavia_[105]. Amid this luxuriant abundance of
flowers and foliage, amid this exuberance and tangled web of creeping
plants, it is often difficult for the naturalist to recognise the stems
to which the various leaves and blossoms belong. A single tree, adorned
with Paullinias, Bignonias, and Dendrobias, forms a group of plants,
which, separated from each other, would cover a considerable space of
ground.
In the tropics, plants are more succulent, of a fresher green, and have
larger and more glossy leaves, than in the northern regions. Social
plants, which give such a character of uniformity to European
vegetation, are almost wholly absent in the equatorial zone. Trees,
almost twice as high as our oaks, there bloom with flowers as large and
splendid as our lilies. On the shady banks of the Magdalena River, in
South America, grows a climbing _Aristolochia_, whose blossoms,
measuring four feet in circumference, the Indian children sportively
draw on their heads as caps[106]. In the South Indian Archipelago, the
flower of the Rafflesia is nearly three feet in diameter, and weighs
above fourteen pounds.
The extraordinary height to which not only individual mountains but even
whole districts rise in tropical regions, and the consequent cold of
such elevations, affords the inhabitant of the tropics a singular
spectacle. For besides his own palms and bananas, he is surrounded by
those vegetable forms which would seem to belong solely to northern
latitudes. Cypresses, pines, and oaks, barberry shrubs and alders
(nearly allied to our own species) cover the mountain plains of Southern
Mexico and the chain of the Andes at the equator. Thus nature has
permitted the native of the torrid zone to behold all the vegetable
forms of the earth without quitting his own clime, even as are revealed
to him the luminous worlds which spangle the firmament from pole to
pole[107].
These and many other of the enjoyments which nature affords are denied
to the nations of the North. Many constellations and many vegetable
forms, including more especially the most beautiful productions of the
earth (palms, tree-ferns, bananas, arborescent grasses, and delicately
feathered mimosas), remain for ever unknown to them; for the puny plants
pent up in our hothouses, give but a faint idea of the majestic
vegetation of the tropics. But the rich development of our language, the
glowing fancy of the poet, and the imitative art of the painter, afford
us abundant compensation; and enable the imagination to depict in vivid
colours the images of an exotic Nature. In the frigid North, amid barren
heaths, the solitary student may appropriate all that has been
discovered in the most remote regions of the earth, and thus create
within himself a world as free and imperishable as the spirit from which
it emanates.
ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
Footnote 71:
p. 210—“_On the Chimborazo, upwards of eight thousand feet higher than
Etna_.”
Small singing birds, and even butterflies, (as I have myself witnessed
in the Pacific,) are often met with at great distances from the shore,
during storms blowing off land. In a similar manner insects are
involuntarily carried into the higher regions of the atmosphere, to an
elevation of 17,000 to 19,000 feet above the plains. The light bodies
of these insects are borne upwards by the vertically ascending
currents of air caused by the heated condition of the earth’s surface.
M. Boussingault, an admirable chemist, who ascended the Gneiss
Mountains of Caracas, while holding the appointment of Professor in
the newly established Mining Academy at Santa Fé de Bogotá, witnessed,
during his ascent to the summit of the Silla, a phenomenon which
confirmed in a most remarkable manner this vertical ascent of air. He
and his companion, Don Mariano de Rivero, observed at noon a number of
luminous whitish bodies rise from the valley of Caracas to the summit
of the Silla, an elevation of 5755 feet, and then sink towards the
adjacent sea coast. This phenomenon was uninterruptedly prolonged for
a whole hour, when it was discovered that the bodies, at first
mistaken for a flock of small birds, were a number of minute balls of
grass-haums. Boussingault sent me some of this grass, which was
immediately recognised by Professor Kunth as a species of Vilfa, a
genus of grass which together with Agrostis is of frequent occurrence
in the provinces of Caracas and Cumana. It was the _Vilfa tenacissima_
of our _Synopsis Plantarum æquinoctialium Orbis Novi_, t. i. p. 205.
Saussure found butterflies on Mont Blanc, and Ramond observed them in
the solitudes around the summit of Mont Perdu. When MM. Bonpland,
Carlos Montufar, and myself, on the 23rd of June, 1802, ascended the
eastern declivity of Mount Chimborazo, to a height of 19,286 feet, and
where the barometer had fallen to 14·84 inches, we found winged
insects buzzing around us. We recognised them to be Diptera,
resembling flies, but it was impossible to catch these insects
standing on the rocky ledges (_cuchilla_), often less than a foot in
breadth, and between masses of snow precipitated from above. The
elevation at which we observed these insects was almost the same as
that in which the naked trachytic rock, which projected from the
eternal snows around, exhibited the last traces of vegetation in
Lecidea geographica. These insects were flying at an elevation of
18,225 feet, or nearly 2660 feet higher than the summit of Mont Blanc:
and somewhat below this height, at an elevation of 16,626 feet, and
therefore also above the region of snow, M. Bonpland saw yellow
butterflies flying close to the ground. The mammalia which live
nearest to the region of perpetual snow, are, in the Swiss Alps, the
hybernating marmot, and a very small field-mouse, (Hypudæus nivalis,)
described by Martius, which on the Faulhorn lays up, almost under the
snow, a store of the roots of phanerogamic alpine plants.[JC] The
opinion prevalent in Europe, that the beautiful rodent, the
Chinchilla, whose soft and glossy fur is so much esteemed, is found in
the highest mountain regions of Chili, is an error. The Chinchilla
laniger (Gray) lives only in a mild lower zone, and does not advance
further south than the parallel of 35°.[JD]
Whilst among our European Alps, Lecideas, Parmelias, and Umbilicarias
but scantily clothe with a few coloured patches those rocks that are
not wholly covered with snow, we found in the Andes, at elevations of
13,700 to nearly 15,000 feet, some phanerogamic plants which we were
the first to describe; as for instance, the woolly species of
Fraylejon. (Culcitium nivale, C. rufescens, and C. reflexum, Espeletia
grandiflora, and E. argentea), Sida pichinchensis, Ranunculus
nubigenus, R. Gusmanni with red or orange-coloured flowers, the small
moss-like umbelliferous plant, Myrrhis andicola, and Fragosa
arctioides. On the declivity of the Chimborazo, the Saxifraga
Boussingaulti, described by Adolph Brongniart, grows beyond the limits
of perpetual snow on loose blocks of stone at an elevation of 15,770
feet above the level of the sea, and not at 17,000 as has been stated
in two admirable English journals.[JE] This Saxifrage, discovered by
Boussingault, must therefore be regarded as the highest growing
phanerogamic plant in the world.
The vertical height of Chimborazo is, according to my measurement,
21,422 feet.[JF] This result is a mean between those which have been
given by the French and Spanish Academicians. The principal
differences do not here depend on different assumptions for the
refraction, but on a difference in reducing the measured line to the
level of the sea. This reduction can only be made in the Andes by the
barometer, and hence every so-called trigonometric measurement must
also necessarily be a barometric one, whose result will vary according
to the different formulæ employed. Owing to the enormous mass of the
mountain chain, we can only obtain very small angles of altitude, when
the greater portion of the whole height has to be measured
trigonometrically, and the observation is made at some low and distant
point near the plain or the level of the sea. It is on the other hand
extremely difficult to obtain a convenient base line, as the space
that is to be determined barometrically increases with every step we
advance towards the mountain. These obstacles have to be encountered
by every traveller who on the high table-lands, which surround the
summit of the Andes, selects a spot for performing a geodetic
operation. On the pumice-covered plain of Tapia, to the west of the
Rio Chambo, at a height of 9477 feet, barometrically determined, I
measured the Chimborazo. The Llanos de Luisa, and more especially the
plain of Sisgun, whose elevation is 12,150 feet, would yield greater
angles of altitude. I had on one occasion made every preparation
necessary for the measurement of Mount Chimborazo, from the plain of
Sisgun, when the summit of the mountain was suddenly shrouded in a
dense cloud.
Some hypothetical suggestions, regarding the probable derivation of
the name of the far-famed “Chimborazo,” may not be wholly unwelcome to
etymologists. The district in which the mountain is situated is called
Chimbo, a word which La Condamine[JG] derives from _chimpani_, to
cross a river. “Chimboraço” means, according to him, “the snow of the
opposite bank,” from the fact of a brook being crossed at the village
of Chimbo, in sight of the huge snow-covered mountain. (In the Quichua
language _chimpa_ signifies the opposite bank or side; _chimpani_ to
cross a river, bridge, &c.) Several natives of the province of Quito
assured me that Chimborazo meant simply the snow of Chimbo. In
Carguairazo we meet with the same termination, and it would appear
that “razo” is a provincial word. The Jesuit Holguin, whose excellent
vocabulary[JH] I possess, is not acquainted with the word razo. The
genuine term for snow is ritti. On the other hand, my friend,
Professor Buschmann, an admirable linguist, remarks that in the
Chinchaysuyo dialect, (employed north of Cuzco as far as Quito and
Pasto) raju, the _j_ being apparently guttural, signifies snow.[JI] As
chimpa and chimpani do not well suit on account of the _a_, we may
seek a definite meaning for the first portion of the name of the
mountain and of the village Chimbo, in the Quichua word “chimpu,”
which is used to express a coloured thread or fringe (señal de lana,
hilo ó borlilla de colores); the redness of the sky (arreboles), and
the halo round the sun and moon. The name of the mountain might be
thus derived from this word, without reference to the district or
village. At all events, whatever may be the etymology of the word
Chimborazo, it should be written in the Peruvian manner Chimporazo, as
the Peruvians have no _b_ in their alphabet.
May not the name of this colossal mountain be wholly independent of
the Inca language, and have come down from a bygone age? The Inca or
Quichua language had not been introduced long prior to the Spanish
invasion into the kingdom of Quito, where the now wholly extinct
Puruay language had been previously used. The names of other
mountains, as Pichincha, Ilinissa, and Cotopaxi, are wholly devoid of
meaning in the language of the Incas, and are therefore undoubtedly of
higher antiquity than the introduction of the worship of the sun, and
of the court-language of the rulers of Cuzco. The names of mountains
and rivers belong in all regions of the earth to the most ancient and
authentic relics of languages; and my brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt,
in his investigations into the former distribution of the Iberian
races, has made ingenious use of these names. A singular and
unexpected statement has recently been made,[JJ] “that the Incas,
Tupac Yupanqui, and Huayna Capac, were astonished on their first
conquest of Quito, to find a dialect of their Quichua language in use
among the natives.” Prescott, however, seems to regard this as a very
bold assertion.[JK]
If we could suppose the pass of St. Gothard, Mount Athos, or the Rigi,
piled on the summit of the Chimborazo, we should have the elevation
which is at present ascribed to the Dhawalagiri in the Himalaya. The
geologist who regards the interior of our planet from a more general
point of view, and to whom not the directions, but the relative
heights of the rocky projections, which we designate mountain chains,
appear but as phenomena of little importance, will not be astonished
if at some future period mountain summits should be discovered between
the Himalaya and the Altai, which should surpass in height those of
Dhawalagiri and Djawahir as much as these exceed that of
Chimborazo.[JL] The great height to which the snow-line recedes _in
summer_ on the northern declivity of the Himalaya, owing to the heat
radiated from the elevated plateaux in Central Asia, renders the
mountain, notwithstanding that it is situated in 29 to 30½° north
lat., as accessible as are the Peruvian Andes in the region of the
tropics. Captain Gerard has moreover recently ascended the Tarhigang
as high, if not 117 feet higher,[JM] than I ascended the Chimborazo.
Unfortunately, as I have elsewhere more fully shown, these mountain
ascents, beyond the line of perpetual snow, however they may engage
the curiosity of the public, are of very little scientific utility.
Footnote 72:
p. 210—“_The Condor, that giant among vultures_.”
I have elsewhere[JN] given the natural history of the Condor, which
before my travels had been variously misstated. The name is properly
_Cuntur_ in the Inca language; _Mañque_ among the Araucanes in Chili;
_Sarcoramphus Condor_ according to Duméril. I sketched the head of
this bird from life, of the natural size, and had my drawing engraved.
Next to the Condor, the Lämmergeier of Switzerland, and the _Falco
destructor_ (Daud.), probably Linnæus’ _Falco Harpyia_, are the
largest of all _flying_ birds.
The region which may be regarded as the common resort of the Condor,
begins at the elevation of Mount Etna. It embraces atmospheric strata
which are from 10,000 to 19,000 feet above the level of the sea.
Humming birds also, which in their summer flights advance as far as
61° north lat. on the western coast of America, and are on the other
hand found in the Archipelago of the Tierra del Fuego, were seen by
Von Tschudi in Puna at an elevation of 14,600 feet.[JO] There is a
pleasure in comparing the largest and the smallest of the feathered
inhabitants of the air. The largest among the Condors found in the
Cordilleras, near Quito, measure nearly 15 feet across the expanded
wings, and the smaller ones 8½ feet. This size, and the visual angle
at which the birds are seen vertically above one’s head, afford an
idea of the enormous height to which the Condor soars in a clear sky.
A visual angle of four minutes, for instance, would give a vertical
elevation of 7330 feet. The cavern (Mackay) of Antisana, opposite the
mountain of Chussulongo, and where we measured the birds soaring over
the chain of the Andes, lies at an elevation of nearly 16,000 feet
above the surface of the Pacific; the absolute height which the Condor
reached must therefore be 23,273 feet, a height at which the barometer
scarcely stands at 12·7 inches; but which, however, does not exceed
that of the loftiest summit of the Himalaya. It is a remarkable
physiological phenomenon that the same bird, which wheels for hours
together through these highly rarefied regions, should be able
suddenly, as for instance on the western declivity of the volcano of
Pichincha, to descend to the sea-shore, and thus in the course of a
few hours traverse, as it were, all climates. At heights of 23,000
feet and upwards the membranous air-sacs of the Condor must undergo a
remarkable degree of inflation after being filled in lower regions of
the atmosphere.
Ulloa, more than a hundred years ago, expressed his astonishment that
the Vulture of the Andes could soar at heights where the pressure of
the atmosphere was less than fifteen inches.[JP] An opinion was at
that time entertained, from the analogy of experiments made with the
air-pump, that no animal could exist under this slight amount of
atmospheric pressure. I have myself, as has already been mentioned,
seen the barometer fall to 14·85 inches on the Chimborazo; and my
friend, M. Gay-Lussac, breathed for a quarter of an hour an atmosphere
in which the pressure was only 12·9 inches. It must be admitted that
man, when wearied by muscular exertion, finds himself in a state of
painful exhaustion at such elevations; but in the Condor, the
respiratory process seems to be performed with equal facility under a
pressure of 30 or of 13 inches. This bird probably raises itself
_voluntarily_ to a greater height from the surface of our earth than
any other living creature. I use the expression “voluntarily,” since
small insects and siliceous-shelled infusoria are frequently borne to
greater elevations by a rising current of air. It is probable that the
Condor flies even higher than the above calculations would appear to
show. I remember observing near the Cotopaxi, in the pumice plain of
Suniguaicu, at an elevation of 14,471 feet above the level of the sea,
this bird soaring at such a height above my head that it appeared like
a black speck. But what is the smallest angle under which faintly
illumined objects can be distinguished? Their form (linear extension)
exercises a great influence on the minimum of this angle. The
transparency of the mountain air is so great under the equator, that
in the province of Quito, as I have elsewhere stated, the white cloak
(_poncho_) of a horseman may be distinguished with the naked eye at a
horizontal distance of 89,664 feet, and therefore under an angle of
thirteen seconds. It was my friend Bonpland whom we observed, from the
pleasant country-seat of the Marques de Selvalegre, moving along a
black rocky precipice on the volcano of Pichincha. Lightning
conductors, being thin elongated objects, are visible, as Arago has
observed, from the greatest distances and under the smallest angles.
The account I have given in my Monograph of the Condor (_Zoologie_,
pp. 26–45) of the habits of this powerful bird in the mountain
districts of Quito and Peru has been confirmed by a more recent
traveller, Gay, who has explored the whole of Chili, and described it
in his admirable work, _Historia fisica y politica de Chile_. This
bird which, singularly enough, like the Lamas, Vicuñas, Alpacas and
Guanacos, is not found beyond the equator in New Granada, penetrates
as far south as the Straits of Magellan. In Chili, as in the elevated
plateaux of Quito, the Condors, which usually live in pairs, or even
alone, congregate in flocks for the purpose of attacking lambs and
calves, or seizing on young Guanacos (Guanacillos). The havoc annually
committed by the Condor among the herds of sheep, goats and cattle, as
well as among the wild vicuñas, alpacas and guanacos of the chain of
the Andes is very considerable. The Chilians assert that this bird
when in captivity can endure hunger for forty days; when in a free
state, however, its voracity is excessive, and it then, like the
vulture, feeds by preference on carrion.
The mode of catching these birds, by an inclosure of palisades such as
I have already described, is as successful in Chili as in Peru, for
the bird after being rendered heavy from excess of food is obliged to
run a short distance with half-extended wings before it can take
flight. A dead ox which is already in an incipient state of
decomposition, is strongly inclosed with palisades, within which
narrow space the Condors throng together; being unable, as already
observed, to fly on account of the excess of food which they have
devoured, and impeded in their run by the palisades, these birds are
either killed by the natives with clubs, or are caught alive by the
lasso. The Condor was represented as a symbol of strength on the
coinage of Chili immediately after the first declaration of political
independence.[JQ]
The different species of Gallinazos, which are much more considerable
in point of numbers than the Condors, are also far more useful than
the latter in the great economy of Nature for destroying and removing
animal substances that are becoming decomposed, and thus purifying the
atmosphere in the neighbourhood of human dwellings. In tropical
America, I have sometimes seen seventy or eighty of these creatures
collected round a dead ox; and I am able, as an eye-witness, to
confirm the fact that has of late erroneously been called in question
by ornithologists, that the appearance of one single king-vulture (who
is not larger than the Gallinazos) is sufficient to put a whole
assemblage of these birds to flight. No contest ever takes place; but
the Gallinazos (two species of which, (Cathartes urubu and C. aura,)
have been confounded together by an unfortunately fluctuating
nomenclature) are intimidated by the sudden appearance and the
courageous demeanour of the richly coloured “_Sarcoramphus Papa_.” As
the ancient Egyptians protected the Percnopteri, which purified the
atmosphere, so also the wanton destruction of Gallinazos is punished
in Peru by a fine (_multa_) which, according to Gay, amounts in some
cities to 300 piastres for every bird. It is a remarkable fact, that
this species of vulture, as was already testified by Don Felix de
Azara, if trained early, will so accustom themselves to the person who
has reared them, that they will follow him on a journey for many
miles, flying after his carriage across the Pampa.
Footnote 73:
p. 211—“_Encloses their rotating bodies_.”
Fontana, in his admirable treatise “on the poison of the viper,” vol.
i. p. 62, mentions that he succeeded in restoring to animation, after
two hours’ immersion in a drop of water, a wheel-animalcule which had
lain in a dried and motionless condition for the space of two years
and a half.[JR]
The so-called reanimation of Rotifera has very recently again been
made a subject of lively discussion, since observations have been
conducted with more exactness and subjected to a stricter criticism.
Baker affirmed that in 1771, he had revived paste-eels which Needham
had given him in the year 1744! Franz Bauer saw his _Vibrio tritici_,
which had lain four years in a dry state, move on being moistened. The
remarkably careful and experienced observer, Doyère,[JS] draws the
following conclusions from his beautiful experiments: that Rotifera
revive, i.e. pass from a motionless state to one of motion, after
being exposed to a cold of 11°.2 Fahr., or to a heat of 113° Fahr.;
that they preserve the property of reviving in dry sand up to a
temperature of 159° Fahr.; but that they lose this property and remain
immoveable if warmed in _moist sand_ to 131° Fahr. only;[JT] and that
the possibility of this so-called revivification is not prevented by
their being exposed to desiccation for twenty-eight days in barometric
tubes, in vacuo, even should chloride of lime or sulphuric acid be
employed.[JU]
Doyère has also seen Rotifera slowly revive after being dried without
sand, (desséchés à nu,) a fact which Spallanzani denies.[JV]
“Desiccation conducted in an ordinary temperature might be open to
many objections which are not perhaps wholly obviated by the
employment of a dry vacuum; but when we observe that the _Tardigrades_
irrevocably perish in a temperature of 131° Fahr. if their tissues are
permeated with water, whereas they can, when dried, support a
temperature that may be estimated at 248° Fahr., we are disposed to
admit that the sole condition required for _animal_ revivification is
the perfect integrity of organic structure and continuity.”
In like manner, the sporules, or germinating cells of cryptogamic
plants, which Kunth compares to the propagation of certain
phanerogamic plants by buds (bulbillæ), retain their power of
germination in the highest temperature. According to the most recent
experiments of Payen, the sporules of a small fungus (Oïdium
aurantiacum), which invests the crumb of bread with a reddish feathery
coating, do not even lose their vegetative powers by being exposed in
closed tubes for half an hour to a temperature of 183° to 208° Fahr.
before being strewn on fresh, unspoilt dough. May not the newly
discovered and wonderful monad (Monas prodigiosa), which causes
blood-like spots in mealy substances, have been mixed with this
fungus?
Ehrenberg, in his great work on Infusoria (p. 492–496), has given the
most complete history of all the observations instituted on the
so-called revivification of Rotifera. He believes, that
notwithstanding all the means of desiccation employed, the
organization-fluid still remains in the apparently dead animal. He
contests the hypothesis of “latent life”; for death, he says, “is not
life in a torpid state, but the absence of life.”
The hybernation or winter-sleep of both warm and coldblooded animals,
as dormice, marmots, sand-martins (_Hirundo riparia_, according to
Cuvier)[JW], and of frogs and toads, affords us evidence of the
diminution, if not of the complete suspension, of the organic
functions. Frogs awakened from their winter-sleep by warmth, can
remain eight times longer under water, without drowning, than frogs in
the breeding season. It seems as if the respiratory functions of the
lungs require a less degree of activity after the long suspension of
their excitability. The circumstance of the sand-martin burying itself
during the winter in marshes, is a phenomenon which, while it scarcely
admits of a doubt, is the more remarkable, because in birds, the
function of respiration is so extremely energetic, that, according to
Lavoisier’s experiments, two sparrows in an ordinary condition will,
in the same time, decompose as much atmospheric air as a
Guinea-pig.[JX] Winter-sleep is not supposed to be general to the
whole species of these sand-martins, but only to some few
individuals.[JY]
As in the frigid zone deprivation of warmth produces winter-sleep in
some animals, so in the torrid regions, within the tropics, an
analogous phenomenon is manifested that has not hitherto been
sufficiently regarded, and to which I have applied the term
_summer-sleep_.[JZ] Drought and a continuous high temperature act like
the cold of winter in reducing excitability. Madagascar, excepting a
very small portion of its southern extremity, lies within the tropics,
and here, as was already observed by Bruguière, the hedgehog-like
Tenrecs (_Centeres_, Illiger), one species of which (_C. ecaudatus_)
was introduced into the Isle of France (20° 9′, latitude), sleep
during excessive heat. The objection advanced by Desjardins, that the
time of their sleep falls within the season of winter in the southern
hemisphere, can scarcely be regarded as applicable in reference to a
country, where the mean temperature of the coldest month is nearly 7°
Fahr. above that of the hottest month in Paris; and this circumstance
cannot therefore change the three months’ summer-sleep of the Tenrec
in Madagascar and Port Louis (Isle of France) into actual hybernation.
In a similar manner, the Crocodile in the Llanos of Venezuela, the
land and water Tortoises on the Orinoco, and the colossal Boa, and
many of the smaller species of serpents, lie torpid and motionless in
the hardened ground, throughout the hot and dry season of the year.
The missionary Gilij relates, that the natives, in seeking the dormant
Terekai (land-tortoises), which lie buried in dry mud to the depth of
16 or 17 inches, are often bitten by serpents suddenly awakened, and
which had buried themselves with the tortoises. An admirable observer,
Dr. Peters, who has only just returned from the eastern coast of
Africa, writes to me as follows: “I could not obtain any certain
information regarding the Tenrec during my short stay in Madagascar,
but I am, on the other hand, well aware, that in the portion of
eastern Africa where I spent several years, different species of
tortoises (Pentonyx and Trionices) remain enclosed for months
together, without food, in the parched and indurated ground, during
the dry season of this tropical country. The _Lepidosiren_ also
remains motionless and coiled up in the hardened earth, from May to
December, wherever the swamps have been dried up.”
We thus meet with an enfeeblement of certain vital functions in
numerous and very different classes of animals, and, what is
peculiarly striking, without the same phenomenon presenting itself in
organisms nearly allied, and belonging to one and the same family. The
northern glutton (Gulo), allied to the badger (Meles), does not, like
the latter, sleep during the winter; whilst, according to Cuvier, “a
Myoxus (Dormouse of Senegal, Myoxus Coupeii) which had probably never
experienced a winter-sleep in its tropical home, fell into a state of
hybernation at the beginning of winter, the first year it was brought
to Europe.” This enfeeblement of the vital functions and vital
activity passes through several gradations, according as it extends to
the processes of nutrition, respiration and muscular movement, or
induces a depression of the cerebral and nervous systems. The
winter-sleep of the solitary bear and of the badger is not attended
with rigidity, and hence the awakening of these animals is easy, and,
as I frequently heard in Siberia, very dangerous to the hunters and
country people. The recognition of the gradation and connection of
these phenomena leads us to the so-called _vita minima_ of the
microscopic organisms, which occasionally fall in the Atlantic in
showers of meteoric dust, and some of which have green ovaries and are
engaged in a self-generating process. The apparent revivification of
the Rotifera and of the siliceous-shelled Infusoria is only the
renewal of long enfeebled vital functions—a condition of vitality
never entirely extinguished, but merely revived by excitation.
Physiological phenomena can only be comprehended by being traced
through the entire series of analogous modifications.
Footnote 74:
p. 211—“_Winged Insects_.”
The fructification of diœcious plants was at one time principally
ascribed to the agency of the wind. It has been shown by Kölreuter,
and also with much ingenuity by Sprengel, that bees, wasps and
numerous small winged insects, are the main agents in this process. I
use the phrase “main agents”, since I cannot regard it as consonant to
nature that fructification should be impossible without the
intervention of these insects, as Willdenow has also fully shewn.[KA]
On the other hand dichogamy, sap-marks, (_maculæ indicantes_),
coloured spots indicating the presence of honey-vessels, and
fructification by insects, appear to be almost inseparable from one
another.[KB]
The statement often repeated since Spallanzani, that the diœcious
common hemp (_Cannabis sativa_), which was introduced into Europe from
Persia, bears ripe seeds without being in the neighbourhood of
pollen-tubes, has been entirely refuted by more recent investigations.
When seeds have been obtained, anthers in a rudimentary state have
been found near the ovarium, and these may have been capable of
yielding some grains of fructifying pollen. Such hermaphrodism is
frequent in the whole family of _Urticeæ_, but a singular and hitherto
unexplained phenomenon is manifested in the forcing-houses at Kew by a
small New Holland shrub, the Cœlebogyne of Smith. This phanerogamic
plant brings forth seeds in England without exhibiting any trace of
male organs, and without the bastard introduction of the pollen of any
other plant. “A species of Euphorbiaceæ,” (?) writes the distinguished
botanist, Jussieu, “the _Cœlebogyne_, which, although but recently
described, has been cultivated for many years in English
conservatories, has several times borne seeds, which were evidently
perfect, since the well-formed embryos they contained have produced
similar plants. The most careful observations have hitherto failed in
discovering the slightest trace of anthers or even pollen in the
flowers, which are diœcious. No male plants of this kind are known to
exist in England. The embryo cannot therefore have come from the
pollen, which is wholly deficient, but must have been formed entirely
in the ovule.”[KC]
In order to obtain a fresh and confirmatory explanation of this
important and isolated physiological phenomenon, I lately addressed
myself to my young friend, Dr. Joseph Hooker, who after having
accompanied Sir James Ross in his Antarctic voyage, has now joined the
great Thibeto-Himalayan expedition. Dr. Hooker wrote to me as follows
from Alexandria, at the close of December, 1847, prior to his
embarkation at Suez: “Our Cœlebogyne still flowers with my father at
Kew, as well as in the Gardens of the Horticultural Society. It ripens
its seeds regularly. I have repeatedly examined it with care, but have
never been able to discover a penetration of pollen utricles into the
stigma, nor any traces of their presence in the latter or in the
style. In my herbarium the male blossoms are in small catkins.”
Footnote 75:
p. 212—“_Like luminous stars_.”
The phosphorescence of the ocean is one of those splendid phenomena of
nature which excite our admiration, even when we behold its recurrence
every night for months together. The ocean is phosphorescent in all
zones of the earth, but he who has not witnessed the phenomenon in the
tropics, and especially in the Pacific, can form but a very imperfect
idea of the majesty of this brilliant spectacle. The traveller on
board a man-of-war, when ploughing the foaming waves before a fresh
breeze, feels that he can scarcely satisfy himself with gazing on the
spectacle presented by the circling waves. Wherever the ship’s side
rises above the waves, bluish or reddish flames seem to flash
lightning-like upwards from the keel. The appearance presented in the
tropical seas on a dark night is indescribably glorious, when shoals
of dolphins are seen sporting around, and cutting the foaming waves in
long and circling lines, gleaming with bright and sparkling light. In
the Gulf of Cariaco, between Cumana and the Peninsula of Maniquarez, I
have spent hours in enjoying this spectacle.
Le Gentil and the elder Forster ascribed these flames to the
electrical friction of the water on the vessel as it glides forward—an
explanation that must, in the present condition of our physical
knowledge, be regarded as untenable.[KD]
There are probably few subjects of natural investigation which have
excited so many and such long-continued contentions as the
phosphorescence of sea-water. All that is known with certainty
regarding this much disputed question may be reduced to the following
simple facts. There are many luminous mollusca which possess the
property when alive of emitting at will a faint phosphoric light;
which is of a bluish tinge in _Nereis noctiluca_, _Medusa pelagica
var._ β,[KE] and in the pipe-like _Monophora noctiluca_, discovered in
Baudin’s expedition.[KF] The luminosity of sea-water is in part owing
to living light-bearing animals, and in part to the organic fibres and
membranes of the same, when in a state of decomposition. The
first-named of these causes of the phosphorescence of the ocean is
undoubtedly the most common and the most widely diffused. The more
actively and the more efficiently that travellers engaged in the study
of nature have learnt to employ powerful microscopes, the more our
zoological systems have been enriched by new groups of mollusca and
infusoria, whose property of emitting light either at will or from
external stimulus has been recognised.
The luminosity of the sea, as far as it depends on living organisms,
is principally owing, among zoophytes, to the Acalephæ (the families
of Medusæ and Cyaneæ), to some Mollusca, and to an innumerable host of
Infusoria. Among the small Acalephæ (Sea-nettles), the _Mammaria
scintillans_ presents us, as it were, with the glorious image of the
starry firmament reflected in the surface of the sea. When full-grown
this little creature scarcely equals in size the head of a pin. The
existence of siliceous-shelled luminous infusoria was first shown by
Michaelis at Kiel. He observed the coruscation of the Peridinium. (a
ciliated animalcule,) of the Cuirass-monad (_Prorocentrum micans_),
and of a rotifer, which he named Synchata baltica,[KG] the same that
Focke subsequently found in the lagoons of Venice. My distinguished
friend and fellow traveller in Siberia, Ehrenberg, succeeded in
keeping two luminous Infusoria of the Baltic alive for nearly two
months at Berlin. I examined them with him in 1832; and saw them
coruscate in a drop of sea-water on the darkened field of the
microscope. When these luminous Infusoria (the largest of which was
only ⅛ and the smallest from ¹⁄₄₈ to ¹⁄₉₆ of a of a Parisian line in
length) were exhausted, and ceased to emit sparks, they would renew
their flashing on being stimulated by the addition of acids or by the
application of a little alcohol to the sea-water.
By repeatedly filtering fresh sea-water, Ehrenberg succeeded in
procuring a fluid in which a large number of these light-emitting
animalcules were accumulated.[KH] This acute observer has found in the
organs of the Photocharis which give off flashes of light (either
voluntarily or when stimulated), a cellular structure of a gelatinous
character in the interior, and which manifests some similarity with
the electric organ of the Gymnotus and the Torpedo. “When the
Photocharis is irritated, in each cirrus a kindling and a gleaming of
separate sparks may be observed, which gradually increase and at
length illuminate the whole cirrus; until the living flame runs also
over the back of this nereid-like animalcule, making it appear under
the microscope like a burning thread of sulphur with a greenish-yellow
light. In the _Oceania (Thaumanthias) hemisphærica_, the number and
position of the sparks correspond accurately, at the thickened base,
with the larger cirri or organs which alternate with them, a
circumstance that merits special attention. The manifestation of this
wreath of fire is an act of vitality, and the whole development of
light an organic vital process, which exhibits itself in Infusorial
animals as a momentary spark of light, and is repeated after short
intervals of rest.”[KI]
The luminous animals of the ocean appear, from these conjectures, to
prove the existence of a magneto-electric light-generating vital
process in other classes of animals besides fishes, insects, mollusca,
and acalephæ. Is the secretion of the luminous fluid which is effused
in some animalcules, and which continues to shine for a long period
_without further influence of the living organism_ (as, for instance,
in Lampyrides and Elaterides, in the German and Italian glow-worms,
and in the South American Cucuyo of the sugar-cane), merely the
consequence of the first electric discharge, or is it simply dependent
on chemical composition? The luminosity of insects surrounded by air
assuredly depends on physiological causes different from those which
give rise to a luminous condition in aquatic animals, fishes, Medusæ,
and Infusoria. The small Infusoria of the ocean, being surrounded by
strata of salt-water which constitutes a powerful conducting medium,
must be capable of an enormous electric tension of their flashing
organs to enable them to shine so vividly in the water. They strike
like the Torpedo, the Gymnotus, and the Electric Silurus of the Nile,
through the stratum of water: whilst electric fishes which, in
connection with the galvanic circuit, are capable of decomposing
water, and of imparting magnetic power to steel needles. (as I showed
more than half a century ago,[KJ] and as John Davy has more recently
confirmed,[KK]) yield no indications of electricity through the
smallest intervening stratum of flame.
The considerations which we have here developed render it probable
that one and the same process operates, alike in the smallest living
organisms invisible to the naked eye, in the contests of the
serpent-like Gymnoti, in the flashing luminous Infusoria which impart
such glorious brilliancy to the phosphorescence of the sea, in the
thunder-cloud and in the terrestrial or polar light (the silent
magnetic flashes), which, caused by an increased tension of the
interior of the earth, are announced, for some hours previously, by
the sudden variations of the magnetic needle.[KL]
Sometimes one cannot, even with high magnifying powers, discover any
animalcules in the luminous water; and yet, wherever a wave breaks in
foam against a hard body, and, indeed, wherever water is violently
agitated, flashes of light become visible. The cause of this
phenomenon depends probably on the decomposing fibres of dead
Mollusca, which are diffused in the greatest abundance throughout the
water. If this luminous water be filtered through finely woven cloths,
the fibres and membranes appear like separate luminous points. When we
bathed at Cumana, in the gulf of Cariaco, and walked naked on the
solitary beach in the beautiful evening air, parts of our bodies
remained luminous from the bright fibres and organic membranes which
adhered to the skin, nor did they lose this light for some minutes. If
we consider the enormous quantity of Mollusca which animate all
tropical seas, we can hardly wonder that sea-water should be luminous,
even where no fibres can be visibly separated from it. From the
endless subdivision of the masses of dead _Dagysæ_ and _Medusæ_ the
whole ocean may, in fact, be regarded as a fluid containing gelatine,
and, as such, luminous and of a nauseous taste; unfit for the use of
man, but capable of affording nourishment to many species of fish. On
rubbing a board with a portion of the _Medusa hysocella_, the surface
thus rubbed recovers its phosphorescence when friction is applied by
means of the dry finger. During my voyage to South America I
occasionally placed a Medusa on a tin plate, and I then observed that
if I struck the plate with another metallic substance the slightest
vibrations of the tin were sufficient to cause the animal to emit
light. How do the blow and the vibrations here act? Is the temperature
momentarily augmented, or are new surfaces presented? or, again, does
some gaseous matter such as phosphuretted hydrogen, exude in
consequence of this impulse, and burn when it comes in contact with
the oxygen of the atmosphere, or with that dissolved in the sea-water,
and by which the respiration of the Mollusca is maintained? This
light-exciting effect of the blow is most remarkable in a cross or
sugar-loaf sea, (_mer clapoteuse_,) where the waves, clashing from
opposite directions, rise in a conical form.
I have seen the ocean, in the tropics, luminous in the most opposite
kinds of weather, but most strongly so before a storm, or in a sultry
and hazy atmosphere with thick clouds. Heat and cold appear to
exercise but little influence on this phenomenon, for, on the Bank of
Newfoundland, the phosphorescence is frequently very brilliant in the
severest winter. Occasionally, too, the sea will be highly luminous
one night, and not at all so on the following, notwithstanding an
apparent identity of external conditions. Does the atmosphere favour
this development of light? or do all the differences observed during
this phenomenon depend on the accidental circumstance of the sea being
more or less impregnated, in some parts, with the gelatinous portions
of mollusca? Perhaps these phosphorescent social animalcules only rise
to the surface under certain conditions of the atmosphere. It has been
asked, why our fresh-water swamps which are filled with polyps are not
phosphorescent. It would appear that, both in animals and plants, a
peculiar mixture of organic particles favours this development of
light; thus, for instance, the wood of the willow is more frequently
found to be luminous than that of the oak. In England, salt-water has
been rendered luminous by mixing herring-brine with it; indeed, it
will be easy for any one to convince himself by galvanic experiments,
that the luminosity of living animals depends on nervous irritation. I
have observed strong phosphorescence emitted from a dying _Elater
noctilucus_, on touching the ganglion of its fore leg with zinc and
silver. Medusæ also occasionally emit a stronger light at the moment
the galvanic circuit is completed.[KM]
Footnote 76:
p. 213—“_Which inhabits the lungs of the Rattlesnake of the tropics_.”
The animal which I formerly named an _Echinorhynchus_, and to which I
even applied the term _Porocephalus_, appears, on a closer inspection,
according to Rudolphi’s better grounded opinion, to belong to the
division of _Pentastoma_.[KN] It is found in the abdominal cavity and
the wide-celled lungs of a species of _Crotalus_, which, in Cumana,
occasionally infests even the interior of houses, and preys on mice.
The _Ascaris lumbrici_[KO] lives beneath the skin of the common
earth-worm, and is the smallest of all the species of Ascaris.
_Leucophra nodulata_, Gleichen’s pearl animalcule, has been observed
by Otto Friedrich Müller in the interior of the reddish _Nais
littoralis_.[KP] It is probable that these microscopic animals are, in
their turn, inhabited by others. All are surrounded by air, deficient
in oxygen, and copiously charged with hydrogen and carbonic acid. It
is extremely doubtful whether any animal could exist in _pure
nitrogen_, although such an opinion did, formerly indeed, seem
warranted with reference to Fischer’s _Cistidicola farionis_, since,
according to Fourcroy’s experiments, the swimming-bladder of fish was
presumed to contain air wholly devoid of oxygen. But the experiments
made by Erman, and confirmed by myself, prove that the
swimming-bladder of fresh-water fish never contains pure nitrogen.[KQ]
In sea fish as much as 0·80 parts of oxygen have been found, while,
according to Biot’s views, the purity of the air depends on the depth
at which the fishes live.[KR]
Footnote 77:
p. 214—“_The united Lithophytes_.”
According to Linnæus and Ellis the calcareous Zoophytes, (among which
Madrepores, Meandrinæ, Astrææ, and Pocilloporæ especially produce
mural coral-reefs,) are inhabited and invested by animalcules, which
were long supposed to be allied to the Nereids belonging to Cuvier’s
Annelida (jointed worms). The anatomy of these gelatinous animalcules
has been made known by the acute and comprehensive researches of
Cavolini, Savigny, and Ehrenberg. We have learned that, in order to
understand the whole organism of the (so-called) rock-building
animals, we must not consider the scaffolding which remains after
their death, namely, the layers of lime formed into delicate lamellæ
by a vital function of secretion, as foreign to the soft membranes of
the food-receiving animal.
Besides our increased knowledge of the wonderful formation of the
living coral-stocks, a more correct view has gradually gained ground
respecting the extensive influence which the coral world has exercised
on the appearance of low island groups above the level of the sea, on
the migration of land-plants, and the successive extension of the
domain of the Floras, and, indeed, in some parts of the ocean, on the
distribution of the human race and of languages.
As minute social organisms the corals play an important part in the
general economy of nature, although they do not, as people began to
believe after Capt. Cook’s voyages of discovery, build up islands or
enlarge continents from almost unfathomable depths of the ocean. They
excite the liveliest interest, whether regarded as physiological
objects, and as illustrating the various gradations of animal form, or
in connection with the geography of plants, and the geognostic
relations of the earth’s crust. According to the comprehensive views
of Leopold von Buch, the whole Jura-formation consists of “large
elevated coral-banks of the ancient world, surrounding at a certain
distance the old mountain chains.”
According to Ehrenberg’s classification,[KS] coral-animals, (in
English works often incorrectly termed coral-insects,) are separable
into the monostomous _Anthozoa_, which are either free and with the
power of detaching themselves, as _Animal-corals_; or are attached in
the manner of plants, as _Phyto-corals_. To the first order
(Zoocorallia) belong the Hydras or Armpolyps of Trembley, the Actiniæ,
radiant with the most splendid colours, and the mushroom-corals; and
to the second order belong the Madrepores, the Astrææ, and the
Ocellinæ. The Polyps of the second order are those which from their
cellular, wave-resisting, wall-works are the principal subject of this
illustration. The wall-work is composed of the aggregate of the
coral-trunks, which, however, do not suddenly lose their combined
vitality, like a dead forest tree.
Every coral-trunk arises by a process of gemmation in accordance with
certain laws, and forms one complete structure, each portion being
formed by a great number of organically distinct individual animals.
In the group of Phyto-corals these cannot separate themselves
spontaneously, but remain united with one another by lamellæ of
carbonate of lime. Hence each coral-trunk by no means possesses a
central point of common vitality.[KT] The propagation of
coral-animals, according to the difference of the orders, is by eggs,
spontaneous division or gemmation. This last kind of propagation
presents the greatest variety of forms in the development of
individuals.
The Coral-reefs (or, as Dioscorides designates them, sea-plants, a
forest of stony-trees, Lithodendra), are of three kinds; namely,
_Coast-reefs_, (shore-reefs, fringing-reefs), which are directly
connected with continental or insular coasts, as on the north-east
coast of New Holland, between Sandy Cape and the dreaded Torres
Straits, and almost all the coral-banks of the Red Sea examined for
eighteen months by Ehrenberg and Hemprich; _Island-surrounding reefs_
(barrier-reefs, encircling-reefs), as at Vanikoro in the small
archipelago of Santa Cruz, north of the New Hebrides, and at
Puynipete, one of the Carolinas; and _Coral-banks surrounding lagoons_
(Atolls or Lagoon-islands). This very natural division and
nomenclature have been introduced by Charles Darwin, and are most
intimately connected with the very ingenious explanation which this
intellectual naturalist has given of the gradual origin of these
wonderful forms. While, on the one hand, Cavolini, Ehrenberg, and
Savigny have completed the scientific anatomical knowledge of the
organization of coral-animals, on the other, the geographical and
geological relations of coral-islands have been investigated, first by
Reinhold and George Forster in Cook’s second voyage, and then, after a
long interval, by Chamisso, Péron, Quoy and Gaimard, Flinders, Lütke,
Beechey, Darwin, d’Urville, and Lottin.
The coral-animals and their stony cellular scaffoldings belong, for
the most part, to the warm tropical seas; and the reefs occur most
frequently in the Southern Hemisphere. Thus we find the Atolls or
Lagoon Islands crowded together in the so-called coral-sea between the
north-east coast of New Holland, New Caledonia, Solomon’s Islands, and
the Louisiade Archipelago; in the group of the Low Islands (Low
Archipelago), eighty in number; in the Fidji, Ellice, and Gilbert
Islands; and in the Indian Ocean, north-east of Madagascar, under the
name of the Atoll group of Saya de Malha.
The great Chagos Bank, whose structure and dead coral-trunks have been
thoroughly investigated by Captains Moresby and Powell, is the more
interesting to us, because we may regard it as a prolongation of the
more northern Laccadive and Maldive Islands. I have previously
directed attention in another work[KU] to the importance of the order
of succession of the Atolls, which are exactly in the direction of a
meridian as far as 7° south lat., in reference to the general mountain
system, and the form of the earth’s surface, in Central Asia. The
meridian-chains, which mark the intersection of many mountain-systems
running from east to west at the great bend of the Thibetian river
Tzang-bo, correspond with the great meridian mountain rampart of the
Ghauts and of the more northern Bolor in further or trans-Gangetic
India. Here lie the parallel chains of Cochin China, Siam, and
Malacca, as well as those of Ava and Arracan, which, after courses of
unequal length, all terminate in the gulfs of Siam, Martaban, and
Bengal. The bay of Bengal appears like an arrested effort of nature to
produce an inland sea. A deep inbreak of the waters, between the
simple western system of the Ghauts, and the very complex eastern
trans-Gangetic system, has swallowed up a great part of the eastern
lowlands, but met with an impediment not so easily overcome in the
early existing and extensive table-land of Mysore.
An oceanic inbreak of this nature has given rise to two almost
pyramidal peninsulas of very different length and narrowness; and the
prolongation of two opposing meridian systems, the mountain system of
Malacca in the east, and the Ghauts of Malabar in the west, manifests
itself in submarine, symmetrical series of islands, on the one side in
the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, which are poor in corals, and on the
other in three long-extended archipelagos of Atolls—the Laccadives,
the Maldives, and Chagos. The last, called by mariners the Chagos
Bank, forms a lagoon, belted by a narrow, and already much broken
coral-reef. The length of this lagoon is 88, and its breadth 72 miles.
Whilst the enclosed lagoon is only from 17 to 40 fathoms deep, bottom
was scarcely found at a depth of 210 fathoms at a small distance from
the outer margin of the coral wall, which appears to be now
sinking.[KV] At the coral-lagoon, known as Keeling-Atoll, south of
Sumatra, Captain Fitz-Roy states, that at only 2000 yards from the
reef, no soundings were found with 7200 feet of line.
“The forms of coral, which in the Red Sea rise in thick wall-like
masses, are Mæandrinæ, Astrææ, Favia, Madrepores (Porites),
Pocillopora (Hemprichii), Millepores, and Heteropores. The latter are
among the most massive, although they are branched. The deepest coral
trunks, which magnified by the refraction of light, appear to the eye
to resemble the dome of a cathedral, belong, as far as could be
determined, to Mæandrinæ and Astrææ.”[KW] A distinction must be made
between single and in part free polyp-trunks, and those which form
wall-like rocks.
If the accumulation of building polyp-trunks in some regions is so
striking, it is no less astonishing to observe the perfect absence of
these structures in other and often adjacent regions. Their presence
or absence must be determined by certain, still uninvestigated,
relations of currents, by the partial temperature of the water, and by
the abundance or deficiency of nutriment. That certain
delicate-branched corals, with less calcareous deposition on the side
opposite to the mouth, prefer the stillness of the interior lagoons,
is not to be denied; but this preference for still water must not, as
has too often happened,[KX] be regarded as a peculiarity of the whole
class of these animals. According to the experiences of Ehrenberg and
Chamisso in the Red Sea and in the Marshall Islands, which abound in
Atolls and lie east of the Caroline Islands, and according to the
observations of Captains Bird Allen and Moresby in the West Indies and
in the Maldives, we find that living Madrepores, Millepores, Astræas,
and Mæandrinas, can support “a tremendous surf;”[KY] and indeed seem
to prefer localities the most exposed to the action of storms. The
vital forces of the organism regulating the cellular structure, which
with age acquires a rocky hardness, resist most triumphantly the
mechanical forces,—the shock of moving waters.
In the South Pacific there is a perfect absence of coral-reefs at the
Galapagos and along the whole of the west coast of the New Continent,
notwithstanding their vicinity to the numerous Atolls of the Low
Islands, and the Archipelago of Mendaña or the Marquesas. It is true
that the current of the South Pacific, which washes the coasts of
Chili and Peru. (and whose low temperature I observed in the year
1802,) is only 60°.1 Fahr., while the undisturbed water at the sides
of the cold current is from 81°.5 to 83°.7 Fahr. at Punta Parima,
where it deflects to the west. Moreover at the Galapagos there are
small currents between the islands, having a temperature of only 58°.3
Fahr. But this lower temperature does not prevail further northwards
along the coasts of the Pacific from Guayaquil to Guatimala and
Mexico, neither does it prevail in the Cape de Verd Islands, on the
whole west coast of Africa, or at the small islands of St. Paul, St.
Helena, Ascension, and San Fernando Noronha; yet in none of these are
there coral-reefs.
If this absence of reefs characterises the _western_ coasts of
America, Africa, and New Holland, they are, on the other hand, of
frequent occurrence on the _eastern_ coasts of tropical America, on
the African coast of Zanzibar, and on the southern coast of New South
Wales. The best opportunities I have enjoyed for personally examining
coral banks have been in the Gulf of Mexico, and south of the Island
of Cuba, in the so-called “Gardens of the King and Queen” (_Jardines y
Jardinillos del Rey y de la Reyna_). It was Christopher Columbus
himself who, on his second voyage, in May, 1494, gave this name to
this little group of islands, because from the pleasant association of
the silver-leaved arborescent Tournefortia gnapholoides, of flowering
species of Dolichos, of Avicennia nitida, and mangrove-thickets
(Rhizophora), the coral-islands formed as it were an archipelago of
floating gardens. “_Son Cayos verdes y graciosos llenos de
arboledas_,” says the admiral. On my voyage from Batabano to Trinidad
de Cuba, I remained for several days in these gardens, which lie to
the east of the great Isle of Pines, abounding in mahogany, for the
purpose of determining the longitude of the different _Cayos_.
The _Cayos Flamenco_, _Bonito_, _de Diego Perez_, and _de Piedras_,
are coral islands, rising only from 8 to 15 inches above the level of
the sea. The upper edge of the reef does not consist merely of dead
polyp-trunks, but is rather formed of a true conglomerate, in which
angular pieces of coral, lying in various directions, are embedded in
a cement composed of granules of quartz. In Cayo de Piedras I saw such
embedded masses of coral, some of them measuring upwards of three
cubic feet. Several of the West Indian smaller coral islands have
fresh water, a phenomenon which merits a careful investigation
wherever it occurs (as for instance near Radak in the South Sea),[KZ]
since it has sometimes been ascribed to hydrostatic pressure, acting
from a distant coast (as in Venice, and in the Bay of Xagua, east of
Batabano), and sometimes to the filtration of rain-water.[LA]
The living gelatinous covering of the calcareous fabric of the
coral-trunks attracts fishes and even turtles in search of food. In
the time of Columbus the now desolate district of the Jardines del Rey
was animated by a singular branch of industry pursued by the
inhabitants of the sea-coasts of Cuba, who availed themselves of a
little fish, the Remora, or sucking-fish (the so-called Ship-holder),
probably the Echeneis naucrates, for catching turtles. A long and
strong line, made of the fibres of the palm, was attached to the tail
of the fish. The Remora (called in Spanish _Reves_, or reversed,
because at first sight the back and abdomen might easily be mistaken
for each other), attaches itself by suction to the turtle through the
indented and moveable cartilaginous plates of the upper shell that
covers the head. The Remora, says Columbus, would rather let itself be
torn to pieces than relinquish its prey, and the little fish and the
turtle are thus drawn out of the water together. “Nostrates,” says
Martin Anghiera, the learned secretary of Charles V, “piscem Reversum
appellant, quod versus venatur. Non aliter ac nos canibus gallicis per
æquora campi lepores insectamur, illi (incolæ Cubæ insulæ) venatorio
pisce pisces alios capiebant.”[LB] We learn from Dampier and
Commerson, that this artifice of employing a sucking-fish to catch
other fishes is very common on the eastern coasts of Africa, near Cape
Natal and Mozambique, as well as on the island of Madagascar.[LC] An
acquaintance with the habits of animals, and the same necessities,
lead to similar artifices and modes of capture amongst tribes having
no connection with one another.
Although, as we have already remarked, the actual seat of the
Lithophytes who build calcareous walls, lies within a zone extending
from 22 to 24 degrees on either side of the equator, yet coral-reefs,
favoured, it is supposed, by the warm Gulf Stream, are met with around
the Bermudas in 32° 23′ lat., and these have been admirably described
by Lieutenant Nelson.[LD] In the southern hemisphere corals
(Millepores and Cellepores) are found singly as far as Chiloe and even
to the Chonos-Archipelago and Tierra del Fuego, in 53° lat., while
Retepores have even been found as far as 72½° lat.
Since Captain Cook’s second voyage, the hypothesis advanced by him as
well as by Reinhold and George Forster, that the flat coral islands of
the South Pacific have been built up by living agents from the depths
of the sea’s bottom, has found numerous advocates. The distinguished
naturalists Quoy and Gaimard, who accompanied Captain Freycinet on his
voyage of circumnavigation in the frigate “Uranie,” were the first who
expressed themselves, in 1823, with much freedom against the views
advanced by the two Forsters (father and son), by Flinders, and
Péron.[LE] “In directing the attention of naturalists to
coral-animalcules,” they say, “we hope to be able to prove that all
which has been hitherto affirmed or believed up to the present time,
regarding the immense structures they are capable of raising, is for
the most part inexact, and in all cases very greatly exaggerated. We
are rather of opinion that coral-animalcules, instead of rearing
perpendicular walls from the depths of the Ocean, only form strata or
incrustrations of some few toises in thickness.” Quoy and Gaimard (p.
289) have also expressed an opinion, that Atolls (coral walls
inclosing a lagoon) owe their origin to submarine volcanic craters.
They have undoubtedly underrated the depth at which animals who
construct coral-reefs (as for example the Astræa) can exist, as they
place the extreme limits at from 26 to 32 feet below the level of the
sea. Charles Darwin, a naturalist, who has known how to enhance the
value of his own observations by a comparison with those of others in
many parts of the world, places the region of living coral-animals at
a depth of 20 or 30 fathoms,[LF] which corresponds with that in which
Professor Edward Forbes found the greatest number of corals in the
Ægean Sea. This is Professor Forbes’s fourth region of marine-animals,
as given in his ingenious memoir on the _Provinces of Depth_, and the
geographical distribution of Mollusca at perpendicular distances from
the surface.[LG] It would appear, however, that the depth at which
corals live is very different in the different species, especially in
the more delicate ones which do not form such considerable structures.
Sir James Ross, in his Antarctic expedition, brought up corals from a
great depth with the lead; and these he remitted for accurate
examination to Mr. Stokes and Professor Forbes. Westward of Victoria
Land, in the neighbourhood of the Coulman Island, in 72° 31′ south
lat., and at a depth of 270 fathoms, Retepora cellulosa, a Hornera,
and Prymnoa Rossii. (the latter very similar to a species common to
the coasts of Norway,) were found alive and in a perfectly fresh
condition.[LH] In the far north too, the Greenland _Umbellaria
Grœnlandica_ has been brought up alive by whale fishers from a depth
of 236 fathoms.[LI] The same relation between species and locality is
met with among sponges, which however are now regarded as belonging
more to plants than to zoophytes. On the shores of Asia Minor, the
common marine sponge is brought up from depths varying from 5 to 36
fathoms, although one very small species of the same genus is only
found at a depth of at least 180 fathoms.[LJ] It is difficult to
divine what hinders the Astræas, Madrepores, Mæandrinas, and the whole
group of tropical phyto-corals, which are capable of constructing
large cellular calcareous walls, from living in very deep strata of
water. The decrease of temperature is very gradual, the diminution of
light nearly the same, and the existence of numerous Infusoria at
great depths of the Ocean proves that there cannot here be any
deficiency of food for polyps.
In opposition to the hitherto generally adopted opinion respecting the
absence of all organisms and living creatures in the Dead Sea, it is
worthy of notice that my friend and fellow-labourer, M. Valenciennes,
has received, through the Marquis Charles de l’Escalopier, and through
the French Consul Botta, beautiful specimens of Porites elongata from
the Dead Sea. This fact is the more interesting, because this species
is not found in the Mediterranean, but only in the Red Sea, which,
according to Valenciennes, has but few organisms in common with the
Mediterranean. As a sea-fish, a species of Pleuronectes, advances far
into the interior of France, and accustoms itself to gill-respiration
in fresh water, so also does a remarkable flexibility of organization
exist in the above-mentioned coral-animal (Porites elongata of
Lamarck), as the same species lives both in the Dead Sea, which is
supersaturated with salt, and in the open ocean near the Séchelles
Islands.[LK]
According to the most recent chemical analyses of the younger
Silliman, the genus Porites, like many other cellular coral-trunks
(Madrepores, Astræas, and Mæandrinas of Ceylon and the Bermudas),
contains besides from 92 to 95 per cent. of carbonate of lime and
magnesia, a portion of fluorine and phosphoric acid.[LL] The presence
of fluorine in the hard skeleton of the polyps reminds us of the
fluoride of calcium found in fish bones according to Morechini’s and
Gay-Lussac’s experiments at Rome. Silex is mixed only in very small
quantities, with the fluoride of calcium and phosphate of lime found
in the coral-trunks; but one coral animal allied to the Horn corals
(Gray’s _Hyalonema_, Glass thread) has an axis of fibres of pure
silex, resembling a hanging tuft of hair. Professor Forchhammer, who
has recently been engaged in a thorough analysis of sea-water in the
most opposite parts of the earth’s surface, finds the quantity of lime
in the Caribbean Sea remarkably small, it being only ²⁴⁷⁄₁₀₀₀₀, whilst
in the Cattegat it amounts to ³⁷¹⁄₁₀₀₀₀. He is disposed to ascribe
this difference to the numerous coral-banks near the West India
Islands, which appropriate the lime to themselves, and thus exhaust
the sea-water.[LM]
Charles Darwin has with great ingenuity developed the genetic
connection between shore-reefs, island-encircling reefs, and lagoon
islands, _i. e._, narrow, annular coral banks which surround inner
lagoons. According to his views, these three kinds of structure depend
upon the oscillating condition of the bottom of the sea, or on
periodical elevations and subsidences. The often-advanced hypothesis,
according to which the lagoon-islands, or atolls, mark by their
circularly enclosed coral-reefs, the outline of a submarine crater,
raised on a volcanic crater-margin, is opposed by the great extent of
their diameters, which are in some instances upwards of 30, 40, or
even 60 miles. Our fire-emitting mountains have no such craters, and
if we would compare the lagoon, with its submerged mural surface and
narrow encircling reef, with one of the annular lunar mountains, we
must not forget that these annular mountains are not volcanoes, but
tracts of land enclosed by walls. According to Darwin, the following
is the process of formation. An island mountain closely encircled by a
coral reef subsides, while the _fringing_ reef that had sunk with it,
is constantly recovering its level owing to the tendency of the coral
animals to regain the surface by renewed perpendicular structures;
these constitute first a reef encircling the island at a distance, and
subsequently, when the inclosed island has wholly subsided, an
_atoll_. According to this view, which regards islands as the most
prominent parts, or the culminating points of the submarine land, the
relative position of the coral islands would disclose to us what we
could scarcely hope to discover by the sounding line, viz., the former
configuration and articulation of the land. This attractive subject
(to the connection of which with the migrations of plants and the
distribution of the races of men we drew attention at the beginning of
this note), can only be fully elucidated when we shall succeed in
acquiring further knowledge of the depth and nature of the different
rocks which serve as a foundation for the lower strata of the dead
polyp-trunks.
Footnote 78:
p. 216—“_Of the Samothracian Traditions_.”
Diodorus has preserved to us these remarkable traditions, the
probability of which has invested them with almost historical
certainty in the eyes of geologists. The island of Samothrace, once
also named Ethiopea, Dardania, and Leucania or Leucosia in the
Scholiast of Apollonius Rhodius, the seat of the ancient mysteries of
the Cabiri, was inhabited by the remnant of an aboriginal people,
several words of whose vernacular language were preserved in later
times in sacrificial ceremonies. The position of Samothrace, opposite
to the Thracian Hebrus, and near the Dardanelles, explains why a more
circumstantial tradition of the great catastrophe of an outburst of
the waters of the Pontus (Euxine) should have been especially
preserved in this island. Sacred rites were here performed at altars
erected on the supposed limits of this inundation; and among the
Samothracians, as well as the Bœetians, a belief in the periodical
destruction of the human race (a belief which also prevailed among the
Mexicans in their myth of the four destructions of the world) was
associated with historical recollections of individual
inundations.[LN] According to Diodorus, the Samothracians related that
the Black Sea had been an inland lake, which, swelled by the influx of
rivers (long prior to the inundations which had occurred among other
nations) had burst, first through the straits of the Bosphorus, and
subsequently through those of the Hellespont.[LO] These ancient
revolutions of nature have been considered in a special treatise, by
Dureau de la Malle, and all the facts known regarding them collected
by Carl von Hoff, in an important work on the subject.[LP] The
Samothracian traditions seem reflected as it were in the Sluice-theory
of Strato of Lampsacus, according to which the swelling of the waters
in the Euxine first formed the passage of the Dardanelles, and next
the opening through the Pillars of Hercules. Strabo, in the first book
of his Geography, has preserved among the critical extracts from the
works of Eratosthenes, a remarkable fragment of the lost work of
Strato, which presents views that embrace almost the whole
circumference of the Mediterranean.
“Strato of Lampsacus,” says Strabo,[LQ] “enters more fully than the
Lydian Xanthus (who has described the impressions of shells far from
the sea) into a consideration of the causes of these phenomena. He
maintains, that the Euxine had formerly no outlet at Byzantium, but
that the pressure of the swollen mass of waters caused by the influx
of rivers had opened a passage, whereupon the water rushed into the
Propontis and the Hellespont. The same thing also happened to _our_
sea (the Mediterranean), for here too a passage was opened through the
isthmus at the Pillars of Hercules, in consequence of the filling of
the sea by currents, which in flowing off left the former swampy banks
uncovered and dry. In proof of this, Strato affirms, first, that the
outer and inner bottoms of the sea are different; then that there is
still a bank running under the sea from Europe to Lybia, which shows
that the inner and outer sea were formerly not united; next that the
Euxine is extremely shallow, while the Cretan, the Sicilian and the
Sardinian seas are, on the contrary, very deep; the cause of this
being that the former is filled with mud from the numerous large
rivers flowing into it from the north. Hence too the Euxine is the
freshest, and the streams flowing from it are directed towards the
parts where the bottom is deepest. It would also appear that if these
rivers continue to flow into the Euxine, it will some day be
completely choked with mud, for even now, its left side is becoming
marshy in the direction of Salmydessus (the Thracian Apollonia), at
the part called by mariners ‘The Breasts,’ before the mouth of the
Ister and the desert of Scythia. Perhaps, therefore, the Lybian Temple
of Ammon may also have once stood on the sea-shore, its present
position in the interior of the country being in consequence of such
off-flowings of rivers. Strato also conjectures that the fame and
celebrity of the Oracle (of Ammon) is more easily accounted for, on
the supposition that the temple was on the sea-shore, since its great
distance from the coast would otherwise make its present distinction
and fame inexplicable. Egypt also was in ancient times overflowed by
the sea as far as the marshes of Pelusium, Mount Casius, and Lake
Serbonis; for whenever in digging it happened that salt-water was met
with, the borings passed through strata of sea-sand and shells, as if
the country had been inundated, and the whole district around Mount
Casius and Gerrha had been a marshy sea, continuous with the Gulf of
the Red Sea. When the sea (the Mediterranean) retreated, the country
was uncovered, leaving, however, the present Lake Serbonis.
Subsequently the waters of this lake also flowed off, converting its
bed into a swamp. In like manner the banks of Lake Mœris resemble more
the shores of a sea than those of a river.” An erroneous reading
introduced as an emendation by Grosskurd, in consequence of a passage
in Strabo,[LR] gives in place of Mœris, “the Lake Halmyris,” but the
latter was situated near the southern mouth of the Danube.
The Sluice-theory of Strato led Eratosthenes of Cyrene (the most
celebrated in the series of the librarians of Alexandria) to
investigate the problem of the uniformity of level in all external
seas flowing round continents, although with less success than
Archimedes in his treatise on floating bodies.[LS] The articulation of
the northern coasts of the Mediterranean as well as the form of its
peninsulas and islands had given origin to the geognostic myth of the
ancient land of Lyctonia. The origin of the lesser Syrtis, of the
Triton Lake,[LT] and of the whole of Western Atlas,[LU] had been
embodied in an imaginary scheme of fire-eruptions and earthquakes.[LV]
I have recently entered more fully into this question,[LW] in a
passage with which I would be allowed to close this note:
“The northern shore of the Mediterranean possesses the advantage of
being more richly and variously articulated than the southern or
Lybian shore, and this was, according to Strabo, already noticed by
Eratosthenes. Here we find three peninsulas, the Iberian, the Italian,
and the Hellenic, which, owing to their various and deeply indented
contour, form, together with the neighbouring islands and the opposite
coasts, many straits and isthmuses. Such a configuration of continents
and of islands that have been partly severed and partly upheaved by
volcanic agency in rows, as if over far-extending fissures, early led
to geognostic views regarding eruptions, terrestrial revolutions, and
outpourings of the swollen higher seas into those below them. The
Euxine, the Dardanelles, the Straits of Gades, and the Mediterranean
with its numerous islands, were well fitted to originate such a system
of sluices. The Orphic Argonaut, who probably lived in the Christian
era, has interwoven old mythical narrations in his composition. He
sings of the division of the ancient Lyctonia into separate islands,
‘when the dark-haired Poseidon in anger with Father Kronion struck
Lyctonia with the golden trident.’ Similar fancies, which may often
certainly have sprung from an imperfect knowledge of geographical
relations, were frequently elaborated in the erudite Alexandrian
school, which was so devoted to everything connected with antiquity.
Whether the myth of the breaking up of Atlantis be a vague and western
reflection of that of Lyctonia, as I have elsewhere shown to be
probable, or whether, according to Otfried Müller, ‘the destruction of
Lyctonia (Leuconia) refers to the Samothracian tradition of a great
flood, which changed the form of that district,’ is a question which
it is here unnecessary to decide.”
Footnote 79:
p. 217—“_Precipitation from the clouds_.”
The vertical ascent of currents of air is one of the principal causes
of the most important meteorological phenomena. Where a desert or a
sandy surface devoid of vegetation is surrounded by a high
mountain-chain, the sea-wind may be observed driving a dense cloud
over the desert, without any precipitation of vapour taking place
before it reaches the crest of the mountains. This phenomenon was
formerly very unsatisfactorily referred to an _attraction_ supposed to
be exercised by the mountain-chain on the clouds. The true cause
appears to lie in the ascent from the sandy plain of a column of warm
air, which prevents the condensation of the vesicles of vapour. The
more barren the surface, and the greater the degree of heat acquired
by the sand, the higher will be the ascent of the clouds, and the less
readily will the vapour be precipitated. Over the declivities of
mountains these causes cease. The play of the vertical column of air
is there weaker; the clouds sink, and their disintegration is effected
by a cooler stratum of air. Thus _deficiency of rain_ and _absence of
vegetation in the desert_ stand in a reciprocal action to one another.
It does not rain because the barren and bare surface of sand becomes
more strongly heated and radiates more heat; and the desert is not
converted into a steppe or grassy plain because without water no
organic development is possible.
Footnote 80:
p. 218—“_The indurating and heat-emitting mass of the earth_.”
If according to the hypothesis of the Neptunists (now long since
obsolete), the so-called primitive rocks were also precipitated from a
fluid, the transition of the earth’s crust from a condition of
fluidity to one of solidity, must have been followed by the liberation
of an enormous quantity of caloric, which would have given rise to new
evaporation and new precipitations. The more recent these
precipitations, the more rapid, the more tumultuous, and the more
uncrystalline would they have been. Such a sudden liberation of
caloric from the indurating crust of the earth, independent of the
latitude, and the position of the earth’s axis, might indeed occasion
local elevations of temperature in the atmosphere, which would
influence the distribution of plants. The same cause might also
occasion a kind of porosity which seems to be indicated by many
enigmatical geological phenomena in floetz rocks. I have developed my
conjectures on this subject in detail in a small memoir on primitive
porosity.[LX] According to the views I have more recently adopted, it
appears to me that the variously shattered and fissured earth, with
its fused interior, may long have continued in the primeval period, to
impart to its oxidised surface a high degree of temperature,
independent of its position with respect to the sun and to latitude.
What an influence would not, for instance, be exercised for ages to
come on the climate of Germany by an open fissure a thousand fathoms
in depth, extending from the Adriatic Gulf to the northern coast?
Although in the present condition of the earth, long-continued
radiation has almost entirely restored the stable equilibrium of
temperature first calculated by Fourier in his _Théorie analytique de
la Chaleur_, and the outer atmosphere is now only brought into direct
communication with the molten interior of the earth, by means of the
insignificant openings of a few volcanoes; yet in the primitive
condition of our planet, this interior emitted hot streams of air into
the atmosphere through the various clefts and fissures formed by the
frequently recurring foldings (or corrugations) of the mountain
strata. This emission was wholly independent of latitude. Every newly
formed planet must thus in its earliest condition have regulated its
own temperature, which was, however, subsequently changed and
determined by its position in relation to the central body, the sun.
The moon’s surface also exhibits traces of this reaction of the
interior upon the crust.
Footnote 81:
p. 218—“_The mountain-declivities of the most southern parts of
Mexico_.”
The spherical greenstone in the mountain district of Guanaxuato is
perfectly similar to that of the Fichtelberg in Franconia. Both form
grotesque domes, which break through and are superimposed on
transition argillaceous schists. In the same manner pearl-stone,
porphyritic schist, trachyte, and pitch-stone porphyry present
analogous forms in the Mexican mountains, near Cinapecuaro and Moran,
in Hungary, Bohemia, and in Northern Asia.
Footnote 82:
p. 220—“_The Colossal Dragon-tree of Orotava_.”
This colossal dragon-tree (Dracæna draco) stands in the garden of M.
Franqui, in the little town of Orotava, called formerly Taoro, one of
the most charming spots in the world. In June, 1799, when we ascended
the Peak of Teneriffe, we found that this enormous tree measured 48
feet in circumference. Our measurement was made at several feet above
the root. Nearer to the ground Le Dru found it nearly 79 feet. Sir G.
Staunton asserts that at an elevation of ten feet from the ground, its
diameter is still 12 feet. The height of the tree is not much more
than 69 feet. According to tradition it would appear that this tree
was venerated by the Guanches (as was the ash-tree of Ephesus by the
Greeks, the Plantain of Lydia, which Xerxes decorated with ornaments,
also the sacred Banyan-tree of Ceylon), and that in the year 1402,
which was the period of Béthencourt’s first expedition, it was as
large and as hollow as in the present day. When it is remembered that
the dragon-tree is everywhere of very slow growth, we may conclude
that the one at Orotava is of extreme antiquity. Berthollet says, in
his description of Teneriffe, “On comparing the young dragon-trees
which grows near this colossal tree, the calculations we are led to
make on the age of the latter strike the mind with astonishment.”[LY]
The Dragon-tree has been cultivated from the most ancient times in the
Canary isles, in Madeira, and Porto Santo, and that accurate observer,
Leopold von Buch, found it growing wild near Iguesti in Teneriffe. Its
original habitat is not therefore the East Indies, as has long been
believed; and its appearance does not afford any refutation of the
opinion of those who regard the Guanches as a wholly isolated
primitive Atlantic race, having no intercourse with African or Asiatic
nations: The form of the _Dracænæ_ is repeated on the southern
extremity of Africa, in the Isle of Bourbon, in China, and in New
Zealand. In these remotely distant regions we recognise species of the
same genus, but none are to be found in the New Continent, where this
form is supplied by the Yucca. The _Dracæna borealis_ of Aiton is a
true _Convallaria_, the nature of both being perfectly identical.[LZ]
I have given a representation, in the last plate of the Picturesque
Atlas of my American journey,[MA] of the dragon-tree of Orotava, taken
from a drawing made in 1776 by F. d’Ozonne, and which I found among
the posthumous papers of the celebrated Borda, in the still unprinted
journal entrusted to me by the Dépôt de la Marine, and from which I
have borrowed important astronomically-determined geographical, data
besides many barometrical and trigonometrical notices.[MB] The
measurement of the dragon-tree in the Villa Franqui was made in
Borda’s first voyage with Pingré in 1771, and not in the second, made
1776 with Varela. It is asserted, that in the fifteenth century,
during the early periods of the Norman and Spanish conquests, mass was
performed at a small altar erected in the hollow trunk of this tree.
Unfortunately, the Dracæna of Orotava lost one side of its leafy top
in the storm of the 21st of July, 1819. There is a fine large English
copper-plate engraving, which gives an exceedingly true representation
of the present condition of the tree.
The monumental character of these colossal living forms, and the
impression of reverence which they have created among all nations,
have led, in modern times, to a more careful study of the numerical
determination of their age, and of the size of their trunks. The
results of such investigations induced the elder Decandolle, (the
author of the important treatise, entitled _De la Longévité des
Arbres_,) Endlicher, Unger, and other distinguished botanists to
conjecture, that the age of many existing vegetable forms may extend
to the earliest historical times, if not to the records of the Nile,
at least to those of Greece and Italy. In the _Bibliothèque
Universelle de Genève_ (t. xlvii. 1831, p. 50) we find the following
passage: “Numerous examples seem to confirm the idea, that there still
exist, on our planet, trees of a prodigious antiquity—the witnesses,
perhaps, of one or more of its latest physical revolutions. If we
consider a tree as the combination of as many individual forms as
there have been buds developed on its surface, one cannot be surprised
if the aggregate resulting from the continual addition of new buds to
the older ones, should not necessarily have any fixed termination to
its existence.” In the same manner, Agardh says: “If in each solar
year new parts be formed in the plant, and the older hardened ones be
replaced by new parts capable of conducting sap, we have a type of
growth limited by external causes alone.” He ascribes the short
duration of the life of herbaceous plants, “to the preponderance of
the production of blossoms and fruit over the formation of leaves.”
Unfruitfulness in a plant insures a prolongation of its life.
Endlicher adduces the instance of an individual plant of Medicago
sativa, var. β versicolor, which lived eighty years because it bore no
fruit.[MC]
To the dragon-trees, which, notwithstanding the gigantic development
of their closed vascular bundles, must be classed, in respect to their
floral parts, in the same natural family as Asparagus and the garden
onion, belongs the Adansonia, (the monkey bread-tree, _Baobab_),
undoubtedly among the largest and most ancient inhabitants of our
planet. In the earliest voyages of discovery made by Catalans and
Portuguese, the sailors were accustomed to carve their names on these
two species of trees; not always from a mere wish of perpetuating
their memory, but also as “marcos,” or signs of possession, and of the
rights which nations assume in virtue of first discovery. The
Portuguese mariners often selected for carving on the trees, as a
“marco,” or mark of possession, the elegant French motto _talent de
bien faire_, so frequently employed by the Infante Don Henrique, the
Discoverer. Thus Manuel de Faria y Sousa says expressly;[MD] “Era uso
de los primeros Navegantes de dexar inscrito el motto del Infante,
_talent de bien faire_, en la corteza de los arboles.”[ME] (It was the
custom of the early navigators to inscribe the motto of the Infante in
the bark of the trees.)
The above-named motto, cut on the bark of two trees by Portuguese
navigators in the year 1435, and therefore twenty-eight years before
the death of the Infante Don Henrique, Duke of Viseo, is singularly
connected, in the history of discoveries, with the discussions that
have arisen from a comparison of Vespucci’s fourth voyage with that of
Gonzalo Coelho (1503). Vespucci relates, that the Admiral’s ship of
Coelho’s squadron was wrecked on an island which was sometimes
supposed to be that of San Fernando Noronha; sometimes, Peñedo de San
Pedro; and sometimes, the problematical island of St. Matthew. The
last-named island was discovered on the 15th of October, 1525, by
Garcia Jofre de Loaysa in 2½ south lat., in the meridian of Cape
Palmas, and almost in the Gulf of Guinea. He remained there eighteen
days at anchor, and found crosses, orange-trees that had become wild,
and two trunks of trees having inscriptions that bore the date of
ninety years back.[MF] I have in another place,[MG] in an inquiry
regarding the trustworthiness of Amerigo Vespucci, more fully
considered this problem.
The oldest description of the Baobab (Adansonia digitata) is that of
the Venetian, Aloysius Cadamosto. (whose real name was Alvise da Ca da
Mosto) in 1454. He found at the mouth of the Senegal. (where he joined
Antoniotto Usodimare), trunks, whose circumference he estimated at 17
fathoms, or 112 feet.[MH] He might have compared them to dragon-trees,
which he had already seen. Perrottet says,[MI] that he had seen
monkey-bread fruit trees, which had a diameter of about thirty-two
feet, with a height of only from seventy to eighty-five feet. The same
dimensions had been given by Adanson in his voyage, 1748. The largest
trunks of the monkey bread-fruit trees, which he himself saw, in 1749,
some on one of the small Magdalena islands near Cape de Verd, and
others at the mouth of the Senegal, were from 26 to nearly 29 feet in
diameter, with a height of little more than 70 feet, and a top
measuring upwards of 180 feet across. Adanson, however, makes the
remark that other travellers had found trunks having a diameter of
about 32 feet.[MJ] French and Dutch sailors had carved their names on
the trunks in characters six inches in length. One of these
inscriptions was of the fifteenth century,[MK] while all the others
were of the sixteenth. From the depth of the cuts, which are covered
with new layers of wood,[ML] and from a comparison of the thickness of
trunks, whose various ages were known, Adanson computed the age of
trees having a diameter of 32 feet at 5150 years.[MM] He however
cautiously subjoins the following remarks, in a quaint mode of
spelling which I do not alter: “le calcul de l’aje de chake couche n’a
pas d’exactitude géometrike.” In the village of Grand Galarques, also
in Senegambia, the negroes have adorned the entrance of a hollow
Baobab with carvings cut out of wood still green. The inner cavity
serves as a place of general meeting in which the community debate on
their interests. This hall reminds us of the hollow (specus) in the
interior of a plantain in Lycia, in which the Roman ex-consul,
Lucinius Mutianus, entertained twenty-one guests. Pliny (xii. 3) gives
to a cavity of this kind the somewhat ample breadth of eighty Roman
feet. The Baobab was seen by René Caillié in the valley of the Niger
near Jenne, by Cailliaud in Nubia, and by Wilhelm Peters along the
whole eastern coast of Africa, where this tree, which is called
_Mulapa_, _i.e._ _Nlapa-tree_, or more correctly _muti-nlapa_,
advances as far as Lourenzo Marques, almost to 26° south lat. The
oldest and thickest trunks seen by Peters “measured from 60 to 75 feet
in circumference.” Although Cadamosto observed, in the fifteenth
century, _eminentia non quadrat magnitudini_; and although
Golberry[MN] found, in the “Vallée des deux Gagnacks,” trunks only 64
feet in height whose diameter was 36 feet, this disproportion between
thickness and height must not be assumed to be general. “Very old
trees,” says the learned traveller, Peters, “lose their crowns by
gradual decay, while they continue to increase in circumference. On
the eastern coast of Africa one not unfrequently meets with trees
having a diameter of more than 10 feet which reach the height of
nearly 70 feet.”
While therefore the bold calculations of Adanson and Perrottet assign
to the Adansonias measured by them, an age of 5150 or even 6000 years,
which would make them coeval with the builders of the Pyramids, or
even with Menes, and would place them in an epoch when the Southern
Cross was still visible in Northern Germany;[MO] the more certain
estimations yielded by annular rings, and by the relation found to
exist between the thickness of the layer of wood and the duration of
growth, give us, on the other hand, shorter periods for our temperate
northern zone. Decandolle finds that of all European species of trees,
the yew attains the greatest age; and according to his calculations,
30 centuries must be assigned as the age of the _Taxus baccata_ of
Braburn in Kent, from 25 to 26 to the Scotch yew of Fortingal, and 14½
and 12 respectively to those of Crowhurst in Surrey and Ripon
(Fountains Abbey) in Yorkshire.[MP] Endlicher remarks that “another
yew-tree in the churchyard of Grasford, North Wales, which measures
more than 50 feet in girth below the branches, is more than 1400 years
old, whilst one in Derbyshire is estimated at 2096 years. In Lithuania
linden trees have been felled which measured 87 feet round, and in
which 815 annular rings have been counted.”[MQ] In the temperate zone
of the southern hemisphere some species of the Eucalyptus attain an
enormous girth, and as they at the same time attain a height of nearly
250 feet, they afford a singular contrast to our yew trees, which are
colossal only in thickness. Mr. Backhouse found in Emu Bay, on the
shore of Van Diemen’s Land, Eucalyptus trunks which, with a
circumference of 70 feet at the base, measured as much as 50 feet at a
little more than 5 feet from the ground.[MR]
It was not Malpighi, as has been generally asserted, but the
intellectual Michel Montaigne, who had the merit of first showing, in
1581, in his _Voyage en Italie_, the relation that exists between the
annual rings and the age of the tree.[MS] An intelligent artisan,
engaged in the preparation of astronomical instruments, first drew
Montaigne’s attention to the significance of the annual rings,
asserting that the part of the trunk directed towards the north had
narrower rings. Jean Jacques Rousseau entertained the same opinion;
and his Emile, when he loses himself in the forest, is made to direct
his course in accordance with the deposition of the layers of wood.
Recent phyto-anatomical observations[MT] teach us, however, that the
acceleration of vegetation as well as the remission of growth, and the
varying production of the circles of the ligneous bundles (annual
deposits) from the cambium cells, depend on other influences than
position with respect to the quarter of the heavens.
Trees which in the case of some examples attain a diameter of more
than 20 feet, and an age of many centuries, belong to very different
natural families. We may here instance Baobabs, Dragon trees, various
species of Eucalyptus, Taxodium distichum. (Rich.,) Pinus Lambertiana.
(Douglasii,) Hymenæa Courbaril, Cæsalpinieæ, Bombax, Swietenia
Mahagoni, the Banyan tree (_Ficus religiosa_), Liriodendron
tulipifera(?), Platanus orientalis, and our Lindens, Oaks, and Yews.
The celebrated Taxodium distichon, the Ahuahuete of the Mexicans
(_Cupressus disticha_, Linn., _Schubertia disticha_, Mirbel), of Santa
Maria del Tule, in the State of Oaxaca, has not a diameter of 60 feet,
as stated by Decandolle, but exactly 40½ feet.[MU] The two beautiful
Ahuahuetes which I have frequently seen at Chapoltepec (growing in
what was probably once a garden or pleasure ground of Montezuma)
measure, according to the instructive account in Burkardt’s travels
(bd. i. s. 268) only 36 and 38 feet in circumference, and not in
diameter, as has often been erroneously maintained. The Buddhists of
Ceylon venerate the colossal trunk of the sacred fig-tree of
Anurahdepura. The Banyan, which takes root by its branches, often
attains a thickness of 30 feet, and forms, as Onesicritus truly
expresses himself, a leafy roof resembling a many-pillared tent.[MV]
On the Bombax Ceiba see early notices from the time of Columbus in
Bembo.[MW]
Among those oak trees which have been very accurately measured, the
largest in Europe is undoubtedly the one near Saintes on the road to
Cozes, in the Department de la Charente inférieure. This tree, which
has an elevation of 64 feet, measures very nearly 30 feet in diameter
near the ground, while 5 feet higher up it is nearly 23 feet, and
where the main branches begin more than 6 feet. A little room, from 10
feet 8 inches to 12 feet 9 inches in width and 9 feet 7 inches in
height, has been cleared in the dead part of the trunk, and a
semi-circular bench cut within it from the green wood. A window gives
light to the interior, and hence the walls of this little room, which
is closed by a door, are gracefully clothed with ferns and lichens.
From the size of a small piece of wood that had been cut out over the
door, and in which two hundred ligneous rings were counted, the age of
the oak of Saintes must be estimated at 1800 or 2000 years.[MX]
With respect to the rose-tree (_Rosa canina_) reputed to be a thousand
years old, which grows in the crypt of the Cathedral of Hildesheim, I
learn from accurate information, based on authentic records, for which
I am indebted to the kindness of the Stadtgerichts-Assessor Römer,
that the main stem only has an age of eight hundred years. A legend
connects this rose-tree with a vow of the first founder of the
cathedral, Louis the Pious; and a document of the eleventh century
says, “that when Bishop Hezilo rebuilt the cathedral, which had been
burnt down, he enclosed the roots of the rose-tree within a vault
still remaining, raised on the latter the walls of the crypt, which
was re-consecrated in 1061, and spread the branches of the rose-tree
over its sides.” The stem, still living, is nearly 27 feet in height,
and only 2 inches thick, and spreads across a width of 82 feet over
the outer wall of the eastern crypt. It is undoubtedly of very
considerable antiquity, and well worthy of the renown it has so long
enjoyed throughout Germany.
If excessive size, in point of organic development, may in general be
regarded as a proof of a long protraction of life, special attention
is due, among the thalassophytes of the submarine vegetable world, to
a species of fucus, _Macrocystis pyrifera_, Agardh (_Fucus
giganteus_). This marine plant attains, according to Captain Cook and
George Forster, a length of 360 feet, and exceeds therefore the height
of the loftiest Coniferous trees, not excepting _Sequoia gigantea_,
Endl. (_Taxodium sempervirens_, Hook, and Arnott) of California.[MY]
Captain Fitz-Roy has confirmed this statement.[MZ] Macrocystis
pyrifera grows from 64° south lat. to 45° north lat., as far as the
Bay of San Francisco on the north-west coast of the New Continent;
indeed Joseph Hooker believes that this species of Fucus advances as
far as Kamtschatka. In the waters of the Antarctic seas it is even
seen floating between the pack-ice.[NA] The cellular band and
thread-like structures of the Macrocystis (which are attached to the
bottom of the sea by an adhesive organ resembling a claw) seem to be
limited in their length by accidental disturbing causes alone.
Footnote 83:
p. 220—“_Phanerogamic plants already recorded in herbariums_.”
Three questions must be carefully distinguished from one another: 1.
How many species of plants have been described in printed works? 2.
How many of those discovered—that is to say included in
herbariums—still remain undescribed? 3. How many species probably
exist on the surface of the earth? Murray’s edition of the Linnæan
system contains, including cryptogamic plants, only 10,042 species.
Willdenow, in his edition of the _Species Plantarum_ from 1797 to
1807, has described as many as 17,457 species of phanerogamia,
reckoning from Monandria to Polygamia diœcia. If to these we add 3000
species of cryptogamic plants, we shall bring the number as given by
Willdenow to 20,000. More recent investigations have shown how far
this estimate of the species described, and of those preserved in
herbariums, falls short of the truth. Robert Brown[NB] first
enumerated above 37,000 phanerogamia, and I at that time attempted to
describe the distribution of 44,000 species of phanerogamic and
cryptogamic plants, over the different portions of the world already
explored.[NC] Decandolle finds, on comparing Persoon’s _Enchiridium_
with his _Universal System divided into twelve families_, that more
than 56,000 species of plants may be enumerated from the writings of
botanists and European herbariums.[ND] If we consider how many new
species have been described by travellers since that time, (my
expedition alone afforded 3600 of the 5800 collected species of
equinoctial plants), and if we bear in mind that there are assuredly
upwards of 25,000 phanerogamic plants, cultivated in all the different
botanical gardens, we shall soon see how much Decandolle’s estimate is
below the truth. From our complete ignorance of the interior of South
America (Mato-Grosso, Paraguay, the eastern declivity of the Andes,
Santa-Cruz de la Sierra, and all the countries lying between the
Orinoco, the Rio Negro, the Amazon, and Puruz), of Africa, of
Madagascar, and Borneo, and of Central and Eastern Asia, the idea
involuntarily presents itself to the mind that we are not yet
acquainted with one third, or probably even with one fifth part of the
plants existing on the earth. Drège has collected 7092 phanerogamic
species in Southern Africa alone; and he believes that the flora of
that region consists of more than 11,000 phanerogamic species, seeing
that in Germany and Switzerland, on an equal area (192,000 square
miles,) Koch has described only 3300, and Decandolle only 3645
phanerogamia in France. I would here also instance the new genera,
consisting partly of high forest trees, which are still being
discovered in the neighbourhood of large commercial towns in the
lesser Antilles, although they have been visited by Europeans for the
last three hundred years. Such considerations, which I purpose
developing more fully at the close of this illustration, seem to
verify the ancient myth of the Zend-Avesta, that “the creating
primeval force called forth 120,000 vegetable forms from the sacred
blood of the bull.”
If therefore no direct scientific solution can be afforded to the
question, how many vegetable forms—leafless cryptogamia (water algæ,
fungi, and lichens), characeæ, liverworts, foliaceous mosses,
marsilaceæ, lycopodiaceæ, and ferns—exist on the dry land, and in the
wide basin of the sea, in the present condition of the organic
terrestrial life of our planet, it only remains for us to employ an
approximative method for ascertaining with some degree of probability
certain “extreme limits” (numerical data of minima). Since the year
1815, I have, in my arithmetical considerations on the geography of
plants, calculated the numbers expressing the ratio which the
aggregate of species of different natural families bears to the whole
mass of the phanerogamia in those countries where the latter is
sufficiently determined. Robert Brown,[NE] the greatest botanist of
our age, had, prior to my researches, already determined the numerical
proportion of the principal divisions of vegetable forms, as for
instance of acotyledons (_Agamæ_, cryptogamic or cellular plants) to
cotyledons (_Phanerogamia_, or vascular plants), and of monocotyledons
(_Endogenæ_) to dicotyledons (_Exogenæ_). He finds the ratio of
monocotyledons to dicotyledons in the tropical zone as in the
proportion of 1 to 5, and in the frigid zone, in the parallels of 60°
north, and 55° south lat. as 1 to 2½.[NF] The absolute numbers of the
species are compared together in the three great divisions of the
vegetable kingdom, according to the method developed in Brown’s work.
I was the first who passed from these principal divisions to the
individual families, and considered the number of the species
contained in each, in their ratio to the whole mass of phanerogamia
belonging to one zone.[NG]
The numerical relations of the forms of plants, and the laws observed
in their geographical distribution, admit of being considered from two
very different points of view. When we study plants in their
arrangement according to natural families, without regard to their
geographical distribution, the question arises: What are the
fundamental forms or types of organization, in accordance with which
the greater number of their species are formed? Are there more
Glumaceæ than Compositæ on the earth’s surface? Do these two orders of
plants combined, constitute one-fourth of the phanerogamia? What
numerical relation do monocotyledons bear to dicotyledons? These are
questions of general phytology, a science that investigates the
organization of plants and their mutual connection, and therefore has
reference to the now existing state of vegetation.
If, on the other hand, the species of plants that have been connected
together according to their structural analogy, are considered not
abstractedly, but in accordance with their climatic relations, and
their distribution over the earth’s surface, these questions acquire a
totally different interest. We then examine what families of plants
predominate in the torrid zone more than towards the polar circle over
other phanerogamia? We inquire, whether the Compositæ are more
numerous in the new than in the old world, under equal geographical
latitudes or between equal isothermal lines? Whether the forms which
gradually lose their predominance in advancing from the equator to the
poles, follow a similar law of decrease in ascending mountains
situated in the equatorial region? Whether the relations of the
different families to the whole mass of the phanerogamia differ under
equal isothermal lines in the temperate zones on either side of the
equator? These questions belong to the geography of plants properly so
called, and are connected with the most important problems that can be
presented by meteorology and terrestrial physics. Thus the
predominance of certain families of plants determines the character of
a landscape, and whether the aspect of the country is desolate or
luxuriant, or smiling and majestic. Grasses, forming extended
Savannahs, or the abundance of fruit-yielding palms, or social
coniferous trees, have respectively exerted a powerful influence on
the material condition, manners, and character of nations, and on the
more or less rapid development of their prosperity.
In studying the geographical distribution of forms, we may consider
the species, genera, and natural families of plants separately. A
single species, especially among social plants, frequently covers an
extensive tract of land. Thus we have in the north, Pine or Fir
forests, and Heaths (_ericeta_); in Spain, Cistus groves; and in
tropical America, collections of one and the same species of Cactus,
Croton, Brathys, or Bambusa Guadua. It is interesting to study more
closely these relations of individual increase, and of organic
development; and here we may inquire, what species produces the
greatest number of individuals in one certain zone; or, merely what
are the families to which the predominating species belong in
different climates. In a very high northern latitude, where the
Compositæ and the Ferns stand in the ratios of 1 : 13 and 1 : 25 to
the sum of all the phanerogamia (_i. e._, where these ratios are found
by dividing the sum total of all phanerogamia by the number of species
included in the family of the Compositæ, or in that of the Ferns); one
single species of Fern may, however, cover ten times more space than
all the species of the Compositæ taken together. In this case the
Ferns predominate over the Compositæ by their mass, and by the number
of the individuals belonging to the same species of Pteris, or
Polypodium; but they will not be found to predominate, if we only
compare the number of the different specific forms of the Filices, and
of the Compositæ, with the sum total of all Phanerogamia. As,
therefore, multiplication of plants does not follow the same laws in
all species, and as all do not produce an equal number of individuals,
the quotients obtained by dividing the sum of all phanerogamic plants
by the species of one family, do not _alone_ determine the leading
features impressed on the landscape, or the physiognomy of nature
peculiar to different regions of the earth. If the attention of the
travelling botanist be arrested by the frequent repetition of the same
species, by its mass, and the uniformity of vegetation thus produced,
it will be still more forcibly arrested by the infrequency of many
other species useful to man. In tropical regions, where the Rubiaceæ,
Myrtles, Leguminosæ, or Terebinthaceæ, compose the forests, one is
astonished to meet with so few trees of Cinchona, or of certain
species of mahogany (_Swietenia_), of Hæmatoxylon, Styrax, or balsamic
Myroxylon. I would also here refer to the scanty and detached
occurrence of the precious febrifuge-bark trees (species of Cinchona)
which I had an opportunity of observing on the declivity of the
elevated plains of Bogota and Popayan, and in the neighbourhood of
Loxa, in descending towards the unhealthy valley of the Catamayo, and
to the river Amazon. The _febrifuge-bark hunters_ (Cazadores de
Cascarilla), as those Indians and Mestizoes are called at Loxa, who
each year collect the most efficacious of all the medicinal barks, the
_Cinchona Condaminea_, among the lonely mountains of Caxanuma,
Uritusinga, and Rumisitana, undergo considerable danger in climbing to
the summits of the highest forest-trees, in order to obtain an
extended view, from which they may distinguish the scattered, slender,
and aspiring trunks of the Cinchona, by the reddish tint of their
large leaves. The mean temperature of this important forest region
(between 4° and 4½° south lat.) varies from 60° to 68° Fahr., at an
absolute height of from 6400 to 8000 feet above the level of the
sea.[NH]
In considering the distribution of species, we may also, independently
of individual multiplication and mass, compare together the absolute
number which belong to each family. Such a mode of comparison, which
was employed by Decandolle,[NI] has been extended by Kunth to more
than 3300 of the species of Compositæ with which we are at present
acquainted. It does not show what family preponderates by individual
mass, or by the number of its species, over other phanerogamic forms,
but it simply indicates how many of the species of one and the same
family are indigenous in any one country or portion of the earth. The
results of this method are, on the whole, more exact, because they are
obtained by a careful study of the separate families, without
requiring that the whole number of the phanerogamia of every country
should be known. Thus, for instance, the most varied forms of Ferns
are found in the tropical zone, each genus presenting the greatest
number of species in the temperate, humid, and shaded mountainous
parts of islands. While these species are less numerous in passing
from tropical regions to the temperate zone, their _absolute number_
diminishes still more in approaching nearer to the poles. Although the
frigid zone, as, for instance, Lapland, supports species of the
families which are best able to resist the cold, Ferns predominate
more over other phanerogamia in Lapland than either in France or
Germany, notwithstanding the absolute inferiority of the gross number
of ferns indigenous to the northern zone, when compared with other
countries. These relations are, in France and Germany, as ¹⁄₇₃ and
¹⁄₇₁, while in Lapland they are as ¹⁄₂₅. These numerical relations
(obtained by dividing the sum total of all the phanerogamia of the
different floras by the species of each family) were published by me
in 1817, in my _Prolegomena de distributione geographica Plantarum_,
and corrected in accordance with the great works of Robert Brown, in
my Essay on the Distribution of Plants over the earth’s surface, which
I subsequently wrote in French. These relations, as we advance from
the equator towards the poles, necessarily vary from the ratios
obtained by a comparison of the absolute number of the different
species belonging to each family. We often see the value of the
fractions increase by the decrease of the denominator, whilst the
absolute number of the species is reduced. In the fractional method
which I have followed as the most applicable to questions relating to
the geography of plants, there are two variable quantities; for in
passing from one isothermal line to another, we do not find the sum
total of the phanerogamia change in the same proportion as the number
of the species of one particular family.
In proceeding from the consideration of these species to that of the
divisions established in the natural system according to an ideal
series of abstractions, we may direct our attention to genera or
races, to families, or even to still higher classes of division. There
are some genera, and even whole families, which exclusively belong to
certain zones; not merely because they can only thrive under a special
combination of climatic relations, but also because they first sprang
up within very circumscribed localities, and have been checked in
their migrations. The larger number of genera and families have,
however, their representatives in all regions of the earth, and at all
elevations. The earliest inquiries into the distribution of vegetable
forms had reference to genera alone, and are to be found in the
valuable work of Treviranus.[NJ] This method is, however, less
appropriate for yielding general results, than that which compares the
number of the species of each family, or the great leading divisions
(acotyledons, monocotyledons, and dicotyledons), with the sum total of
the phanerogamia. In the frigid zone, the variety of forms, or the
number of the genera, does not decrease in an equal degree with that
of the species, there being in these regions relatively more genera
and fewer species.[NK] The case is almost the same on the summits of
high mountain-chains, where are sheltered individual members of many
different genera which one would be disposed to regard as belonging
exclusively to the vegetation of the plain.
I have deemed it expedient to indicate the different points of view
from which the laws of the distribution of vegetable forms may be
considered. It is only when these points of view are confounded
together, that we meet with contradictions, which have been unjustly
attributed to uncertainty of observation.[NL] When expressions like
the following are employed: “This form, or this family diminishes as
it approaches towards the cold zone,” or “the true habitat of this
form is in such or such a parallel of latitude;” or “this is a
southern form,” or, again, “it predominates in the temperate zone;” it
should be definitely stated whether reference is made to the absolute
number of the species, and the proportion of their predominance
according to the increase or decrease of latitude; or whether the
meaning conveyed is, that a family, when compared with the whole
number of the phanerogamia of a flora, predominates over other
families of plants. The impression conveyed to the mind of the
predominance of forms, depends literally on the conception of relative
quantity.
Terrestrial physics have their numerical elements as well as the
cosmical system, and it is only by the united labours of botanical
travellers that we can hope gradually to arrive at a knowledge of the
laws which determine the geographical and climatic distribution of
vegetable forms. I have already observed that in the temperate zone of
the northern hemisphere, the Compositæ (Synanthereæ) and the Glumaceæ
(in which latter division I place the three families of the Gramineæ,
the Cyperoideæ, and the Juncaceæ) constitute the fourth part of all
phanerogamia. The following numerical relations are the result of my
investigations for seven great families of the vegetable kingdom in
one and the same temperate zone:
Glumaceæ ⅛ (Grasses alone ¹⁄₁₂)
Compositæ ⅛
Leguminosæ ¹⁄₁₈
Labiatæ ¹⁄₂₄
Umbelliferæ ¹⁄₄₀
Amentaceæ (Cupuliferæ, Betulineæ, and
Salicineæ) ¹⁄₄₅
Cruciferæ ¹⁄₁₉
The forms of organic beings are reciprocally dependent on one another.
Such is the unity of nature, that these forms limit each other in
obedience to laws which are probably connected with long periods of
time. When we have ascertained the number of the species on any
particular part of the earth’s surface belonging to one of the great
families of the Glumaceæ, the Leguminosæ, or the Compositæ, we may
with some degree of probability, form approximative conclusions
regarding the number of all the phanerogamia, as well as of the
species belonging to the other families of plants growing in the
country. The number of the Cyperoideæ determines that of the
Compositæ, and the number of the latter determines that of the
Leguminosæ; and these estimates, moreover, enable us to ascertain in
what classes and orders the Floras of a country are still incomplete,
teaching us what harvests may still be reaped in the respective
families, if we guard against confounding together very different
systems of vegetation.
The comparison of the numerical proportions of families in the
different zones which have as yet been well explored, has led me to a
knowledge of the laws which determine the numerical increase or
decrease of vegetable forms constituting a natural family, in
proceeding from the equator to the poles, when compared, for instance,
with the whole mass of phanerogamia peculiar to each zone. We must
here have regard not only to the direction, but also to the rapidity
or measure of the increase. We see the denominator of the fraction,
which expresses the ratio, increase or diminish. Thus, for instance,
the beautiful family of the Leguminosæ diminishes in proportion as it
recedes from the equinoctial zone to the north pole. If we find its
ratio for the torrid zone (from 0° to 10° of latitude) ⅒, we shall
have for the part of the temperate zone (lying between 45° and 52°)
¹⁄₁₈, and for the frigid zone (between 67° and 70° lat.) only ¹⁄₃₅.
The direction followed by the great family of the Leguminosæ (viz.,
increase towards the equator) is also that of the Rubiaceæ, the
Euphorbiaceæ, and especially the Malvaceæ. On the other hand, the
Gramineæ and the Juncaceæ (the latter more than the former), the
Ericeæ, and Amentaceæ, diminish towards the torrid zone. The
Compositæ, Labiatæ, Umbelliferæ, and Cruciferæ, diminish from the
temperate zone towards the pole and the equator, and the two latter
families most rapidly in the direction of the equatorial region;
whilst in the temperate zone the Cruciferæ are three times more
abundant in Europe than in the United States of North America. In
Greenland the Labiatæ are reduced to only one species, and the
Umbelliferæ to two, while the whole number of the phanerogamia still
amounts, according to Hornemann, to 315 species.
It must at the same time be observed that the development of plants of
different families, and the distribution of their forms, do not depend
alone on the geographical, or even on the isothermal latitude; the
quotients not being always equal on one and the same isothermal line
in the temperate zone, as for instance in the plains of America and in
those of the Old Continent. Within the tropics there is a very marked
difference between America, the East Indies, and the western coast of
Africa. The distribution of organic beings over the surface of the
earth does not depend solely on the great complication of thermic and
climatic relations, but also on geological causes which continue
almost wholly unknown to us, since they have been produced by the
original condition of the earth, and by catastrophes which have not
affected all parts of our planet simultaneously. The large
pachydermata are no longer found in the New Continent, while they
still exist under analogous climates in Asia and Africa. These
differences, instead of deterring us from the investigation of the
laws of nature, should rather stimulate us to study them in all their
intricate modifications.
The numerical laws of families, the frequently striking agreement
between the ratios, where the species constituting these families are
for the most part different, lead us into that mysterious obscurity
which envelopes everything connected with the fixing of organic types
in the different species of animals and plants, and with all that
refers to formation and development. I will take as examples two
neighbouring countries—France and Germany—which have both been long
since explored. In France many species of Gramineæ, Umbelliferæ,
Cruciferæ, Compositæ, Leguminosæ, and Labiatæ are wanting, which are
some of the commonest in Germany, and yet the ratios of these six
large families are almost identical in both countries. Their
relations, which I here give, are as follows:
Families. Germany. France.
Gramineæ. ¹⁄₁₃ ¹⁄₁₃
Umbelliferæ. ¹⁄₂₂ ¹⁄₂₁
Cruciferæ. ¹⁄₁₈ ¹⁄₁₉
Compositæ. ⅛ ⅐
Leguminosæ. ¹⁄₁₈ ¹⁄₁₆
Labiatæ. ¹⁄₂₆ ¹⁄₂₄
This correspondence in the number of species of one family compared to
the whole mass of the phanerogamia of Germany and France would not
exist, if the absent German species were not replaced in France by
other types of the same families. Those who delight in conjectures
respecting the gradual transformation of species, and who regard the
different parrots, peculiar to islands situated near each other, as
merely transformed species, will ascribe the remarkable uniformity
presented by the above numerical ratios to a migration of the same
species, which having been altered by climatic influences, continuing
for thousands of years, appear to replace each other. But why have our
common Heath, (Calluna vulgaris,) and our Oaks not penetrated to the
east of the Ural Mountains, and passed from Europe to northern Asia?
Why is there no species of the genus Rosa in the southern, and
scarcely any Calceolaria in the northern hemisphere? These are points
that cannot be explained by peculiarities of temperature. The present
distribution of forms (fixed forms of organization) is no more
explained by thermal relations alone, than by the hypothesis of
migrations of plants radiating from certain central points. Thermal
relations are scarcely sufficient to explain the phenomenon why
certain species have fixed limits beyond which they cannot pass,
either in the plains towards the pole, or in vertical elevation on the
declivities of mountains. The cycle of vegetation of each species,
however different may be its duration, requires a certain minimum of
temperature to enable it to arrive at the full stage of its
development.[NM] But all the conditions necessary to the existence of
a plant, either within its natural sphere of distribution or
cultivation—such as geographical distance from the pole, and elevation
of the locality—are rendered still more complicated by the difficulty
of determining the beginning of the thermic cycle of vegetation; by
the influence which the unequal distribution of the same quantity of
heat among days and nights succeeding each other in groups, exerts on
the irritability, the progressive development, and the whole vital
process; and lastly, by the secondary influence of the hygrometric and
electric relations of the atmosphere.
My investigations regarding the numerical laws of the distribution of
vegetable forms may, perhaps, at some future time, be applied
successfully to the different classes of vertebrate animals. The rich
collections of the Muséum d’histoire naturelle in the Jardin des
Plantes at Paris, contained in 1820, at a rough estimate, above 56,000
species of phanerogamic and cryptogamic plants in the herbariums,
44,000 insects (probably below the actual number, although they were
thus given me by Latreille), 2500 species of fishes, 700 reptiles,
4000 birds, and 500 mammalia. Europe possesses about 80 mammalia, 400
birds, and 30 reptiles; there are, therefore, five times as many birds
as mammalia in the northern temperate zone, (as there are in Europe
five times as many Compositæ as Amentaceæ and Coniferæ, and five times
as many Leguminosæ as Orchideæ and Euphorbiaceæ). In the southern
temperate zone the ratio of the Mammalia bears a sufficiently striking
accord with that of Birds, being as 1 : 4·3. Birds (and reptiles even
to a greater extent), increase more than mammalia in advancing towards
the torrid zone. We might be disposed to believe, from Cuvier’s
investigations, that this ratio was different in the earlier age of
our planet, and that the number of mammalia that perished by
convulsions of nature was much greater than that of birds. Latreille
has shown the different groups of insects that increase in advancing
towards the pole, or towards the equator, and Illiger has indicated
the native places of 3800 birds, according to the quarters of the
globe;—a far less instructive method than if they had been given
according to zones. We may easily comprehend how, on a given area, the
individuals of one class of plants or animals may limit each other’s
numbers, and how, after the long-continued contests and fluctuations
engendered by the requirements of nourishment and mode of life, a
condition of equilibrium may have been at length established; but the
causes which have determined their typical varieties, and have
circumscribed the sphere of the distribution of the forms themselves,
no less than the number of individuals of each form, are shrouded in
that impenetrable obscurity which still conceals from our view all
that relates to the beginning of things and the first appearance of
organic life.
If, therefore, as I have already observed at the beginning of this
illustration, we attempt to give an approximative estimate of the
_numerical limit_ (“le nombre limite” of the French mathematicians),
_below_ which we cannot place the sum of all the phanerogamia on the
surface of the earth; we shall find that the surest method will be by
comparing the known ratios of the families of plants with the number
of the species contained in our herbariums, or cultivated in large
botanical gardens. As I have just remarked, the herbariums of the
Jardin des Plantes at Paris were, in 1820, already estimated at 56,000
species. I will not hazard a conjecture as to the number that may be
contained in the herbariums of England, but the great Paris herbarium,
which Benjamin Delessert with the noblest disinterestedness has given
up to free and general use, was estimated, at the time of his death,
to contain 86,000 species, a number almost equal to that which
Lindley, even in 1835,[NN] regarded as the probable number of all the
species existing “on the whole earth.” Few herbariums are numbered
with care, according to a complete, severe, and methodical separation
of the different varieties; while, moreover, we often find no
inconsiderable number of plants wanting in the large so-called general
herbariums, which are contained in some of the smaller ones. Dr.
Klotzsch estimates the whole number of Phanerogamic plants in the
Great Royal Herbarium at Schöneberg, near Berlin, of which he is
curator, at 74,000 species.
Loudon’s useful work (_Hortus britannicus_) gives a general view of
the species which now are or recently have been, cultivated in English
gardens. The edition of 1832 enumerates, including indigenous plants,
exactly 26,660 Phanerogamia. We must not confound with this large
number of plants that either have been, or still are, cultivated in
Great Britain, “all the living plants which may simultaneously be
found in an individual botanic garden.” In this last respect the
Botanic Garden of Berlin has long been regarded as one of the richest
in Europe. The fame of its extraordinary riches rested formerly on a
mere approximative estimate of its contents, and, as my old friend and
fellow-labourer Professor Kunth, has very correctly remarked,[NO] “it
was only by the completion of a systematic catalogue, based on the
most careful examination of the species, that an actual enumeration
could be undertaken. This enumeration gave somewhat more than 14,060
species; and when we deduct from these 375 cultivated ferns, there
remain 13,685 Phanerogamia, among which there are 1600 Composite, 1150
Leguminosæ, 428 Labiatæ, 370 Umbelliferæ, 460 Orchideæ, 60 Palms, and
600 Grasses and Cyperaceæ. If we compare with these numbers the number
of species given in recent works, as, for instance, Compositæ
(according to Decandolle and Walpers), at about 10,000, Leguminosæ
8070, Labiatæ (Bentham) 2190, Umbelliferæ 1620, Grasses 3544, and
Cyperaceæ 2000,[NP] we shall perceive that the Botanic Garden at
Berlin cultivates only ⅐, ⅛, and ⅑ of the very large families
(Compositæ, Leguminosæ, and Grasses), and as many as ⅕ and ¼ of the
already described species belonging to the small families (Labiatæ and
Umbelliferæ). If we estimate the number of all the different species
of Phanerogamia _simultaneously_ cultivated in all the botanical
gardens of Europe at 20,000, we shall find, as they appear to
constitute about the eighth part of those already described and
contained in herbariums, that the whole number of Phanerogamia must
amount to nearly 160,000. This estimate need not be regarded as too
high, since scarcely the hundredth part of many of the larger
families, as, for instance, Guttifereæ, Malpighiaceæ, Melastomeæ,
Myrtaceæ, and Rubiaceæ, belong to our gardens.” If we take the number
(26,660 species), given in Loudon’s “Hortus Britannicus,” as the
basis, we shall find, from the well-grounded series of inferences
drawn by Professor Kunth, and which I borrow from his manuscript
notice above referred to, that the estimate of 160,000 will increase
to 213,000 species; and even this is still very moderate, since
Heynhold, in his “Nomenclator botanicus hortensis” (1846), estimates
the species of Phanerogamia already cultivated at 35,600. On the
whole, therefore,—and the conclusion is, at first sight, sufficiently
striking,—the number of species of Phanerogamia at present known by
cultivation in gardens, by descriptions, and in herbariums, is almost
greater than that of known insects. According to the average estimates
of several of the most distinguished entomologists, whose opinion I
have been able to obtain, the number of insects at present described,
or contained in collections without being described, may be stated as
between 150,000 and 170,000 species. The rich collection at Berlin
contains fully 90,000, among which there are about 32,000 beetles.
Travellers have collected an immense quantity of plants in remote
regions, without bringing with them the insects living upon them, or
in the neighbourhood. If, however, we limit these numerical estimates
to a definite portion of the earth’s surface that has been the best
explored in regard to its plants and insects, as, for instance,
Europe, we find the ratio between the vital forms of Phanerogamic
plants and those of insects changed to such a degree, that while
Europe counts scarcely 7000 or 8000 Phanerogamia, more than three
times that number of European insects are at present known. According
to the interesting contributions of my friend Dohrn in Stettin, more
than 8700 insects have already been collected from the rich fauna of
the neighbourhood, and yet there are still many MicroLepidoptera
wanting; while the number of Phanerogamia found there scarcely exceeds
1000. The Insect-fauna of Great Britain is estimated at 11,600. Such a
preponderance of animal forms will appear less surprising when we
remember that several of the large classes of insects live only on
animal substances, whilst others subsist on agamic plants (Fungi), and
even on those which are subterranean. Bombyx Pini, the Pine Spider,
the most destructive of all forest-insects, is infested, according to
Ratzeburg, by no less than thirty-five parasitical Ichneumonidæ.
These considerations have led us to the proportion borne by the number
of species growing in gardens to the gross number of those already
described and preserved in herbariums; it now remains for us to
consider the proportion of the latter to the conjectural number of
species existing on the whole earth, or, in other words, to test their
minimum by the relative numbers of the different families—_i. e._ by
variable _multipla_. A test of this kind gives, however, such low
results for the _lower_ amount, as plainly to show that even in the
large families, which appear to have been the most strikingly enriched
in recent times by the researches of descriptive botanists, our
knowledge is still limited to a very small portion of the treasure
actually existing. The _Repertorium_ of Walpers which completes
Decandolle’s _Prodromus_ of 1825 to 1846, gives 8068 species of the
family of the Leguminosæ. We may assume the mean ratio to be ¹⁄₂₁;
since it is ⅒ in the tropical zone, ¹⁄₁₈ in the middle temperate zone,
and ¹⁄₃₃ in the cold northern zone. The _described_ Leguminosæ would
therefore only lead us to assume that there were 169,400 species of
Phanerogamia existing on the earth, whereas the Compositæ, as already
shewn, testify to the existence of more than 160,000 known
Phanerogamia, _i. e._ such as have been described or are contained in
herbariums. This discrepancy is instructive, and will be further
elucidated by the following analogous considerations.
The larger number of the Compositæ, of which Linnæus knew only 785
species, and which have now increased to 12,000, appear to belong to
the Old Continent. At least Decandolle described only 3590 American,
while he estimated the European, Asiatic, and African species at 5093.
This abundance of Compositæ in our vegetable systems is however
deceptive, and only apparently considerable; for the quotient of this
family (which within the tropical zone is ¹⁄₁₅, in the temperate zone
⅐, and in the frigid zone ¹⁄₁₃) shows that more species of Compositæ
than of Leguminosæ have hitherto eluded the diligent research of
travellers; for even when multiplied by 12 we only obtain the
improbably small number of 144,000 for the sum total of the
Phanerogamia! The families of the Grasses and of the Cyperaceæ give
still lower results, because a proportionally smaller number of
species have been described and collected. We need only cast a glance
at the map of South America, and remember that the vast extent of
country occupied by the grassy plains of Venezuela the Apure and the
Meta, as well as to the south of the woody region of the Amazon, in
Chaco, in Eastern Tucuman, and in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres and
Patagonia, has either been very imperfectly or not at all explored in
relation to botany. Northern and Central Asia present an almost
equally extensive territory occupied by steppes; but here a larger
proportion of dicotyledonous plants is intermixed with the Gramineæ.
If we had sufficient grounds for believing that one-half of all the
phanerogamic plants existing on the surface of the earth are known,
and if we estimate this number at only 160,000 or at 213,000 known
species; we must give to the family of grasses, whose general ratio
appears to be ¹⁄₁₂, in the former case at least 26,000, and in the
latter 35,000 different species, of which in the first case ⅛, and in
the second ⅒ are known.
The following considerations oppose the hypothesis that we are already
acquainted with half the Phanerogamia on the earth’s surface. Several
thousand species of Monocotyledons and Dicotyledons, and among them
lofty arborescent forms, have recently been discovered (I would remind
the reader of my own expedition) in districts of a very large extent,
which had already been explored by distinguished botanists. Yet that
portion of the great continents which has never been visited by
botanical observers far exceeds the extent of the parts even
superficially traversed. The greatest variety of phanerogamic
vegetation, _i. e._ the greatest number of species on an equal area,
is to be met with in the tropical or subtropical zones. It is
therefore the more important to bear in mind that we are almost wholly
unacquainted, north of the equator, in the New Continent, with the
floras of Oaxaca, Yucatan, Guatimala, Nicaragua, the Isthmus of
Panama, the Choco, Antioquia, and the Province de los Pastos; while
south of the equator, we are equally ignorant of the floras of the
boundless forest-region between the Ucayale, the Rio de la Madura, and
the Toncantin (three mighty tributaries of the Amazon), as well as of
those of Paraguay and the Province de las Missiones. In Africa, we
know nothing of the vegetation of the whole of the interior, between
15° north and 20° south lat.; and in Asia we are unacquainted with the
floras of the south and south-east of Arabia, where the highlands rise
to an elevation of 6400 feet; as also with the floras between the
Thian-schan, the Kuen-Lün, and the Himalaya; those of Western China;
and those of the great portion of the countries beyond the Ganges.
Still more unknown to botanists are the interior portions of Borneo
and New Guinea, and of some districts of Australia. Further to the
south the number of the species decreases in a most remarkable manner,
as Joseph Hooker has ably shown, from his own observation, in his
_Antarctic Flora_. The three islands which constitute New Zealand
extend from 34½° to 47¼° of latitude, and as they have besides
snow-crowned mountains more than 8850 feet in height, they must
exhibit considerable differences of climate. The most northern island
has been explored with tolerable accuracy from the time of Banks and
Solander’s voyage (with Capt. Cook), to the visits of Lesson, the
brothers Cunningham, and Colenso; and yet in more than seventy years,
the number of Phanerogamia with which we have become acquainted is
below 700.[NQ] This paucity of vegetable species corresponds with the
paucity of animal forms. Dr. Joseph Hooker has observed that “Iceland,
proverbially barren as it is, and upon which no tree, save a few
stunted birches, is to be found, possesses five times as many
flowering plants as Lord Auckland’s group and Campbell’s Islands
together, although these are situated at from 8° to 10° nearer the
equator in the southern hemisphere. The antarctic flora is at once
characterised by uniformity and great luxuriance of vegetation, which
is attributable to the influence exerted by an uninterruptedly cool
and humid climate. In Southern Chili, Patagonia, and Tierra del Fuego
(from 45° to 56° lat.) this uniformity is strikingly manifested on the
mountains and their declivities no less than in the plains. How great
is the difference of species when we compare the flora of the south of
France, in the same latitude as the Chonos Islands off the coast of
Chili, with the Scottish flora of Argyleshire, in the parallel of Cape
Horn. In the southern hemisphere the same types of vegetation pass
through many degrees of latitude. In the regions near the north pole
ten flowering plants have been collected on Walden Island (80½° north
lat.), while there is scarcely a solitary grass to be met with in the
South Shetland Islands, although situated 63° south latitude.”[NR]
These considerations on the distribution of plants prove that the
great mass of the still unobserved, uncollected, and undescribed
phanerogamia belong to the tropical zone, and to the contiguous
regions extending from twelve to fifteen degrees from it.
I have deemed it not unimportant to draw attention to the imperfect
state of our knowledge in this slightly cultivated department of
numerical botany, and to treat such questions in a more definite
manner than has hitherto been possible. In all conjectures regarding
relative numbers, we must first examine the practicability of
obtaining the _lowest limit_; as in the question, of which I have
treated elsewhere, regarding the ratio of the gold and silver coined
to the quantity of the precious metals existing in a wrought state; or
as in the question of how many stars, from the tenth to the twelfth
magnitude, are scattered over the heavens, and how many of the
smallest telescopic stars may be contained in the Milky Way?[NS] It is
an established fact, that if it were possible to ascertain completely
by observation the number of species of the large phanerogamic
families, we should at the same time obtain an approximate knowledge
of the sum-total of all the phanerogamia on the surface of the earth
(that is, the numbers included in every family). The more therefore we
are enabled, by the progressive exploration of unknown districts,
gradually to determine the number of species belonging to any one
great family, the higher will be the gradual rise of the lowest limit,
and the nearer we shall arrive at the solution of a great numerical
vital problem, since the forms, in accordance with still unexplained
laws of universal organism, reciprocally limit each other. But is the
number of the organisms a constant number? Do not new vegetable forms
spring from the ground after long intervals of time, whilst others
become more and more rare, and finally disappear? Geology confirms the
latter part of this question by means of the historical memorials of
ancient terrestrial life. “In the primitive world,” to use the
expression of the intellectual Link,[NT] “elements remote from each
other blend together in wondrous forms, indicating, as it were, a
higher degree of development and articulation in a future period of
the world.”
Footnote 84:
p. 222—“_Whether the height of the aërial ocean and its pressure have
always been the same_.”
The pressure of the atmosphere has a decided influence on the form and
life of plants. This life, owing to the fulness and abundance of the
leafy organs provided with interstitial openings, is principally
directed _outwards_. Plants mainly live in and through their surfaces,
and hence their dependence on the surrounding medium. Animals are more
dependant on _internal_ stimuli; they generate and maintain their own
temperature, deriving from muscular movements their electric currents,
and the chemical vital processes which arise from and re-act upon
those currents. A kind of cutaneous respiration constitutes an active
vital function of plants, and depends, so far as it is an evaporation,
inhalation, and exhalation of fluids, on atmospheric pressure. Hence
Alpine plants are more aromatic and hirsute than others, and more
amply provided with numerous exhalants.[NU] Zoonomic experiments teach
us, as I have shown in another work, that organs are more abundant and
more perfectly developed in proportion to the facility with which
their functional requirements are fulfilled. The disturbance
occasioned in the respiration of their external integuments, by
increased barometric pressure, renders it, as I have elsewhere shewn,
very difficult for Alpine plants to thrive in the plain.
Whether the aërial ocean surrounding the earth has always exerted the
same mean pressure is a question wholly undecided. We do not even know
for certain whether the mean barometric height has remained the same
during a hundred years at any one given spot. According to the
observations of Poleni and Toaldo, this pressure appeared variable.
Doubts were long entertained regarding the accuracy of these views,
but the more recent investigations of the astronomer Carlini render it
almost probable that in Milan the mean barometric pressure is on the
decrease. Perhaps the phenomenon is very local, and dependent on
periodic variations in descending currents of air.
Footnote 85:
p. 223—“_Palms_.”
It is remarkable, that of this majestic form of plants—the Palms—some
of which rise to more than twice the height of the Royal Palace at
Berlin, and which the Indian, Amarasinha, has very characteristically
called “kings among grasses,”—only fifteen species had been described
up to the time of the death of Linnæus. The Peruvian travellers, Ruiz
and Pavon, added only eight; whilst Bonpland and myself, traversing a
greater extent of country, from 12° south lat. to 21° north lat.,
described twenty new species, and distinguished as many more which we
named, without however being able to procure their blossoms in a
perfect state.[NV] At present (forty-four years after my return from
Mexico) more than 440 species of palms, from both continents, have
already been scientifically described, including the East Indian
species arranged by Griffith. The “Enumeratio Plantarum” of my friend
Kunth, which appeared in 1841, contains no fewer than 356 species.
The very few palms belonging, like our Coniferæ, Quercineæ, and
Betulineæ, to social plants, are the Mauritian Palm (_Mauritia
flexuosa_), and the two species of Chamærops, of which the Chamærops
humilis covers whole tracts of land at the estuary of the Ebro and in
Valencia, while the other, Chamærops Mocini, which we discovered on
the Mexican shore of the Pacific, is entirely without prickles. In the
same manner as there are some species of palms, including Cocos and
Chamærops, which are peculiar to sea-coasts, so also is there a
certain group of Alpine palms belonging to the region of the tropics,
which, if I mistake not, was wholly unknown before my South American
journey. Almost all these species of the palm family grow in plains
and in a mean temperature of 81°.5 and 86° Fahr., seldom advancing
higher up the sides of the Andes than to 1900 feet. The beautiful wax
palm (_Ceroxylon andicola_), the Palmetto of Azufral at the Pass of
Quindiu, (_Oreodoxa frigida_), and the reed-like Kunthia montana
(_Caña de la Vibora_) of Pasto, all flourish at elevations varying
from 6400 to 9600 feet above the level of the sea, where the
thermometer frequently sinks in the night to 42°.8 and 45°.5 Fahr.,
and the mean temperature is scarcely 57° Fahr. These Alpine palms are
interspersed with nut-trees, yew-leaved species of Podocarpus, and
oaks, (_Quercus granatensis_). I have determined, by accurate
barometric measurements, the upper and lower limits of the wax palm.
We began to observe it first on the eastern declivity of the
Cordilleras of Quindiu, at an elevation of 7929 feet, from whence it
ascended to the Garita del Paramo, and Los Volcancitos, as high as
about 9700 feet. The distinguished botanist, Don José Caldas, who was
long our companion in the mountains of New Granada, and who fell a
victim to Spanish party hatred, found, many years after my departure
from the country, three species of palms in the Paramo de Guanacos, in
the immediate vicinity of the limit of perpetual snow, and therefore,
probably at an elevation of nearly 14,000 feet.[NW] Even beyond the
tropical region (in lat. 28°), Chamærops Martiana[NX] rises on the
advanced spurs of the Himalaya range to a height of 5000 feet.
When we consider the extreme geographical and, consequently, also the
climatic limits of palms at spots which are but little elevated above
the level of the sea, we find that some forms (the Date Palm,
_Chamærops humilis_, _Ch. palmetto_, and _Areca sapida_ of New
Zealand,) advance far within the temperate zone of both hemispheres,
to districts where the mean annual temperature scarcely reaches from
57° to 60° Fahr. If we form a progressive scale of cultivated plants
in accordance with the different degrees of heat they require, and
begin with the maximum, we have Cacao, Indigo, Bananas, Coffee,
Cotton, Date Palms, Orange and Lemon trees, Olives, Spanish Chesnuts,
and Vines. In Europe, Date Palms, together with Chamærops humilis,
grow in the parallels of 43½° and 44°, as, for instance, on the
Genoese Rivera del Ponente, near Bordighera, between Monaco and San
Stefano, where there is a palm grove, numbering more than 4000 trees;
also in Dalmatia, near Spalatro. It is remarkable that the Chamærops
humilis is of frequent occurrence in the neighbourhood of Nice and in
Sardinia, whilst it is not found in the Island of Corsica, lying
between the two. In the New Continent, the Chamærops palmetto, which
is sometimes more than 40 feet high, does not advance further north
than 34°; a circumstance that may be explained by the inflection of
the isothermal lines. In the southern hemisphere, Robert Brown[NY]
found that palms, of which there are only very few (six or seven)
species, advance as far as 34° in New Holland; while Sir Joseph Banks
saw an Areca, in New Zealand, as far as 38°. Africa, which, contrary
to the ancient and still extensively diffused opinion, is poor in
species of palms, exhibits only one palm (_Hyphæne coriacea_) which
advances south of the equator, only as far as Port Natal, in 30° lat.
The continent of South America presents almost the same limits. East
of the chain of the Andes, in the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, and in the
Cis-Plata province, palms extend, according to Auguste de
St.-Hilaire,[NZ] as far as 34° and 35°. The Coco de Chile, (our Jubæa
spectabilis?), the only species of palm indigenous in Chili, advances
on the western side of the chain of the Andes, according to Claude
Gay,[OA] to an equal latitude, viz., to the Rio Maule.
I will here subjoin the aphoristic observations which, in March, 1801,
I noted down while on board ship, at the moment we were leaving the
palm region surrounding the mouth of the Rio Sinu, west of Darien, and
were setting sail for Carthagena de Indias.
“In the space of two years, we have seen as many as 27 different
species of palms in South America. How many then must have been
observed by Commerson, Thunberg, Banks, Solander, the two Forsters,
Adanson, and Sonnerat, on their extensive travels! Yet, at the moment
I am writing, our vegetable systems recognise scarcely more than from
fourteen to eighteen methodically described species of palms. The
difficulties of reaching and procuring the blossoms of palms are, in
fact, greater than can well be conceived; and, in our own case, we
were made peculiarly sensible of this in consequence of our having
directed our attention especially to palms, grasses, cyperaceæ,
juncaceæ, cryptogamia, and numerous other subjects hitherto much
neglected. Most of the palms flower only once a year, and this period
near the equator is generally about the months of January and
February. How few travellers are likely to be in the region of palms
precisely during this season! The period of blossoming of particular
trees is often limited to a few days, and the traveller commonly
finds, on his arrival in the region of palms, that the blossoms have
passed away, and that the trees present only fructified ovaries and no
male flowers. In an area of 32,000 square miles, there are often not
more than three or four species of palms to be found. Who can
possibly, during the brief period of flowering, simultaneously visit
the various palm regions near the Missions on the Rio Caroni, in the
Morichales at the mouth of the Orinoco, in the valley of Caura and
Erevato, on the banks of the Atabapo and the Rio Negro, and on the
declivity of the Duida? There is, moreover, great difficulty when the
trees grow in thick woods or on swampy shores (as at the Temi and
Tuamini), in reaching the blossoms, which are often suspended from
stems formidably armed with huge thorns, and rising to a height of
between 60 and 70 feet. They who contemplate distant travels from
Europe for the purpose of investigating subjects of natural history,
picture to themselves visions of efficient shears and curved knives
attached to poles, ready for securing anything that comes in their
way; and of boys who, obedient to their mandates, are prepared, with a
cord attached to their feet, to climb the loftiest trees!
Unfortunately, scarcely any of these visions are ever realised; while
the flowers are almost unattainable, owing to the great height at
which they grow. In the missionary settlements of the river net-work
of Guiana, the stranger finds himself amongst Indians, who, rendered
rich and independent by their apathy, their poverty, and their
barbarism, cannot be induced either by money or presents to deviate
three steps from the regular path, supposing one to exist. This
stubborn indifference of the natives provokes the European so much the
more, from his being continually a witness of the inconceivable
agility with which they will climb any height when prompted by their
own inclination, as, for instance, in the pursuit of a parrot, an
iguana, or a monkey, which, wounded by their arrows, saves itself from
falling by its prehensile tail. In the month of January the stems of
the _Palma Real_, our _Oreodoxa Regia_, were covered with snow-white
blossoms, in all the most frequented thoroughfares of the Havannah,
and in the immediate vicinity of the city; but, although we offered,
for several days running, a couple of piastres for a single spadix of
the hermaphrodite blossoms to every negro boy we met in the streets of
Regia and Guanavacoa, it was in vain, for, in the tropics, no free man
will ever undertake any labour attended by fatigue unless he is
compelled to do so by imperative necessity! The botanists and painters
of the Royal Spanish Commission of Natural History under Count Don
Jaruco y Mopox (Estevez, Boldo, Guio, Echeveria), confessed to us
that, for several years, they had been unable to examine these
blossoms, owing to the absolute impossibility of obtaining them.
“After this statement of the difficulties attending their acquisition,
the fact of our being only able, in the course of two years,
systematically to describe twelve species of palms, although we had
discovered twenty species, may be understood; but I confess it would
hardly have been credible to me before I left Europe. How interesting
a work might be written on palms by a traveller, who could exclusively
devote himself to the delineation, in their natural size, of the
spathe, spadix, inflorescence and fruits!” (Thus I wrote many years
before the Brazilian travels of Martius and Spix, and the appearance
of the admirable work on Palms by the former.)
“There is much sameness in the form of the leaves, which are either
feathery (pinnata), or fan-like (palmo-digitata); the leaf-stalk
(petiolus) is either without thorns or is sharply serrated
(_serrato-spinosus_). The leaf-form of _Caryota urens_ and _Martinezia
caryotifolia_, which we saw on the banks of the Orinoco and the
Atabapo, and subsequently in the Andes, at the pass of Quindiu, as
high as 3200 feet above the level of the sea, is almost as peculiar
among palms as is the leaf-form of the Gingko among trees. The habitus
and physiognomy of palms are expressive of a grandeur of character
which it is difficult to describe in words. The stem (_caudex_) is
simple, and very rarely divided into branches after the manner of the
Dracæna, as in Cucifera thebaica (the Doom Palm), and in Hyphæne
coriacea. It is sometimes disproportionately thick, as in Corozo del
Sinu, our Alfonsia oleifera; of a reed-like feebleness, as in Piritu,
(_Kunthia montana_), and the Mexican Corypha nana; of a somewhat
fork-like and protuberant form towards the lower part, as in Cocos;
sometimes smooth and sometimes scaly, as in the Palma de Covijaó de
Sombrero, in the Llanos; or, lastly, prickly, as in Corozo de Cumana
and Macanilla de Caripe, having the thorns very regularly arranged in
concentric rings.
“Characteristic differences also manifest themselves in the roots,
which, in some cases, project about a foot or a foot and a half from
the ground, raising the stem on a scaffolding, as it were, or coiled
round it in a padded-like roll. I have seen viverras and even very
small monkeys pass under the scaffolding formed by the roots of the
Caryota. Occasionally the stem is swollen only in the middle, being
smaller above and below, as in the Palma Real of the island of Cuba.
The green of the leaves is either dark and shining, as in Mauritia
Cocos, or of a silvery white on the under side, as in the slender
fan-palm, _Corypha Miraguama_, which we saw in the harbour of Trinidad
de Cuba. Sometimes the middle of the fan-like leaf is adorned with
concentric yellow and blue stripes, in the manner of a peacock’s tail,
as in the prickly Mauritia, which Bonpland discovered on the Rio
Atabapo.
“The direction of the leaves is a no less important characteristic
than their form and colour. The leaflets (foliola) are either ranged
in a comb-like manner close to one another, with a stiff parenchyma
(as in _Cocos Phœnix_), to which they owe the beautiful reflections of
solar light that play over the surface of the leaves, which shine with
a brilliant verdure in _Cocos_, and with a fainter and ashy-coloured
hue in the date-palm; or sometimes the foliage assumes a reed-like
appearance, having a thinner and more flexible texture, and being
curled near the extremity (as in _Jagua_, _Palma Real del Sinu_,
_Palma Real de Cuba_, and _Piritu del Orinoco_). This direction of the
leaves, together with the lofty stem, gives to the palms their
character of high majesty. It is a characteristic of the
physiognomical beauty of the palm that its leaves are directed
aspiringly upwards throughout the whole period of its duration, (and
not only in the youth of the tree, as is the case with the Date-Palm,
which is the only one introduced into Europe.) The more acute the
angle made by the leaves with the upper part of the stem (that is, the
nearer they approach the perpendicular,) the grander and nobler is the
form of the tree. How different is the aspect of the pendent leaves of
the _Palma de Covija del Orinoco y de los Llanos de Calabozo_ (Corypha
tectorum), from the more horizontal leaves of the Date and Cocoa-nut
palms, and the lofty heavenward-pointing branches of the _Jagua_, the
_Cucurito_, and _Pirijao_.
“Nature seems to have accumulated all the beauties of form in the
Jagua palm, which, intermingled with the Cucurito or Vadgihai, whose
stem rises to a height of 80 or even more than 100 feet, crowns the
granite rocks at the cataracts of Atures and Maypures, and which we
also occasionally saw on the lonely banks of the Cassiquiare. Their
smooth and slender stems rise to a height of from 64 to 75 feet,
projecting like a colonnade above the dense mass of the surrounding
foliage. These aërial summits present a marked and beautiful contrast
with the thickly-leaved species of _Ceiba_, and with the forest of
_Laurineæ_, _Calophyllum_, and the different species of _Amyris_ which
surround them. Their leaves, which seldom exceed seven or eight in
number, incline vertically upwards to a height of 16 or 17 feet, and
are curled at the extremities in a kind of feathery tuft. The
parenchyma of the leaf is of a thin grass-like texture, causing the
leaflets to wave with graceful lightness on the gently oscillating
leaf-stalk. The floral buds burst forth, in all species of palms, from
the stem immediately beneath the leaves; and the mode in which this
takers place modifies their physiognomical character. Thus in some, as
in _Corozo del Sinu_, the sheath is perfectly erect, and the fruit
rises like a thyrsus, resembling the fruits of the Bromelia. In the
greater number, the sheaths, which in some species are smooth, and in
others very prickly and rough, incline downwards. In some, again, the
male blossoms are of a dazzling white, and it may then be seen shining
from a great distance; but in most species of palms they are yellow,
closely compressed, and of an almost faded appearance, even when they
first burst from the spathe.
“In palms with feathery leaves the leaf-stalks either burst from the
dry, rough, ligneous portion of the stem (as in _Cocos_, _Phœnix_,
_Palma Real del Sinu_), or there rises in the rough part of the stem a
grass-green, smooth, and thinner shaft, like one column above another,
from which the leaf-stalk springs, as in _Palma Real de la Havana_,
_Oreodoxa regia_, which excited the admiration of Columbus. In the
fan-palms (_foliis palmatis_), the leafy crown often rests on a layer
of dry leaves, which imparts to the tree a character of melancholy
solemnity and grandeur (as in _Moriche_, _Palma de sombrero de la
Havana_). In some umbrella-palms, the crown consists of a very few
scattered leaves, raised on slender stalks (as in _Miraguama_).
“The form and colour of the fruit also present more variety than is
generally supposed to be the case in Europe. _Mauritia flexuosa_ has
egg-shaped fruits, whose smooth, brown, and scaly surface gives them
the appearance of young pine cones. How great is the difference
between the large triangular cocoa-nut, the berry of the date, and the
small stone-fruit of the Corozo! But of all the fruits of the palm,
none can be compared for beauty with those of the Pirijao (_Pihiguao_)
of San Fernando de Atabapo and of San Balthasar. They are oval, and of
a golden colour (one-half being of a purplish red); are mealy, without
seed, two or three inches in thickness, and hang in clusters like
grapes from the summits of their majestic palm-trunks.” I have already
spoken in the earlier part of this work of these beautiful fruits, of
which there are seventy or eighty clustered together in one bunch, and
which can be prepared in a variety of ways like bananas and potatoes.
The spathe enclosing the blossom bursts suddenly open in some species
of palms, with an audible report. Richard Schomburgk has like myself
observed this phenomenon[OB] in the flowering of the Oreodoxa
oleracea. This first opening of the blossoms of the palm accompanied
with noise, reminds us of Pindar’s Dithyrambus on Spring, and of the
moment when in the Argive Nemæa, “the first opening shoot of the
date-palm announces the coming of balmy spring.”[OC]
Palms, bananas, and arborescent ferns constitute three forms of
especial beauty peculiar to every portion of the tropical zone;
wherever heat and moisture co-operate, vegetation is most exuberant
and vegetable forms present the greatest diversity. Hence South
America is the most beautiful portion of the palm world. In Asia the
palm form is rare, in consequence perhaps of a considerable part of
the Indian continent beneath the equator having been destroyed and
covered by the ocean in some earlier revolution of our planet. We know
scarcely anything of the African palms between the Bay of Benin and
the coast of Ajan; and we are, generally speaking, as already
observed, acquainted with only a very small number of African
palm-forms.
Palms, next to Coniferæ, and some species of Eucalyptus belonging to
the family of the Myrtaceæ, afford examples of the loftiest growth.
Stems of the Cabbage-palm (_Areca oleracea_) have been seen from 160
to 170 feet in height.[OD] The Wax-palm, our Ceroxylon andicola, which
we discovered in the Montaña de Quindiu on the side of the Andes,
between Ibague and Carthago, attains the enormous height of 180 to 190
feet. I was able to make an accurate measurement of the trunks of some
of these trees, which had been felled in the woods. Next to the
Wax-palm, the Oreodoxa Sancona, which we found in flower in the valley
of Cauca, and which affords a very hard and admirable wood for
building, appeared to me to be the highest of all American palms. The
fact, that notwithstanding the enormous mass of fruit yielded by some
single palms, the number of individuals of each species growing wild
is not very considerable, can only be explained by the frequent
abortive development of the fruit, and by the voracity of the enemies
by whom they are assailed from all classes of animals. In the basin of
the Orinoco, however, whole tribes find the means of subsistence for
many months together in the fruit of the palm. “In palmetis, Pihiguao
consitis, singuli trunci quotannis fere 400 fructus ferunt pomiformes,
tritumque est verbum inter Fratres S. Francisci, ad ripas Orinoci et
Guainiæ degentes, mire pinguescere Indorum corpora, quoties uberem
Palmæ fructum fundant.”[OE]
Footnote 86:
p. 224—“_From the earliest infancy of human civilization_.”
We find, as far as history and tradition extend, that the Banana has
constantly been cultivated in all continents within the tropical zone.
The fact of African slaves having, in the course of centuries, brought
some varieties of the Banana fruit to America is as certain as that of
the cultivation of this vegetable product by the natives of America
prior to its discovery by Columbus. The Guaikeri Indians in Cumana
assured us that on the coast of Paria, near the Golfo Triste, the
Banana will occasionally produce germinating seeds, if the fruit be
suffered to ripen on the stem. It is from this cause, that wild
Bananas are occasionally found in the recesses of the forests, in
consequence of the ripe seeds being scattered abroad by birds. At
Bordones also, near Cumana, perfectly formed and matured seeds have
been occasionally found in the fruit of the Banana.[OF]
I have already remarked, in another work,[OG] that Onesicritus and
other companions of the great Macedonian, make no mention of high
arborescent ferns, although they speak of the fan-leaved umbrella
palms and of the tender evergreen verdure of the banana-plantations.
Among the Sanscrit names given by Amarasinha for the Banana (the
_Musa_ of botanists) we find _bhanu-phala_ (sun-fruit),
_varana-buscha_, and _moko_. Phala signifies fruit generally. Lassen
explains Pliny’s words (xii. 6), “Arbori nomen palæ, pomo arienæ,” to
this effect, that “The Roman mistook the word _pala_, fruit, for the
name of the tree, whilst _varana_, changed in the mouth of a Greek to
_ouarana_, was transformed into _ariena_. The Arabic _mauza_, our
Musa, may have been formed from _moko_. The Bhanu fruit seems to
approach to Banana fruit.”[OH]
Footnote 87:
p. 224—“_Form of the Malvaceæ_.”
Larger forms of the Mallow appear, as soon as we have crossed the
Alps; _Lavatera arborea_, near Nice and in Dalmatia; and _L. olbia_,
in Liguria. The dimensions of the Baobab (monkey bread-tree) have
already been given. (See pp. 270–272.) With the form of the Malvaceæ
are associated the botanically allied families of the Byttneriaceæ,
(_Sterculia_, _Hermannia_, and the blossoms of the large-leaved
_Theobroma Cacao_, whose flowers break forth from the bark of the
trunk as well as from the roots); the Bombaceæ (_Adansonia_,
_Helicteres_, and _Cheirostemon_); and, lastly, the Tiliaceæ
(_Sparmannia Africana_). Our _Cavanillesia plantanifolia_ of Turbaco,
near Carthagena in South America, and the celebrated Ochroma-like
Hand-tree, the _Macpalxochiquahuitl_ of the Mexicans, (from Macpalli,
the flat of the hand,) _Arbol de las manitas_ of the Spaniards, our
_Cheirostemon platanoides_, are splendid representatives of the mallow
form. In the last named, the anthers are connected together in such a
manner as to resemble a hand or claw rising from the beautiful
purplish-red blossoms. There is in all the Mexican free states only
one individual remaining, one single primæval stem of this wonderful
genus. It is supposed not to be indigenous, but to have been planted
by a king of Toluca, about five hundred years ago. I found that the
spot where the Arbol de las Manitas stands is 8825 feet above the
level of the sea. Why is there only one tree of the kind? Whence did
the kings of Toluca obtain the young tree or the seed? It is equally
enigmatical, that Montezuma should not have possessed one of these
trees in his botanical gardens of Huaxtepec, Chapoltepec, and
Iztapalapan, which were used as late as by Philip the Second’s
physician, Hernandez, and of which gardens traces still remain; and it
appears no less striking that the Hand-tree should not have found a
place among the drawings of subjects connected with natural history,
which Nezahual Coyotl, king of Tezcuco, caused to be made, half a
century before the arrival of the Spaniards. It is asserted that the
Hand-tree grows wild in the forests of Guatimala.[OI] We found two
Malvaceæ, _Sida Phyllanthos_ (Cavan.), and _Sida Pichinchensis_,
rising in the equatorial region to the great height of 13,430, and
15,066 feet on the mountain of Antisana and at the volcano of Rucu
Pichincha.[OJ] The _Saxifraga Boussingaultii_ rises from 600 to
upwards of 700 feet higher, on the declivity of Chimborazo.
Footnote 88:
p. 225—“_Form of the Mimosæ_.”
The delicate and feathery foliage of the Mimosæ, Acaciæ, Schrankiæ,
and Desmanthus, may be regarded as peculiarly characteristic of
tropical vegetation; although some representatives of this form may
also be found without the tropics. In the Old Continent of the
northern hemisphere, and indeed in Asia, I can instance only one low
shrub, described by Marshal von Bieberstein as _Acacia Stephaniana_,
but which, according to Kunth’s more recent investigations, is a
species of the genus _Prosopis_. This social plant covers the arid
plains of the province of Schirvan on the Kur (Cyrus), near New
Schamach, as far as the ancient Araxes. Olivier found it also in the
neighbourhood of Bagdad. It is the _Acacia foliis bipinnatis_
mentioned by Buxbaum, and which extends towards the north as far as
42° lat.[OK] In Africa the _Acacia gummifera_ (Willd.), extends to
Mogador, and therefore as far as 32° north lat.
In the New Continent, _Acacia glandulosa_ (Michaux), and _A.
brachyloba_ (Willd.), adorn the banks of the Mississippi and
Tennessee, and the Savannahs of the Illinois. The _Schrankia uncinata_
was found by Michaux to penetrate from Florida northwards to Virginia
(therefore as far as 37° north lat.). _Gleditschia triacanthos_ is met
with, according to Barton, to the east of the Alleghany mountains, as
far as 38° north lat., and west of the same range even to 41° north
lat. The extreme northern limit of _Gleditschia monosperma_ is two
degrees further southward. Such are the boundaries of the Mimosa form
in the northern hemisphere, while in the southern hemisphere, beyond
the tropic of Capricorn, simple-leaved Acaciæ are found as far as Van
Dieman’s Land; the Acacia cavenia described by Claude Gay being even
found in Chili between 30° and 37° south lat.[OL] Chili has no true
Mimosa, but three species of Acacia; and even in the north of Chili
the Acacia cavenia grows only to a height of 12 or 13 feet, whilst in
the south, as it approaches the sea-coast, it scarcely rises a foot
above the ground. The most sensitive of the Mimosas which we saw in
the northern portion of South America, are (next to the Mimosa
pudica,) _M. dormiens_, _M. somnians_, and _M. somniculosa_. The
irritability of the African sensitive plant was already noticed by
Theophrastus (iv. 3), and by Pliny (xiii. 10); but I find the first
description of the South American sensitive plants (Dormideras) in
Herrera (Decad. ii. lib. iii. cap. 4). The plant first attracted the
attention of the Spaniards, in 1518, in the Savannahs on the isthmus
round Nombre de Dios (“parece como cosa sensible”), and it was
pretended that the leaves (“de echura de una pluma de pajaros,”) only
contracted together when they were touched with the finger, and not
when brought in contact with a piece of wood. In the small swamps
which surround the town of Mompox on the Magdalena River, we
discovered a very beautiful aquatic Mimosa (_Desmanthus lacustris_), a
representation of which is given in our “Plantes équinoxiales” (t. i.
p. 55, pl. 16). In the chain of the Andes of Caxamarca we found two
Alpine Mimosas (Mimosa montana and Acacia revoluta) growing at
elevations of from 9000 to nearly 9600 feet above the level of the
sea.
As yet no true Mimosa, (in the meaning of the word as established by
Willdenow,) nor even any Inga, has been found in the temperate zone.
Amongst all the Acacias the Oriental _Acacia Julibrissin_, which
Forskäl has confounded with _Mimosa arborea_, endures the greatest
degree of cold. In the Botanical Garden of Padua there is a high stem
of considerable thickness growing in the open air, although the mean
temperature of Padua is below 56° Fahrenheit.
Footnote 89:
p. 225.—“_Heaths_.”
We do not, in these physiognomical considerations, by any means
comprehend, under the name of Heaths, the whole natural family of the
Ericaceæ, which, on account of the similarity and analogy in the
flowering parts of the plant, include Rhododendrum, Befaria,
Gaultheria, and Escallonia; we limit ourselves to the very accordant
and characteristic form of the species of Erica, including Calluna
(_Erica vulgaris_, L.).
“Whilst in Europe Erica carnea, E. tetralix, E. cinerea, and Calluna
vulgaris, cover large tracts of country, extending from the plains of
Germany, and from France and England, to the extremity of Norway;
Southern Africa presents the most varied assortment of species. One
single species, Erica umbellata, which is indigenous in the southern
hemisphere, at the Cape of Good Hope, is again found in Northern
Africa, Spain, and Portugal. Erica vagans and E. arborea also belong
to the opposite coasts of the Mediterranean. The former is met with in
Northern Africa, in the neighbourhood of Marseilles, in Sicily and
Dalmatia, and even in England; the second in Spain, Istria, Italy, and
the Canaries.”[OM] The common heath, _Calluna vulgaris_ (Salisbury),
which is a social plant, covers large tracts from the mouth of the
Scheldt to the western declivity of the Ural. Beyond the Ural both
Oaks and Heaths disappear. Both are wanting in the whole of Northern
Asia, and in all Siberia, as far as the Pacific. Gmelin[ON] and
Pallas[OO] have expressed their astonishment at this disappearance of
Calluna vulgaris; which, on the eastern declivity of the Ural chain is
even more decided and more sudden than one might be led to conclude,
from the words of the last-named great naturalist. Pallas merely says,
“ultra Uralense jugum sensim deficit, vix in Isetensibus campis
rarissime apparet, et ulteriori Sibiriæ plane deest.” Chamisso, Adolph
Erman, and Heinrich Kittlitz collected Andromedas but no Calluna in
Kamtschatka and on the north-west coast of America. The accurate
knowledge which we at present possess of the mean temperature of
different portions of Northern Asia, as well as of the distribution of
annual heat throughout the different seasons, in no way explains the
non-advance of the Heath to the east of the Ural. Dr. Joseph Hooker
has treated with much ingenuity, in a note to his “Flora Antarctica,”
of the two contrasting phenomena of the distribution of plants,
“uniformity of surface accompanied by a similarity of vegetation”, and
again, “instances of a sudden change in the vegetation, unaccompanied
with any diversity of geological and other feature.”[OP] Is there an
Erica in Central Asia? That which Saunders, in Turner’s “Travels to
Thibet,”[OQ] has described in the highlands of Nepaul, besides other
European plants (Vaccinium Myrtillus, and V. oxycoccus), as Erica
vulgaris, is, according to the opinion communicated to me by Robert
Brown, probably the Andromeda fastigiata of Wallich. The absence of
Calluna vulgaris and of all species of Erica, throughout the whole of
the continental part of America is an equally striking fact, since
Calluna is met with in the Azores and in Iceland. It has not hitherto
been found in Greenland, but it was discovered some years ago in
Newfoundland. The natural family of the Ericaceæ is also almost
entirely wanting in Australia, where its place is supplied by the
Epacrideæ. Linnæus described only 102 species of the genus Erica, but,
according to Klotzsch’s observations, this genus comprises 440 true
species, after the varieties have been carefully excluded.
Footnote 90:
p. 226—“_The Cactus form_.”
When the natural family of the Opuntiaceæ is separated from the
Grossulariaceæ (species _Ribes_), and is confined within the limits
indicated by Kunth,[OR] we may regard the whole as exclusively
American. I am not ignorant, that Roxburgh, in the _Flora indica_
(inedita), mentions two species of Cactus which he regards as peculiar
to the south-east of Asia, viz., Cactus indicus, and C. chinensis.
Both are widely diffused, originally wild or having become so, and
different from Cactus opuntia and C. Coccinellifer; but it is
remarkable that this Indian plant should have no ancient Sanscrit
name. The so-called Chinese Cactus has been introduced by cultivation
into the island of St. Helena. Modern investigations, prosecuted at a
period when a more general interest has been awakened in relation to
the original distribution of plants, will unquestionably remove the
doubts that have frequently been advanced against the existence of
Asiatic Opuntiaceæ. We see, in a similar manner, certain vital forms
appear separately in the animal world. How long did the Tapir continue
to be regarded as a characteristic form of the New Continent! And yet
the American Tapir is, as it were, repeated in that of Malacca
(_Tapirus indicus_, Cuv.).
Although the Cactus form belongs, properly speaking, to the tropical
regions, there are some species in the New Continent, that are
indigenous to the temperate zone on the Missouri and in Louisiana; as,
for instance, Cactus missuriensis and C. vivipara. Back, in his
northern expedition, saw with astonishment, the banks of the Rainy
Lake in lat. 48° 40′ (long. 92° 53′) entirely covered with C. Opuntia.
South of the equator the Cactus does not advance further than Rio
Itata (lat. 36°) and Rio Biobio (lat. 37¼°) In the part of the chain
of the Andes lying within the tropics, I have found species of Cactus
(_C. sepium_, _C. chlorocarpus_, _C. bonplandii_) on elevated plains
from 9000 to upwards of 10,600 feet above the level of the sea; but in
Chili, in the temperate zone, a far more strongly marked Alpine
character is exhibited by Opuntia Ovallei, whose upper and lower
limits have been accurately determined through barometric measurements
by the learned botanist, Claude Gay. The yellow-flowering Opuntia
Ovallei, which has a creeping stem, does not descend below 6746 feet,
advancing as high as the line of perpetual snow; and even above it,
wherever a few masses of rock remain uncovered. These little plants
have been gathered at spots lying at an elevation of 13,663 feet above
the level of the sea.[OS] Some species of Echinocactus are also true
alpine plants in Chili. A counterpart to the much admired fine-haired
Cactus senilis is presented by the thick-wooled Cereus lanatus, called
by the natives _Piscol_, which has a fine red fruit. We found it near
Guancabamba, in Peru, on our journey to the Amazon river. The
dimensions of the Cactaceæ (a group on which the Prince of Salm-Dyck
was the first to throw considerable light) present the most striking
contrasts. Echinocactus Wislizeni, which has a circumference of seven
feet and a half, with a height of four feet and a quarter, is only
third in size, being surpassed by E. ingens, (Zucc.) and E.
platyceras. (Lem.)[OT] The Echinocactus Stainesii attains a diameter
of from two feet to two and a-half; E. visnago, belonging to Mexico,
has a diameter of upwards of three feet, with a height of more than
four feet, and weighs as much as from 700 to 2000 lbs.; while the
Cactus nanus, which we collected near Sondorillo, in the province of
Jaen, is so small and so loosely rooted in the sand, that it gets
between the toes of dogs. The Melocactuses, which are full of juice
even in the driest season, as the Ravenala of Madagascar (wood-leaf in
the language of the country from _rave_, _raven_, a leaf, and _ala_,
the Javanese _halas_, a wood), are vegetable springs, which the wild
horses and mules open by stamping with their hoofs—a process in which
they frequently injure themselves.[OU] Cactus Opuntia has spread
during the last quarter of a century in a remarkable manner through
Northern Africa, Syria, Greece, and the whole of Southern Europe;
penetrating from the coasts of Africa far into the interior, where it
associates with the native plants.
After being accustomed to see Cactuses only in our hothouses, we were
astonished at the density of the woody fibres in old cactus stems. The
Indians are aware that cactus wood is indestructible, and admirably
adapted for oars and the thresholds of doors. There is hardly any
physiognomical character of exotic vegetation that produces a more
singular and ineffaceable impression on the mind of the traveller,
than an arid plain densely covered with columnar or candelabra-like
stems of cactuses, similar to those near Cumana, New Barcelona, Coro,
and in the province of Jaen de Bracamoros.
Footnote 91:
p. 226—“_Orchideæ_.”
The almost animal-like form occasionally observed in blossoms of the
Orchideæ is most strongly marked in Anguloa grandiflora, celebrated in
South America as the Torito; in the Mosquito (our Restrepia
antennifera); in the Flor del Espiritu Santo (likewise an Anguloa,
according to _Floræ Peruvianæ Prodrom._ p. 118, tab. 26); in the
ant-like flower of Chiloglottis cornuta;[OV] in the Mexican Bletia
speciosa; and in the whole host of our remarkable European species of
Ophrys: _O. muscifera_, _O. apifera_, _O. aranifera_, _O. arachnites_,
_&c._ The taste for these splendidly flowering plants has so much
increased, that the number of species cultivated by Messrs. Loddige,
which, in 1813, was only 115, was upwards of 1650 in 1843, and in
1848, the number was estimated at no fewer than 2360. What a treasure
of sumptuously flowering and unknown Orchideæ may be inclosed in the
interior of Africa wherever there is an abundant supply of water!
Lindley, in his beautiful work, _On the Genera and Species of
Orchideous Plants_, 1840, counted exactly 1980 species; whilst
Klotzsch at the close of the year 1848 counted 3545.
Whilst the temperate and cold zone possess only terrestrial Orchideæ,
growing close to the ground, both forms, the terrestrial, as well as
the parasitical, growing on the trunks of trees, are indigenous in the
beautiful regions of the tropics. To the former class belong the
tropical genera Neottia, Cranichis, and most Habenarias. But we have
found both these forms as alpine plants on the declivity of the Andes
of New Granada and Quito, viz., the parasitical (_Epidendreæ_)
Masdevallia uniflora (at an elevation of 10,231 feet), Cyrtochilum
flexuosum (at 10,103 feet), and Dendrobium aggregatum (at 9485 feet);
and the terrestrial forms of Altensteinia paleacea, near Lloa
Chiquito, at the foot of the volcano of Pichincha. Claude Gay is of
opinion that the Orchideæ supposed to have been found growing on trees
in the Island of Juan Fernandez and even at Chiloe, were probably only
parasitical Pourretiæ, which advance as far south at least as 40°. In
New Zealand, the tropical form of Orchideæ, hanging from trees, is
still to be seen as far south as 45°. But the Orchideæ of Auckland and
Campbell Islands (Chiloglottis, Thelymitra, and Acianthus), grow on
level ground in moss. In the animal world there is at least one
tropical form that penetrates further south. The Island of Macquarie
(lat. 54° 39′) has an indigenous parrot, which lives therefore in a
region nearer to the south pole than Danzig is to the north pole.[OW]
Footnote 92:
p. 226—“_Form of the Casuarinæ_.”
Acacias, in which the place of the leaves is supplied by phyllodia,
Myrtaceæ (Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, Melaleuca, Leptospermum), and
Casuarinæ, constitute the sole characteristics of the vegetable world
of Australia (New Holland) and Tasmania (Van Diemen’s Land). Casuarinæ
with their leafless, thin, thread-like, articulated branches, and
their joints furnished with membranous, toothed spathes, have been
compared by travellers,[OX] according to differences of species,
either with arborescent Equisetaceæ (Horsetails) or with our Scotch
firs. I have been much struck with the singular appearance of
leaflessness presented by the small thickets of Colletia and Ephedra
in South America, near the coast of Peru. Casuarina quadrivalvis
penetrates, according to Labillardière, as far south as 43° in
Tasmania. The mournful form of the Casuarina is not unknown in the
East Indies and even on the eastern coast of Africa.
Footnote 93:
p. 227—“_Acicular-leaved trees_.”
The family of the Coniferæ (including the genera of Dammara, Ephedra,
and Gnetum of Java and New Guinea, which are essentially allied to it,
though distinctly separated by the form of the leaf and the whole
conformation), plays so important a part in consequence of the number
of individuals in each species, and by its geographical diffusion,
while it covers in the northern temperate zone, as a social plant,
such extensive districts, that we are almost compelled to wonder at
the inconsiderable number of the species. We are not acquainted with
so many Coniferæ by three-fourths as there are Palms already
described, nay, the Coniferæ are numerically less than the Aroideæ.
Zuccarini, in his “Contributions to the Morphology of the
Coniferæ,”[OY] enumerates 216 species, of which 165 belong to the
Northern and 51 to the Southern hemisphere. These proportional numbers
must now, in consequence of my researches, be differently expressed,
since, with the species of Pinus, Cupressus, Ephedra, and Podocarpus,
which Bonpland and I discovered in the tropical part of Peru, Quito,
New Granada, and Mexico, the number of the cone-bearing trees
flourishing between the tropics amounts to 42. The excellent and
latest work of Endlicher[OZ] contains 312 species of Coniferæ now
living, and 178 of a primeval mundane period which are now buried in
the coal formation, in variegated sandstone, in keuper, and in Jura
limestone. The vegetation of the eocene world presents especially to
us forms which, by their coëval relationship with several families of
the present world, remind us that with it many intervening members
have disappeared. The Coniferæ, so frequent in the primeval world,
accompany, in particular, the ligneous remains of Palms and Cycadeæ;
but in the most recent beds of lignite or brown coal we again find
Coniferæ, our Pines and Firs, associated with Cupuliferæ (or
Mastworts), Maples and Poplars.[PA]
If the surface of the earth did not rise to great altitudes within the
tropics, the strikingly characteristic form of acicular-leaved trees
would have remained wholly unknown to the inhabitants of that zone. I
took great pains, in common with Bonpland, to trace out, in the
Mexican Highlands, the _lower_ and _upper_ boundary line of the
Coniferæ and Oaks. The heights, at which both begin to grow (los
Pinales y Encinales, Pineta et Querceta), are hailed with joy by those
who come from the sea coast, because they announce a climate not yet
invaded, as far as experience has hitherto shown, by that mortal
disease called the black vomit (vomito prieto, a form of the yellow
fever). For the oaks, especially the Quercus Xalapensis (one of the
twenty-two Mexican species of oak which we first described), the lower
line of vegetation, on the way from Vera Cruz to the capital of
Mexico, somewhat below the Venta del Encero, is 3048 feet above the
sea. At the western slope of the plateau, between the South Sea and
Mexico, the inferior line for oaks is something lower; it begins near
a hut named Venta de la Moxonera, between Acapulco and Chilpanzingo,
at the absolute height of 2481 feet. I found a similar difference in
the lower boundary line of the pine-forest. This boundary, towards the
South Sea, in the Alto de los Caxones, north of Quaxinquilapa, is for
the Pinus Montezumæ (Lamb.), which we at first had considered to be
the Pinus occidentalis (Swartz), at the height of 4092 feet; but
towards Vera Cruz, at the Cuesta del Soldado, it rises to 5979 feet.
Both these kinds of tree, therefore, the oaks and firs as specified
above, descended lower towards the Pacific than towards the Caribbean
Gulf. During my ascent of the Cofre di Perote, I found the superior
boundary Line of the oaks to be 10,353 feet; that of the Pinus
Montezumæ 12,936 feet (about 2000 feet higher than the summit of Mount
Ætna) and here, in February, considerable masses of snow had already
fallen.
The greater the heights at which the Mexican cone-bearing trees begin
to show themselves, the more singular is it, in the island of Cuba
(where, at the border of the tropical zone the air, it is true, is
cooled down during northerly winds to 46°.6 Fahr.), to see another
kind of fir (_P. Occidentalis_, Swartz), in the plain itself, or on
the gentle hills of the Isle of Pines, growing among palms and
mahogany trees (_Swietenia_). Columbus even makes mention of a
fir-wood (_Pinal_) in the journal of his first voyage (Diario del 25
de Nov., 1492), at Caya de Moya, north-east of Cuba. At Haiti, too
(St. Domingo), the Pinus occidentalis near Cape Samana descends from
the mountains down to the very beach. The stems of these firs, wafted
by the gulf-stream to the two Azores, Graciosa and Fayal, were among
the principal signs that proclaimed to the great discoverer the
existence of unknown lands in the West.[PB] Is it positively
ascertained that the Pinus occidentalis is entirely absent from
Jamaica, notwithstanding its lofty mountains? We may be permitted to
inquire also, what kind of Pinus grows on the eastern coast of
Guatimala, since the P. tenuifolia (Benth.) is assuredly found only on
the mountains near Chinanta.
On taking a general view of the species of plants which form the upper
tree-boundary in the northern hemisphere from the frigid zone to the
equator; I find, for Lapland, according to Wahlenberg, in the
Sulitelma Mountains (lat. 68°), not acicular-leaved trees but birches
(Betula alba), far above the upper limit of the Pinus sylvestris; and
for the temperate zone I find in the Alps (lat. 45° 45′) Pinus picea
(Du Roi), advanced beyond the birches. In the Pyrenees (lat. 42° 30′),
we find Pinus uncinata (Ram.) and P. sylvestris, var. rubra; within
the tropics in Mexico (lat. 19°–20°), Pinus Montezumæ extends far
beyond Alnus toluccensis, Quercus spicata, and Q. crassipes; and in
the snow-crowned mountains of Quito, beneath the equator, Escallonia
myrtilloides, Aralia avicennifolia, and Drymis Winteri attain the
highest limits. This last species of tree, identical with the Drymis
granatensis (Mut.), and the Wintera aromatica of Murray, presents, as
Dr. Joseph Hooker has shown,[PC] the most singular instance of the
uninterrupted dissemination of the same species of tree from the
southernmost part of Tierra del Fuego and Hermit Island, where it was
discovered as early as 1577 by Drake’s expedition, up to the northern
Highlands of Mexico, over a meridian extent of 86° of latitude or 5160
miles. Where the acicular or needle-leaved trees, as in the Swiss Alps
and the Pyrenees, and not the birch as in the extreme north, form the
boundary of arborescent vegetation on the loftiest mountains, which
they picturesquely encircle, they are immediately followed in their
ascent towards the snow-crowned summits, in Europe and Western Asia by
the Alpine roses, Rhododendra, and at the Silla de Caracas, and the
Peruvian Paramo de Saraguru, by the purplish-red blossoms of the
graceful Befariæ. In Lapland the Rhododendron laponicum immediately
follows the Coniferous trees; in the Swiss Alps, the Rhododendron
ferrugineum and R. hirsutum, and in the Pyrenees the R. ferrugineum
alone; and in the Caucasus the R. caucasicum. But R. caucasicum has
also been found isolated by De Candolle in the Jura mountains (in the
Creux de Vent), 5968 feet lower down, at the inconsiderable height of
from 3303 to 3730 feet. If we would trace out the last zone of
vegetation near the snow line we must name, according to our personal
observation, in tropical Mexico, Cnicus nivalis and Chelone
gentianoides; in the cold mountainous tracts of New Granada, the
woolly Espeletia grandiflora, E. corymbosa, and E. argentea; in the
Andes chain of Quito, Culcitium rufescens, C. ledifolium, and C.
nivale;—yellow-blossomed Compositæ, which replace the somewhat more
northerly lanose herbs of New Granada, and the Epeletiæ, with which
they have so much physiognomical resemblance. This substitution or
repetition of similar and almost identical forms in regions that are
separated from each other by seas or wide intervening tracts, is a
wonderful law of nature. It prevails even in the rarest forms of the
floras. In Robert Brown’s family of the Rafflesiæ, separated from the
Cytineæ, the two Hydnoræ in Southern Africa (H. Africana and H.
Triceps), described by Thunberg and Drege, have, in South America,
their counterpart in the H. Americana of Hooker.
Far above the regions of Alpine herbs, of the grasses and the lichens,
nay, beyond the boundary of perpetual snow, there occasionally appears
a phanerogamic plant, growing sporadically, and as it were isolated,
to the astonishment of botanists; and this occurs both within the
tropics and in the temperate zone, on fragments of rock which remain
free from snow and are probably warmed by open fissures. I have
already mentioned the Saxifraga Boussingaulti, which is found at a
height of 15,773 feet on the Chimborazo; in the Swiss Alps the Silene
acaulis, a clovewort or caryophyllea, has been seen at a height of
11,382 feet. The former vegetates at 640, the latter at 2621 feet
above the respective local limits of snow, heights which were
determined when both the plants were discovered.
In our European Coniferous woods the Red Pine (or Norway Spruce), and
the White (or Silver) Pine show great and remarkable variations as
regards their geographical dispersion on the slopes of mountains.
Whilst in the Swiss Alps the Red Pine (_Pinus picea_, Du Roi, _foliis
compressotetragonis_; unfortunately named by Linnæus and by most
botanists of our time the _Pinus abies_!), forms the limit of tree
vegetation at the mean height of 5883 feet, and only here and there
does the lowly alder (_Alnus viridis_, Dec., _Betula viridis_, Vill.),
advance higher towards the snow-limit; the White Pine (_Pinus abies_,
Du Roi, _Pinus picea_, Linn., foliis planis, pectinato-distichis,
emarginatis), has its limit, according to Wahlenberg, about 1000 feet
lower. The Red Pine does not grow at all in Southern Europe, in Spain,
the Apennines, and Greece; and, as Ramond remarks, it is only seen on
the slope of the northern Pyrenees at great heights, and is entirely
wanting in the Caucasus. The Red Pine extends further to the north in
Scandinavia than the White, which latter tree appears in Greece (on
the Parnassus, the Taygetus, and the Œta), as a variety with long
acicular leaves, _foliis apice integris, breviter mucronatis_, the
Abies Apollinis of the acute observer Link.[PD]
On the Himalaya the acicular-leaved form of trees is distinguished by
the mighty thickness and height of the stem as well as by the length
of the leaf. The chief ornament of the mountain range is the Cedar
Deodwara (_Pinus deodara_, Roxb.), which word is, in Sanscrit,
dêwa-dâru, _i.e._ timber for the gods, its stem being nearly from 13
to 14 feet in diameter. It ascends in Nepaul to more than 11,700 feet
above the level of the sea. More than 2000 years ago the Deodwara
cedar near the River Behut, that is, the Hydaspes, furnished the
timber for the fleet of Nearchus. In the valley of Dudegaon, north of
the copper mines of Dhunpoor in Nepaul, Dr. Hoffmeister, so early lost
to science, found in a forest the Pinus longifolia (Royle), or the
Tschelu Fir, mixed with the lofty stems of a palm—Chamærops martiana
(Wallich).[PE] Such an interspersion of the _pineta_ and _palmeta_ had
already, in the new continent, excited the astonishment of the
companions of Columbus, as a friend and contemporary of the admiral’s,
Petrus Martyr Anghiera, relates.[PF] I myself saw, for the first time,
this blending of pines with palms on the road from Acapulco to
Chilpanzingo. The Himalaya, like the Mexican highlands, besides its
genera of pine and cedar, possesses also forms of the Cypress
(_Cupressus torulosa_, Don.); of the Yew (_Taxus Wallichiana_,
Zuccar.); of the Podocarpus (_Podocarpus nereifolia_, Brown); and the
Juniper (_Juniperus squamata_, Don., and _J. excelsa_, Bieberst.; the
latter species occurring also at Schipke in Thibet, in Asia Minor,
Syria, and the Grecian Islands; on the other hand, Thuja, Taxodium,
Larix, and Araucaria, are forms of the New Continent, which are
wanting in the Himalaya.
Besides the twenty species of pine with which we are acquainted in
Mexico, the United States of North America, in their present extension
to the Pacific, present forty-five described species, whilst all
Europe can only enumerate fifteen. The same difference between
abundance and paucity of forms is shown in the oaks, in favour of the
New Continent (a quarter of the world the most connected and most
elongated in a meridional direction). It has, however, been very
recently demonstrated by the extremely accurate researches of Siebold
and Zuccarini to be an erroneous assertion, that many European species
of pine, in consequence of their wide distribution throughout Northern
Asia, passed over to the Japanese islands, and there mingled with a
genuine Mexican species, the Weymouth pine (_Pinus strobus_, L.), as
Thunberg asserts. What Thunberg considered to be European species of
pine, are species entirely different. Thunberg’s Red Pine (_Pinus
abies_, Linn.) is _P. polita_, Sieb., and often planted near Buddhist
temples; his northern common fir (_Pinus sylvestris_) is P.
Massoniana, Lamb.; his P. cembra, the German and Siberian stone
pine-tree, is P. parviflora, Sieb.; his common larch (_P. larix_) is
the P. leptolepis, Sieb.; his Taxus baccata, the fruit of which the
Japanese courtiers eat as a precautionary measure when attending long
ceremonies,[PG] forms a special genus and is Cephalotaxus drupacea,
Sieb. The Japanese islands, despite the proximity of the Asiatic
Continent, have a very different character of vegetation. Thunberg’s
Japanese Weymouth pine, which would present an important phenomenon,
is moreover a naturalized tree, that differs entirely from the
indigenous pines of the New World. It is Pinus korajensis, Sieb.,
which has migrated from the peninsula of Corea and Kamtschatka to
Nipon.
Of the 114 species now known of the genus Pinus, there is not one in
the whole southern hemisphere, for the Pinus Merkusii, described by
Junghuhn and De Vriese, still belongs to that part of the island of
Sumatra which is north of the equator, that is, to the district of the
Battas. The P. insularis, Endl., belongs to the Philippines, although
at first it was introduced into Loudon’s _Arboretum_ as P.
timoriensis. From our present increasing knowledge of the geography of
plants, we know that there are excluded also from the southern
hemisphere, in addition to the genus Pinus, all the races of
Cupressus, Salisburia (_Ginkgo_), Cunninghamia (_Pinus lanceolata_,
Lamb.), Thuja, one species of which (_Th. gigantea_, Nutt.) at the
Columbia river rises as high as 180 feet, Juniperus, and Taxodium
(Mirbel’s _Schubertia_). I can introduce this last genus here with the
greater certainty, inasmuch as a Cape plant, Sprengel’s Schubertia
capensis, is no Taxodium, but forms a special genus, Widringtonia,
Endl., in quite another division of the Coniferæ.
This absence from the southern hemisphere of the true Abietineæ, of
the Juniperineæ, Cupressineæ, and all the Taxodineæ, as likewise of
the Torreya, of the Salisburia adiantifolia, and of the Cephalotaxus
among the Taxineæ, vividly reminds us of the enigmatical and still
obscure conditions which determined the original distribution of
vegetable forms. This distribution can by no means be satisfactorily
explained either by the similarity or diversity of the soil, by
thermal relations, or by meteorological conditions. I have long since
directed attention to the fact, that the southern hemisphere
possesses, for instance, many plants of the natural family of the
Rosaceæ, but not a single species of the genus Rosa itself. Claude Gay
informs us, that the Rosa Chilensis, described by Meyen, is a variety
that has become wild of the Rosa centifolia, Linn., which has been
naturalized in Europe for thousands of years. Such wild-growing
varieties occupy large tracts in Chili near Valdivia and Osorno.[PH]
In the whole tropical region of the northern hemisphere we only found
one single indigenous rose, our Rosa Montezumæ, and this was on the
Mexican highland, near Moran, at a height of 9336 feet. We may count
among the strange phenomena observed in the distribution of plants,
the total absence of the Agave from Chili, though it possesses Palms,
Pourretias, and many species of Cactus; and although A. americana
flourishes luxuriantly in Roussillon, at Nice, at Botzen, and in
Istria, where it was probably introduced from the New Continent since
the sixteenth century, and where it forms one connected line of
vegetation from the north of Mexico, across the isthmus of Panama, as
far as Southern Peru. With respect to the Calceolarias, I long
believed that, like the roses, they were only to be found exclusively
on the northern side of the equator. In fact, among the twenty-two
species that we brought with us, not one was gathered to the north of
Quito and the volcano of Pichincha; but my friend Professor Kunth
remarks that Calceolaria perfoliata, which Boussingault and Capt. Hall
found near Quito, advances also as far as New Granada, and that this
species, as well as C. integrifolia, was sent by Mutis from Santa Fé
de Bogotá to the great Linnæus.
The species of Pinus, which are so abundant in the wholly
inter-tropical Antilles, as well as in the tropical mountain regions
of Mexico, do not cross the isthmus of Panama, and are wholly wanting
in the equally mountainous parts of tropical South America, that lie
north of the equator; they are equally unknown on the elevated plains
of New Granada, Pasto, and Quito. I have advanced in the plains and on
the mountains from the Rio Sinu, near the isthmus of Panama, as far as
12° south lat.; and in this territorial extent, of nearly 1600 miles
in length, the only forms of needle-leaved trees that I saw, were the
taxoid Podocarpus (P. taxifolia), 64 feet high, in the Andes pass of
Quindiu and in the Paramo de Saraguru, in 4° 26′ north and 3° 40′
south latitude, and an Ephedra (E. americana) near Guallabamba, north
of Quito.
Among the group of the Coniferæ, the following are common to the
northern and southern hemispheres: Taxus, Gnetum, Ephedra, and
Podocarpus. Long before l’Heritier, the last genus had been very
properly distinguished from Pinus by Columbus on the 25th of November,
1492. He says, “Pinales en la Serrania de Haiti que no llevan piñas,
pero frutos que parecen azeytunos del Axarafe de Sevilla.”[PI] Species
of yew extend from the Cape of Good Hope to 61° north lat. in
Scandinavia, consequently through more than 95 degrees of latitude.
Podocarpus and Ephedra are almost as widely distributed; and even from
among the Cupuliferæ, the species of the oak genus, usually termed by
us a northern form, though they do not cross the equator in South
America, reappear in the southern hemisphere, at Java, in the Indian
archipelago. To this latter hemisphere ten genera of the cone-bearing
trees exclusively appertain, of which we will here cite only the most
important: Araucaria, Dammara (_Agathis_, Sal.), Frenela (comprising
about 18 Australian species), Dacrydium and Lybocedrus, whose habitat
is both in New Zealand and the Straits of Magellan. New Zealand
possesses one species of the genus Dammara (_D. australis_), but no
Araucaria. The contrary, by a singular contrast, is the case in New
Holland.
In the form of acicular-leaved trees, Nature presents us with the
greatest length of stem existing in arborescent productions. I use the
term arborescent, for, as we have already remarked, among the
Laminariæ (the oceanic algæ) Macrocystis pyrifera, between the coast
of California and 68° south lat., often attains a length of more than
400 feet. If we exclude the six Araucarias of Brazil, Chili, New
Holland, the Norfolk Islands and New Caledonia, then those Coniferæ
are the highest, whose habitat is the temperate zone of the North. As
we have found among the family of the palms the most gigantic of all,
the Ceroxylon andicola, about 192 feet high, in the temperate Alpine
climate of the Andes, so in like manner do the loftiest cone-bearing
trees belong, in the _northern_ hemisphere, to the temperate
north-western coast of America and to the Rocky Mountains (lat. from
40° to 52°), in the _southern_ hemisphere to New Zealand, Tasmania or
Van Dieman’s Land, to Southern Chili and Patagonia, (where the lat. is
again from 43° to 50°). The most gigantic forms among the genus Pinus
are Sequoia (Endl.), Araucaria, and Dacrydium. I only name those
species whose height not merely reaches but often exceeds 200 feet.
That the reader may have a standard of comparison, he is reminded that
in Europe the loftiest Red and White Pines, especially the latter,
reach a height of from 160 to 170 feet; for instance, in Silesia, the
pine in the Lampersdorf forest, near Frankenstein, long famous for its
altitude, is only 158 feet high, although 17 feet in girth.[PJ]
We give the following examples:—
Pinus Grandis (Dougl.), in New California, attains a height of 202–224
feet.
Pinus Frémontiana (Endl.), also there, and probably of the same
height.[PK]
Dacrydium Cupressinum (Solander), in New Zealand, above 213 feet.
Pinus Lambertiana (Dougl.), in North-western America, 223–234 feet.
Araucaria Excelsa (R. Brown), the Cupressus columnaris of Forster, in
Norfolk Island and the surrounding rocks, 182–223 feet. The six
Araucariæ hitherto known fall into two groups, according to Endlicher:
α. The American (Brazil and Chili), A. brasiliensis [Rich.], between
15° and 25° south lat., and A. imbricata [Pavon], between 35° and 50°
south lat.; the latter 234–260 feet;
β. The Australian (A. Bidwilli [Hook.] and A. Cunninghami [Ait.] on
the eastern side of New Holland, A. excelsa of Norfolk Island, and A.
Cookii [R. Brown] of New Caledonia). Corda, Presl, Göppert, and
Endlicher have already found five fossil Araucariæ in lias, in chalk,
and in lignite.[PL]
Pinus Douglasii (Sab.) in the valleys of the Rocky Mountains and at
the Columbia River (north lat. 43°–52°). That meritorious Scotch
botanist, whose name this tree bears, suffered a dreadful death in
1833, when he came from New California to collect plants on the
Sandwich Islands. He inadvertently fell into a pit, into which one of
the wild bulls of that country, always viciously disposed, had
previously fallen. This traveller has described from accurate
measurements a stem of P. Douglasii, which at three feet from the
ground was 57½ feet round, and 245 feet high.[PM]
Pinus Trigona (Rafinesque), on the western slope of the Rocky
Mountains.[PN] This “gigantic fir” was measured with great care; the
girth of the stem at 6¼ feet above the ground was often from 38 to 45
feet. One stem was 300 feet high, and without branches for the first
192 feet.
Pinus Strobus (in the eastern part of the United States of North
America, especially on this side of the Mississippi, but also again in
the Rocky Mountains, from the source of the Columbia to Mount Hood,
from 43° to 54° north lat.), in Europe called the Weymouth Pine, and
in North America the White Pine, commonly no more than 160 to 190 feet
high, but several have been seen in New Hampshire of 250 and 266
feet.[PO]
Sequoia Gigantea (Endl.; the Condylocarpus, Sal.), of New California,
like the Pinus trigona, about 300 feet high.
The nature of the soil and the conditions of heat and moisture, on
which the nourishment of plants simultaneously depends, promote, it
must be admitted, the development and the increase of the number of
the individuals in a species; but the gigantic height attained by the
stems of a few among the many nearly allied species of the same genus
is not dependent on soil and climate but on a specific organization,
on internal natural disposition, common alike to the vegetable and to
the animal world. With the Araucaria imbricata of Chili, the Pinus
Douglasii of the Columbia River, and the Sequoia gigantea of New
California (245–300 feet) contrasts most strongly—not the Willow
(_Salix arctica_) stunted by cold or mountain height, and only two
inches high,—but a little phanerogamic plant in the beautiful climate
of the southern tropical region, in the Brazilian province of Goyaz.
The moss-like Tristicha hypnoides, of the Monocotyledonous family of
the Podostemeæ, hardly attains the height of three lines. “While
crossing the Rio Clairo in the province of Goyaz,” says an excellent
observer, “I perceived on a stone a plant, the stalk of which was not
more than three lines high, and which I considered at first to be a
moss. It was, however, a phanerogamic plant, supplied with sexual
organs like our oaks, and those gigantic trees which raised their
majestic heads around.”[PP]
Besides the height of the stem, the length, breadth, and position also
of the leaves and fruit, the aspiring or horizontal, almost umbellate
ramification, the gradation of the colour from fresh or silver-greyish
green to dark brown, give a peculiar physiognomical character to the
Coniferæ. The acicular leaves of Pinus Lambertiana (Douglas) in
North-Western America are five, those of the P. excelsa (Wallich) on
the southern slope of the Himalaya near Katmandu, seven, and those of
P. longifolia (Roxb.) on the mountain range of Cashmere, more than
twelve inches long. Moreover, in one and the very same species, these
acicular leaves vary in the most remarkable manner, from the combined
influence of the nourishment derived from soil and air, and of the
height above the level of the sea. I found these variations in the
length of the leaves of our common wild pine (_Pinus sylvestris_) so
great, while travelling in a west and east direction over an extent of
80° of longitude (more than 3040 miles) from the Scheldt, through
Europe and Northern Asia, to Bogoslowsk, in the Northern Ural, and
Barnaul beyond the Obi, that occasionally, deceived by the shortness
and rigidity of the leaves, I have mistaken it for another species of
pine, allied to the mountain fir, _P. rotundata_, Link, (_Pinus
uncinata_, Ram.) These are, as Link correctly observes,[PQ]
transitions to Ledebour’s P. sibirica of the Altai.
The delicate and pleasing green though deciduous foliage of the
Ahuahuete (_Taxodium distichum_, Rich., _Cupressus disticha_, Linn.)
on the Mexican plateau especially delighted me. In this tropical
region the tree, swelling out to a portly bulk, and the Aztec name of
which signifies “water-drum” (from atl, water, and huehuetl, drum),
flourishes from 5750 to 7670 above the level of the sea, whilst it
descends towards the plain in the marshy district (Cypress swamps) of
Louisiana as far as 43° lat. In the southern States of North America
the Taxodium distichum (_Cyprès chauve_), as well as in the lofty
plains of Mexico, attains a height of 128 feet, with an enormous
girth, the diameter being from 30 to nearly 40 feet, when measured
near the ground.[PR] The roots, too, present a very remarkable
phenomenon, for they have woody excrescences, which are sometimes of a
conical and rounded, sometimes of a tabular shape, and project three
and even nearly five feet above the ground. Travellers have compared
these woody excrescences, in spots where they are numerous and
frequent, to the grave-tablets of a Jewish churchyard. Auguste de St.
Hilaire remarks, with much acuteness: “These excrescences of the bald
cypress, which resemble boundary-posts, may be regarded as exostoses,
and like these live in the air; adventitious buds would doubtless
escape from them, if the nature of the tissue of the coniferous plants
did not oppose itself to the development of those concealed germs that
give birth to these kinds of buds.”[PS] In addition to the above, a
remarkably enduring vitality is manifested in the roots of
cone-bearing trees by the phenomenon which, under the name of
“Effervescence,” (aftergrowth?) has attracted, in many ways, the
attention of botanical physiologists, and which phenomenon, it
appears, rarely displays itself in other dicotyledonous plants. The
stumps of the felled white Pine, left in the ground, form, during a
succession of several years, new layers of wood, and continue to
increase in thickness, without throwing out shoots, branches, or
leaves. The excellent observer Göppert believes, that this takes place
solely through nourishment derived from the roots, which the extremity
of the stem receives from a neighbouring living tree of the same
species. The roots of the living tree he conceives are organically
incorporated with those of the stump.[PT] Kunth, in his excellent new
_Lehrbuch der Botanik_, is opposed to this explanation of a
phenomenon, which was even known, though imperfectly, to
Theophrastus.[PU] According to him, this process is perfectly
analogous to that by which metallic plates, nails, carved letters,
nay, even stags’ horns become imbedded within the body of wood. “The
cambium, that is, the thin, walled cellular tissue, conducting
muco-granular sap, from which new formations alone proceed, continues
without any relation to the buds (being perfectly independent of them)
to deposit new layers of wood on the outermost layer.”[PV]
The relation above alluded to, between the absolute height of the
ground and the geographical as well as isothermal latitude, shows
itself often, no doubt, when one compares the arborescent vegetation
of the tropical part of the Andes chain with the vegetation of the
north-west coast of America, or the banks of the Canadian lakes. The
same remark was made by Darwin and Claude Gay in the southern
hemisphere, when they, in their descent from the plateau of Chili,
advanced towards Eastern Patagonia, and the Archipelago of Tierra del
Fuego; here woods of Drymis Winteri, together with Fagus antarctica
and Fagus Forsteri, cover every thing with long uniform rows in a
northern and southern direction down to the low lands. Trifling
deviations from the law of constant _station-ratios_ between _mountain
height_ and _geographical latitude_, depending or local causes, not
sufficiently investigated, occur even in Europe. I would call to mind
the limits of altitude for the birch and common fir in a part of the
Swiss Alps, on the Grimsel. The fir (_Pinus sylvestris_) flourishes
there up to 6330; and the birch (_Betula alba_) up to 6906 feet;
beyond them again there is a belt of stone pines (_Pinus cembra_),
whose upper boundary is 7343 feet. The birch, in consequence, lies
there between two belts of Coniferæ. According to the excellent
observations of Leopold von Buch, and the more recent ones of Martius,
who also visited Spitzbergen, the limits of the geographical
distribution in the high Scandinavian north (in Lapland) are as
follows: “The Fir extends to 70°; the White Birch (_Betula alba_) to
70° 40′; the Dwarf-Birch (_B. nana_) to 71° at least: Pinus cembra is
entirely wanting in Lapland.”[PW]
As the length and the position of the acicular leaves define the
physiognomic character of the coniferæ, this is still more designated
by the specific difference of the leaf-breadth, and the parenchymatous
development of the appendicular organs. Several species of Ephedra may
be said to be almost leafless; but in Taxus, Araucaria, Dammara,
(Agathis), and the Salisburia adiantifolia of Smith (_Gingko biloba_,
Linn.), the breadth of the leaf gradually increases. I have here
arranged the genera morphologically. Even the names of the species, as
first chosen by botanists, indicate such an arrangement. Dammara
orientalis of Borneo and Java, often 11 feet in diameter, was at first
named loranthifolia: Dammara australis (Lamb.), in New Zealand, rising
to 150 feet high, was originally named zamæfolia. Neither of these has
acicular leaves, but “folia alterna oblongo lanceolata, opposita, in
arbore adultiori sæpe alterna, enervia, striata.” The lower surface of
the leaf is densely covered with stomata. These transitions of the
appendicular system, from the greatest contraction to a broad leaf
surface, possess, like every advance from simple to compound, both a
morphological and a physiognomical interest.[PX] The short-stalked,
broad, split leaf of the Salisburia (Kämpfer’s Ginkgo), has also the
breathing pores (stomata) only on the inferior side. The original
habitat of the tree is not known. It became distributed from the
Chinese temples to the gardens of Japan, in consequence of the
intercourse that existed in olden times between the congregations of
Buddha.
I was a witness of the singularly painful impression, which the first
sight of a pine-forest at Chilpanzingo made on one of our companions
in travelling from a port in the South Sea through Mexico to Europe.
Born in Quito, under the equator, he had never seen needle-leaved
trees and folia acerosa. The trees appeared to him to be leafless, and
because we were journeying towards the cold north, he thought he
recognised already, in the extreme contraction of the organs, the
impoverishing influence of the Pole. The traveller, whose impressions
I am here describing, and whose name neither Bonpland nor myself can
mention without regret, was an excellent young man, the son of the
Marquis de Selvalegre, Don Carlos Montufar, whose noble and ardent
love of freedom courageously led him, a few years later, to a violent,
though not dishonourable, death, in the war of independence, waged by
the Spanish colonies.
Footnote 94:
p. 227—“_Pothos plants, Aroideæ_.”
Caladium and Pothos are forms appertaining exclusively to the tropical
world, whilst the different species of Arum belong more to the
temperate zone. Arum italicum, A. dracunculus, and A. tenuifolium
advance as far as Istria and Friuli. No Pothos has hitherto been
discovered in Africa. The East Indies possess several species of this
genus (P. scandens and P. pinnata), which have a less beautiful
physiognomy and are of less luxuriant growth than the American Pothos
plants. We discovered a beautiful true arborescent Aroidea (Caladium
arboreum), having a stem from 16 to more than 21 feet in height, near
the convent of Caripe, east of Cumana. Beauvois found a singular
Caladium (Culcasia scandens) in the kingdom of Benin.[PY] In the
Pothos form the parenchyma occasionally expands to so great a degree
that the leaf-surface becomes perforated with holes, as in Calla
pertusa (Kunth), and Dracontium pertusum (Jacquin), which we collected
in the forests of Cumana. It was the Aroideas which first drew
attention to the remarkable phenomenon of the _fever-heat_ evolved by
certain plants during the period of their inflorescence, and which
even sensibly affects the thermometer, and is connected with a great
and temporary increase in the absorption of oxygen from the
atmosphere. Lamarck, in 1789, observed this increase of temperature in
the Arum italicum. According to Hubert and Bory de St. Vincent, the
vital heat of the Arum cordifolium rises in the Isle of France to 110°
or 120°, whilst the temperature of the surrounding air is only 66°.2
Fahr. Even in Europe, Becquerel and Breschet found a difference of
39°.4. Dutrochet observed a paroxysm,—a rhythmical decrease and
increase of vital heat,—which appeared by day to attain a double
maximum. Théodore de Saussure remarked analogous augmentations of
heat, although only of 1°.1 and 1°.8 Fahr., in other families of
plants; as, for instance, in Bignonia radicans and Cucurbita pepo. In
the latter, the male plant exhibited a greater increase of temperature
than the female, when measured by a very sensitive thermoscopic
apparatus. Dutrochet—whose early death is greatly to be regretted, on
account of the important services he rendered to physics and vegetable
physiology—likewise observed,[PZ] by means of thermo-magnetic
multiplicators, a vital heat of 0°.25 to 0°.67 Fahr. in many young
plants (Euphorbia lathyris, Lilium candidum, Papaver somniferum), and
even among funguses, in many species of Agaricus and Lycoperdon. This
vital heat disappeared at night, but not by day, even when the plants
were placed in the dark.
The contrast presented by the physiognomy of the Casuarineas,
acicular-leaved trees, and the almost leafless Peruvian Colletias and
Pothos plants (Aroideas), is still more striking when we compare these
types of extreme contraction in the leaf form with Nymphæaceæ and
Nelumboneæ. Here we again meet, as in the Aroideæ, with leaves in
which the cellular tissue is excessively expanded upon long, fleshy,
succulent petioles,—as Nymphæa alba, N. lutea, N. thermalis (formerly
called N. lotus, from the hot spring of Pecze, near Groswardein in
Hungary), the species of Nelumbo, Euryale amazonica (Pöppig), and
Victoria Regina, allied to the prickly Euryale, although of a very
different genus, according to Lindley, and discovered in 1837 by Sir
Robert Schomburgk in the river Berbice, in British Guiana. The round
leaves of this splendid aquatic plant are from 5 to 6 feet in
diameter, and surrounded by upright margins from 3 to 5 inches in
height, which are light green on the inner side, but of a bright
crimson on the outside. These agreeably perfumed flowers, of which 20
or 30 may be seen together in a small space, are about 15 inches in
diameter, of a white or rose colour, and have many hundred petals.[QA]
Pöppig also gives to the leaves of his Euryale amazonica, which he
found at Tefé, a diameter of about 6 feet.[QB] Whilst Euryale and
Victoria present a greater parenchymatous expansion of the leaf-form
in all its dimensions than other genera, the most gigantic development
of the blossoms occurs in a parasitical Cytinea, which Dr. Arnold
discovered in Sumatra in 1818. This flower, Rafflesia Arnoldi (R.
Brown), has a stemless blossom measuring three feet in diameter,
surrounded by large leaf-like scales. Like funguses, it has an animal
odour, and smells something like beef.
Footnote 95:
p. 227—“_Lianes, Creeping Plants, (Span. Vejuccos.)_”
According to Kunth’s division of Bauhinias, the true genus Bauhinia
belongs to the New Continent. The African Bauhinia, B. rufescens
(Lam.), is a Pauletia (Cav.), a genus of which we also discovered some
new species in South America. In the same manner the Banisterias of
the Malpighiaceæ are actually an American form. Two species are
indigenous to the East Indies, and one—described by Cavanilles as B.
leona—to Western Africa. In the tropical zone, and in the Southern
hemisphere, species of the most different families belong to the
climbing plants which in those regions render the forests so
impenetrable to man and so accessible and habitable to the whole
monkey family (Quadrumana), the Cercoleptes, and the small tiger cats.
The Lianes thus afford whole flocks of gregarious animals an easy
means of rapidly ascending high trees, passing from one tree to
another, and even of crossing brooks and rivulets.
In the south of Europe and in the north of America, Hops from the
Urticeæ, and the species of Vitis from the Ampelideæ, belong to
Climbing Plants; while this form is represented in the tropics by
climbing and trailing grasses. We found on the elevated plains of
Bogota, in the pass of Quindiu in the Andes, and in the Cinchona
forests of Loxa, a Bambusa allied to Nastus, our Chusquea scandens,
twined round powerful trunks of trees, adorned at the same time with
flowering Orchideæ. Bambusa scandens (Tjankorreh), which Blume found
in Java, belongs probably to Nastus, or to the grass-genus Chusquea,
the Carrizo of the Spanish settlers. In the pine forests of Mexico,
Climbing Plants seem to be entirely wanting; but in New Zealand a
fragrant Pandanus, Freycinetia Banksii, together with one of the
Smilaceæ, Ripogonum parviflorum (R. Brown), which renders the forests
almost impenetrable, winds round a gigantic fir-tree more than 200
feet high, Podocarpus dacryoides (Rich.), called Kakikatea in the
language of the country.[QC]
A striking contrast to these Climbing Grasses and Creeping Pandaneas
is afforded by the splendid many-coloured blossoms of the Passion
flowers (among which, however, we ourselves found one arborescent,
upright, species (Passiflora glauca) in the Andes of Popayan, at an
elevation of nearly 10,500 feet, and by the Bignoniaceæ, Mutisiæ,
Alströmeriæ, Urvilleæ, and Aristolochiæ. Among the latter, our
Aristolochia cordata has a coloured (purplish red) calyx, about
seventeen inches in diameter; “flores gigantei, pueris mitræ instar
inservientes.” Owing to the quadrangular form of their stalks, their
flattening, which is not occasioned by any external pressure, and a
band-like undulatory motion, many of these climbing plants have a
peculiar physiognomy. The diagonal intersections of the stems of
Bignonias and Banisterias form, by means of furrows in the ligneous
substance, and through its clefts, where the bark penetrates to some
depth, cruciform or mosaic-like figures.[QD]
Footnote 96:
p. 228—“_The form of Aloes_.”
To this group of plants, which is characterised by a great similarity,
belong Yucca aloifolia, which penetrates as far north as Florida and
South Carolina; Y. angustifolia (Nutt.), which advances to the banks
of the Missouri; Aletris arborea; the Dragon-tree of the Canaries, and
two other Dracænas belonging to New Zealand; arborescent Euphorbias;
and Aloe dichotoma, Linn., (formerly the genus Rhipidodendrum of
Willdenow), the celebrated Koker-boom, whose stem is four feet in
thickness, about twenty feet high, and has a crown measuring 426 feet
round.[QE] The forms which I have here associated together belong to
very different families: as, for instance, to the Liliaceæ,
Asphodeleæ, Pandaneæ, Amaryllideæ, and Euphorbiaceæ; and are
therefore, with the exception of the last named, all included under
the great division of Monocotyledons. One of the Pandaneæ, Phytelephas
macrocarpa (Ruiz), which we found on the banks of the Magdalena river
in New Granada, exactly resembles with its feathery leaves a small
palm-tree. The Tagua (as it is called by the Indians) is moreover, as
Kunth has observed, the only Pandanea of the New Continent. The
singular Agave-like and high-stemmed Doryanthes excelsa of New South
Wales, which the intelligent Correa de Serra was the first to
describe, belongs to the Amaryllideæ, like our low-growing Narcissuses
and Jonquils.
In the candelabra-like form of Aloes, the branches of the main-trunk
must not be confounded with the flower-stalks. In the American aloe,
Agave Americana (Maguey de Cocuyza), which is entirely wanting in
Chili, and in the Yucca acaulis (Maguey de Cocuyza), the leaf-stalks
present a candelabra-like arrangement of the blossoms during the
excessively rapid and gigantic development of the inflorescence,
which, as is well known, is but too transient a phenomenon. In some
arborescent Euphorbias the physiognomical character depends, however,
on the branches and their arrangement. Lichtenstein describes,[QF]
with much animation, the impression made upon him by the appearance of
an Euphorbia officinarum which he saw in the “Chamtoos Rivier,” near
Cape Town. The form of the tree was so symmetrical, that it repeated
itself on a small scale, like a candelabrum, to a height of more than
30 feet. All the branches were furnished with sharp thorns.
Palms, Yucca and Aloe plants, arborescent Ferns, some Aralias, and the
Theophrasta, where I have seen it in a state of luxuriant growth,
present to the eye a certain physiognomical resemblance of character
by the nakedness of the stems (there being no branches) and the beauty
of their summits or crowns, however they may otherwise differ in the
structure of the inflorescence.
Melanoselinum decipiens, (Hofm.), which has been introduced into our
gardens from Madeira, and is sometimes from 10 to 12 feet high,
belongs to a peculiar group of arborescent umbelliferæ allied to the
Araliaceæ, to which other species, as yet undiscovered, will
undoubtedly at some future time be added. Ferula, Heracleum, and
Thapsia likewise attain a considerable height, but they are still
herbaceous shrubs. Melanoselinum stands almost entirely alone as an
arborescent umbelliferous plant; Bupleurum (_Tenoria_) fruticosum,
Linn., of the shores of the Mediterranean, Bubon galbanum of the Cape,
and Crithmum maritimum of our sea-coasts, are only shrubs. Tropical
countries, where, as Adanson long since very correctly remarked,
Umbellifereæ and Crucifereæ are almost wholly wanting in the plains,
exhibit, as we ourselves observed, the most dwarfish of all the
umbelliferous family on the lofty mountain ridges of the South
American and Mexican Andes. Among the thirty-eight species which we
collected on elevations whose mean temperature was below 54°.5 Fahr.,
we found Myrrhis andicola, Fragosa arctioïdes, and Pectophytum
pedunculare, interspersed with an equally dwarfish Alpine Draba,
growing moss-like close to the rock and the frequently frozen earth,
at a height of 13,428 feet above the level of the sea. The only
tropical umbelliferous plants which we found on the plain in the New
Continent were two species of Hydrocotyle (_H. umbellata_ and _H.
leptostachya_) between the Havannah and Batabano, and therefore at the
extreme limit of the torrid zone.
Footnote 97:
p. 228—“_The form of Grasses_.”
The group of the arborescent grasses which Kunth has collected under
the head of Bambusaceæ, in his great work on the plants collected by
Bonpland and myself, constitutes one of the most beautiful adornments
of tropical vegetation. Bambu, called also Mambu, occurs in the Malay
language, although according to Buschmann merely as an isolated
expression, the ordinary term in use being buluh, whilst the only name
for this species of cane in Java and Madagascar is wuluh, voulou. The
numbers of the genera and species included in this group have been
extraordinarily increased by the industry of botanical travellers. It
has been found that the genus Bambusa is entirely wanting in the New
Continent, to which region, however, the gigantic Guaduas, discovered
by us, and which attain a height of from 50 to 64 feet, together with
the Chusquea, exclusively belong; that Arundinaria (Rich.) occurs in
both continents, although differing specifically in each; that Bambusa
and Beesha (Rheed.), occur in India and the Indian Archipelago; and
that Nastus grows in the islands of Madagascar and Bourbon. With the
exception of the high-climbing Chusquea, these forms morphologically
replace each other in different parts of the earth. In the northern
hemisphere far beyond the limits of the torrid region, in the valley
of the Mississippi, the traveller is gladdened by the sight of a
species of Bamboo, the Arundinaria macrosperma, formerly called also
Miegia and Ludolfia. In the southern hemisphere, in the south of
Chili, between the parallels of 37° and 42°, Gay found one of the
Bambusaceæ more than 20 feet high (not a climbing, but a still
undescribed arborescent self-supporting Chusquea), growing, mingled
with Drymis Chilensis, in a region clothed with an uniform
forest-covering of Fagus obliqua.
Whilst in India the Bambusa flowers so frequently that in Mysore and
Orissa the seeds are mixed with honey, and eaten like rice,[QG] in
South America the Guadua blossoms so very seldom that in the course of
four years we were only twice able to procure the flowers; once on the
solitary banks of the Cassiquiare, the arm connecting the Orinoco with
the Rio Negro and the Amazon, and again in the province of Popayan,
between Buga and Quilichao. It is a very striking fact that some
plants grow with the greatest vigour in certain localities without
flowering; as is the case with the European olive-trees introduced
into America centuries ago, and growing between the tropics, near
Quito, at elevations of about 9600 feet above the level of the sea;
and in like manner the walnuts, hazel-nut bushes, and the fine
olive-trees (_Olea Europea_) of the Isle of France.[QH]
As some of the Bambusaceæ (arborescent grasses) advance into the
temperate zone, so also they do not suffer in the torrid zone from the
temperate climate of mountain districts. They are certainly more
luxuriant as social plants between the sea-shore and elevations of
about 2558 feet in the Province de las Esmeraldas, west of the volcano
of Pichincha, where Guadua angustifolia (Bambusa Guadua of our
_Plantes équinoxiales_, t, i. tab. xx) generates in its interior large
quantities of the siliceous Tabaschir (Sanscrit _tvakkschira_,
cow-milk). We saw the Guadua advance in the pass of Quindiu, in the
chain of the Andes, to a height of 5755 feet above the level of the
sea, as determined by barometric measurements. Nastus borbonicus has
been called a true Alpine plant by Bory de St. Vincent, and according
to him it does not descend lower than 3840 feet on the declivity of
the volcano in the island of Bourbon. This appearance or the
repetition at great elevations of certain forms belonging to torrid
plains calls to mind the group of Alpine palms (Kunthia montana,
Ceroxylon andicola, and Oreodoxa frigida) of which I have already
spoken, and a grove of Musaceæ (Heliconia, perhaps Maranta), 16 feet
high, which I found growing isolated on the Silla de Caracas, at a
height of more than 7000 feet above the level of the sea.[QI] While
the form of gramineæ, with the exception of some few herbaceous
dicotyledons, constitutes the highest phanerogamic zone on the
snow-crowned summits of mountains, so the grasses mark the boundary of
phanerogamic vegetation in a horizontal direction, towards the
northern and southern polar regions.
Many admirable general results, no less than a great mass of important
materials, have been yielded to the geography of plants by my young
friend, Joseph Hooker, who, after having but recently returned with
Sir James Boss from the frozen antarctic regions, is now engaged in
exploring the Thibetian Himalaya. He draws attention to the fact that
phanerogamic flowering plants (grasses) advance 17½° nearer to the
north than to the south pole. In the Falkland Islands, near the thick
knots of Tussac grass, Dactylis cæspitosa, Forster. (a Festuca,
according to Kunth), and in Tierra del Fuego, under the shade of the
birch-leaved Fagus antarctica, there grows the same Trisetum
subspicatum, which spreads over the whole range of the Peruvian Andes,
and across the Rocky Mountains, to Melville Island, Greenland, and
Iceland, and is also found in the Swiss and Tyrolese Alps as well as
in the Altai, in Kamtschatka, and in Campbell’s Island, south of New
Zealand, extending therefore over 127 degrees of latitude, or from 54°
south to 72° 50′ north lat. “Few grasses,” says Joseph Hooker,[QJ]
“have so wide a range as Trisetum subspicatum (Beauv.), nor am I
acquainted with any other arctic species which is equally an
inhabitant of the opposite polar regions.” The South Shetland Islands,
which are separated by Bransfield Straits from d’Urville’s “Terre de
Louis-Philippe” and from Peak Haddington, a volcano, 7046 feet high,
and situated in 64° 12′ south lat., have recently been visited by Dr.
Eights, a botanist from the United States. He found there (probably in
62° or 62¼° south lat.) a small grass, Aira antarctica,[QK] which is
“the most antarctic flowering plant hitherto discovered.”
Even in Deception Island, belonging to the same group, 62° 50′, only
lichens are met with, and no longer any species of grass; and in like
manner further south-east, in Cockburn’s Island (64° 12′) near
Palmer’s Land, only Lecanoras, Lecideas, and five foliaceous Mosses,
among which is our German Bryum argenteum, were gathered. “This
appears to be the Ultima Thule of antarctic vegetation,” for further
south even terrestrial cryptogamia are wanting. In the great bay
formed by Victoria Land, on a small island lying opposite to Mount
Herschel (in 71° 49′ lat.), and on Franklin Island, 92 miles north of
the volcano, Erebus, (12,366 feet in height), and in 76° 7′ south
lat., Hooker found no trace of vegetation. In extreme northern
latitudes, the distribution of even the higher organisms is very
different; for here phanerogamic plants advance 18½° nearer to the
pole than in the southern hemisphere. Walden Island (80½° north lat.)
possesses still ten species of phanerogamia. Antarctic phanerogamic
vegetation is also poorer in species at equal distances from the pole;
thus Iceland has five times more phanerogamia than the southern group
of Auckland and Campbell Islands, but the uniform vegetation of the
antarctic regions is, from climatic causes, both more succulent and
more luxuriant.[QL]
Footnote 98:
p. 229—“_Ferns_.”
If we estimate the whole number of the cryptogamia hitherto described
at 19,000 species, as has been done by Dr. Klotzsch, a naturalist
possessing a profound acquaintance with the Agamic plants, we shall
have for Fungi 8000 (of which Agarici constitute the eighth part); for
Lichens, according to J. von Flotow of Hirschberg, and Hampe of
Blankenburg, at least 1400; for the Algæ 2580; for Mosses and
Liverworts, according to Carl Müller of Halle, and Dr. Gottsche of
Hamburgh, 3800; and for Ferns 3250. For this last important result we
are indebted to the profound investigations made by Professor Kunze of
Leipzig, on this group of plants. It is a striking fact that the
family of the Polypodiaceæ alone includes 2165 of the whole number of
described Filices, whilst other forms, as the Lycopodiacæ and
Hymenophyllaceæ, number only 350 and 200. There are therefore nearly
as many described species among Ferns as among Grasses.
It is singular that no mention of the beautiful arborescent ferns is
to be found in the classic authors of antiquity, Theophrastus,
Dioscorides, and Pliny; while, from the information given by the
companions of Alexander, Aristobulus, Megasthenes, and Nearchus,
reference is made[QM] to Bamboos, “quæ fissis internodiis lembi vice
vectitabant navigates;” to the Indian trees “quarum folia non minora
clypeo sunt;” to the Fig-tree which takes root from its branches, and
to Palms, “tantæ proceritatis, ut sagittis superjici nequeant.” I find
the first mention of arborescent ferns in Oviedo.[QN] “Among ferns,”
says this experienced traveller, who had been appointed by Ferdinand
the Catholic, Director of the Goldwashings in Haiti, “there are some
which I class with trees, because they are as thick and high as
Pine-trees. (Helechos que yo cuento por arboles, tan gruesos como
grandes pinos y muy altos). They mostly grow among the mountains and
where there is much water.” This estimate of their height is
exaggerated, for in the dense forests near Caripe even our Cyathea
speciosa only attains a height of 32 to 37 feet; and an admirable
observer, Ernst Dieffenbach, did not see in the most northern of the
three islands of New Zealand any trunks of Cyathea dealbata exceeding
42½ feet. In the Cyathea speciosa and the Meniscium of the Chaymas
missions, we observed in the midst of the most shady part of the
primeval forest, that the scaly stems of some of the most luxuriantly
developed of these trees were covered with a shining carbonaceous
powder, which appeared to be owing to a singular decomposition of the
fibrous parts of the old leaf stalks.[QO]
Between the tropics, where, on the declivities of the Cordilleras,
climates are superimposed in strata, the true region of arborescent
ferns lies between about 3200 and 5350 feet above the level of the
sea. In South America and in the Mexican highlands they seldom descend
lower towards the plains than 1280 feet. The mean temperature of this
happy region is between 64°.6 and 70°.8 Fahr. It reaches the lowest
stratum of clouds (which floats the nearest to the surface of the sea
and the plain), and it therefore enjoys uninterruptedly a high degree
of humidity, together with a great equality in its thermal
relations.[QP] The inhabitants, who are of Spanish descent, call this
region “Tierra templada de los helechos.”
The Arabic designation for ferns is _feledschun_, filix, (from which
the _f_ has been changed, according to Spanish usage, into _h_,) and
perhaps the term may be connected with the verb _faladscha_, “it
divides,” from the finely cut margin of the frond.[QQ]
The conditions of genial mildness in an atmosphere charged with
aqueous vapour and of great uniformity in respect to moisture and
warmth, are fulfilled on the declivities of the mountains in the
valleys of the Andes, and more especially in the southern milder and
more humid hemisphere, where arborescent ferns advance not only to New
Zealand and Van Diemen’s Land (Tasmania), but even as far as the
Straits of Magellan and Campbell Island, and therefore to a southern
latitude almost identical in degrees with the parallel in which Berlin
is situated north of the equator. From among the family of arborescent
ferns there flourishes the vigorous Dicksonia squarrosa, in 46° south
lat. in Dusky Bay, New Zealand; D. antarctica of Labillardière in
Tasmania; a Thyrsopteris in the Island of Juan Fernandez; an
undescribed Dicksonia, whose stem is from 12 to 16 feet high, near
Valdivia in Southern Chili; and a Lomaria, somewhat less in height, in
the Straits of Magellan. Campbell Island is still nearer to the south
pole, in 52½° lat., but even there the leafless stem of the Aspidium
venustum rises to a height of more than four feet.
The climatic relations under which Ferns (_Filices_) in general
flourish, are manifested in the numerical laws of their quotients of
distribution. In the plains within the tropical regions of large
continents this quotient is, according to Robert Brown, and from more
recent investigations on the subject, ¹⁄₂₀ of all the phanerogamia,
and in mountainous districts of large continents ⅙ to ⅛. This ratio is
quite different on the small islands scattered over the ocean; for
here the proportion borne by the number of ferns to the sum total of
all the phanerogamic plants increases so considerably, that in the
South-Sea Islands the quotient rises to ¼, while in the sporadic
islands, St. Helena and Ascension, the number of ferns is almost equal
to half of the whole phanerogamic vegetation.[QR] In receding from the
tropics (where on the large continents d’Urville estimates the
proportional number at ¹⁄₂₀), the _relative_ frequency of ferns
decreases rapidly as we advance into the temperate zone. The quotients
are for North America and the British Islands ¹⁄₃₅, for France ¹⁄₅₈,
for Germany ¹⁄₅₂, for the dry parts of Southern Italy ¹⁄₇₄, for Greece
¹⁄₈₄. The _relative_ frequency again increases considerably towards
the frigid north. Here the family of ferns decreases much slower in
the number of its species than does that of phanerogamic plants. The
luxuriantly aspiring character of the species, and the number of
individuals contained in each, augment the deceptive impression of
_absolute_ frequency. According to Wahlemberg’s and Hornemann’s
catalogues, the relative numbers of the Filices are for Lapland ¹⁄₂₅,
for Iceland ¹⁄₁₈, for Greenland ¹⁄₁₂.
Such are, according to our present knowledge, the natural laws that
manifest themselves in the distribution of the graceful form of Ferns.
But it would seem as if in the family of Ferns, which have so long
been regarded as cryptogamic, we had lately acquired evidence of the
existence of another natural law,—the morphological law of
propagation. Count Leszczyc-Suminski, who happily combines the power
of microscopic investigation with a very remarkable artistic talent,
has discovered an organisation capable of effecting fructification in
the prothallium of ferns. He distinguishes two sexual apparatuses, of
which the female portion is situated in hollow ovate cells in the
middle of the sporangium, and the male in the ciliated antheridia, or
the organs producing spiral threads, which have already been examined
by Nägeli. Fructification is supposed to be effected by means of
moveable ciliated spiral threads and not by pollen tubes.[QS]
According to this view, Ferns would be, as Ehrenberg remarks,[QT]
products of a microscopic fructification taking place on the
prothallium, which here serves as a fertilizing receptacle, while
throughout the whole course of their often arborescent development
they would be flowerless and fruitless plants, having a bud-formation.
The spores lying as sori on the under side of the frond are not seeds
but flower-buds.
Footnote 99:
p. 229—“_The Liliaceæ_.”
Africa is the principal seat of this form; there the greatest
diversity obtains; there they form masses and determine the natural
character of the region. The New Continent exhibits also, it is true,
magnificent Alströmeriæ and species of Pancratium, Hæmanthus, and
Crinum. We have enriched the first of these genera with nine, and the
second with three species; but these American liliaceous plants are
more diffused and of less social habits than the European Irideæ.
Footnote 100:
p. 229—“_The Willow Form_.”
Nearly 150 different species of the main representatives of this form,
or rather of the Willow itself, are already known. They cover the
northern parts of the earth from the equator to Lapland. Their number
and their varieties of form increase between the 46th and 70th degrees
of latitude, more especially in that part of northern Europe which has
been so remarkably indented by the early revolutions of our planet. I
am acquainted with ten or twelve species of inter-tropical Willows,
and these, like the Willows of the southern hemisphere, are deserving
of special attention. As nature appears to delight in all zones in a
wondrous multiplication of certain animal forms, as for instance,
Anatidæ (_Lamellirostres_), and Pigeons; so likewise are Willows,
Pines, and Oaks, widely diffused; the latter always exhibiting a
similarity in their fruit, although various differences exist in the
form of the leaves. In Willows belonging to the most widely different
climates the similarity of the foliage, of the ramification, and of
the whole physiognomical conformation, is almost greater than in
Coniferæ. In the more southern part of the temperate zone, north of
the equator, the number of the species of Willows decreases
considerably; although (according to the “Flora atlantica” of
Desfontaines) Tunis has still its own species, resembling Salix
caprea; whilst Egypt, according to Forskäl, numbers five species, from
the catkins of whose male blossoms is distilled the remedial agent
Moie chalaf (_aqua salicis_), so much used in the East. The Willow
which I saw in the Canaries is also, according to Leopold von Buch and
Christian Smith, a peculiar species (_S. canariensis_), although
common to those islands and to Madeira. Wallich’s catalogue of the
plants of Nepaul and the Himalaya already gives 13 species belonging
to the subtropical zone of the East Indies, and which have in part
been described by Don, Roxburgh, and Lindley. Japan has its own
species, of which one, S. japonica. (Thunb.), is also met with in
Nepaul as an Alpine plant.
There was not, as far as I am aware, any species of Willow known as
belonging to the tropical zone before my expedition, with the
exception of S. tetrasperma. We collected seven new species, three of
them on the plateaux of Mexico, at an elevation of 8500 feet above the
level of the sea. Still higher, as for instance on the Alpine plains,
between 12,000 and 15,000 feet, which we frequently visited, we saw
nothing in the Andes of Mexico, Quito, and Peru, to remind us of the
many small creeping Alpine Willows of the Pyrenees, the Alps, or of
Lapland (_S. herbacea_, _S. lanata_, and _S. reticulata_). In
Spitzbergen, whose meteorological relations have so much analogy with
those of the snow-crowned summits of Switzerland and Scandinavia,
Martius described two Dwarf-Willows, whose small woody stems and
branches trail along the ground, and are so concealed in the turf-bogs
that it is with difficulty their diminutive leaves can be discovered
under the moss. The Willow species which I found in 4° 12′ south lat.,
at the entrance of the Cinchona or Peruvian Bark forests, near Loxa in
Peru, and which has been described by Willdenow as Salix Humboldtiana,
is most widely diffused over the western part of South America. A
Beach-Willow (_S. falcata_), which we discovered on the sandy shores
of the Pacific, near Truxillo, is, according to Kunth, probably a mere
variety of the former. In like manner the beautiful and frequently
pyramidal Willow, which we constantly saw on the banks of the
Magdalena river, from Mahates to Bojorque, and which, according to the
report of the natives, had only spread thus far within a few years,
may also be identical with S. Humboldtiana. At the confluence of the
Magdalena with the Rio Opon, we found all the islands covered with
Willows, many of which had stems 64 feet high, with a diameter of from
only 8 to 10 inches.[QU] Lindley has made us acquainted with a species
of Salix belonging to Senegal, and therefore to the equinoctial region
of Africa.[QV] Blume also found two species of Willow near the equator
in Java, one wild and indigenous in the island (_S. tetrasperma_), and
another cultivated (_S. Sieboldiana_). I am only acquainted with the
two Willows belonging to the south temperate zone, which have been
described by Thunberg (_S. hirsuta_ and _S. mucronata_). They grow
interspersed with Protea argentea, which has the same physiognomy as
the Willow, and their leaves and young branches constitute the food of
the hippopotamus of the Orange River. The family of Willows is
entirely wanting in Australia and the neighbouring islands.
Footnote 101:
p. 229—“_The Myrtle Form_.”
The Myrtle is a graceful plant, with stiff, shining, crowded, and
generally entire and small leaves marked with dots. Myrtles impart a
peculiar character to three regions of the earth, viz., to southern
Europe, more especially to the islands composed of calcareous rocks
and trachytic stone, which project from the basin of the
Mediterranean; to the continent of New Holland, which is adorned with
Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, and Leptospermum; and to an inter-tropical
region in the Andes of South America, part of which is a low plain,
while the remainder lies at an elevation of from 9000 to more than
10,000 feet above the level of the sea. This Alpine region, called in
Quito the Paramos, is entirely covered with trees having a Myrtle-like
aspect, even though they may not all belong to the Myrtaceæ. At this
elevation grow Escalonia myrtilloides, E. tubar, Simplocos Alstonia,
species of Myrica, and the lovely Myrtus microphylla, of which we have
given a drawing in our _Plantes équinoxiales_, t. i. p. 21, pl. iv.;
it grows on micaceous schist, at an elevation of 10,000 feet on the
Paramo de Saraguru, (near Vinayacu and Alto de Pulla,) which is
adorned with so many beautiful flowering Alpine plants. M. myrsinoides
ascends in the Paramo de Guamani as high as 11,200 feet. By far the
greater number of the 40 species of the genus Myrtus which we
collected in the equinoctial zone, and of which 37 were undescribed,
belong to the plains and the less elevated mountain spurs. We brought
only a single species (_M. xalapensis_) from the mild tropical climate
of the mountains of Mexico; but the Tierra templada, in the direction
of the Volcano of Orizaba, no doubt possesses many yet undescribed
varieties. We found M. maritima near Acapulco, on the very shore of
the Pacific.
The _Escalloniæ_,—among which _E. myrtilloides_, _E. tubar_, _E.
floribunda_ are the ornaments of the Paramos, and remind us strongly
(by their physiognomical aspect) of the myrtle-form,—formerly
constituted, together with the European and South American Alpine
roses (Rhododendrum and Befaria), with Clethra, Andromeda, and
Gaylussacia buxifolia, the family of the _Ericeæ_. Robert Brown[QW]
has arranged them in a special family, which Kunth has placed between
the Philadelphiæ and Hamamelideæ. Escallonia floribunda affords by its
geographical distribution one of the most striking examples of the
relation existing between distance from the equator and vertical
elevation above the level of the sea. I would here again borrow
support from the testimony of the accurate observer, my friend Auguste
de St. Hilaire.[QX] “MM. Humboldt and Bonpland in their expedition
discovered Escallonia floribunda in 4° south lat. at an elevation of
8952 feet. I found the same plant in 21° south lat. in Brazil, which
although elevated is very much less so than the Andes of Peru. This
plant is of common occurrence between 24° 50′ and 25° 55′ in the
Campos Geraes, and I also met with it again on the Rio de la Plata in
about 35° lat., on a level with the sea.”
The group of the Myrtaceæ,—to which belong Melaleuca, Metrosideros,
and Eucalyptus, commonly classed under the general denomination of
Leptospermeæ,—produce partially, wherever the true leaves are supplied
by phyllodia (petiole-leaves), or where the direction of the leaves is
inclined towards the unexpanded petiole, a distribution of streaks of
light and shade wholly unknown in our deciduous-leaved forest. We find
that the earliest botanical travellers who visited New Holland were
astonished at the singular effect thus produced. Robert Brown was the
first to show that this phenomenon depends on the vertical direction
of the expanded petioles (the phyllodia of Acacia longifolia and
Acacia suaveolens), and on the circumstance, that the light, instead
of falling on horizontal surfaces, passes between vertical ones.[QY]
Morphological laws in the development of the leaves determine the
peculiar character of the varying light and shade. “Phyllodia,” says
Kunth, “can in my opinion merely occur in families which have compound
pinnate leaves; and in fact they have as yet only been met with in
Leguminosæ (in the Acacias). In Eucalyptus, Metrosideros, and
Melaleuca, the leaves are simple (simplicia), and their edgewise
position depends on a half-turn of the leaf-stalk (petiolus);
moreover, it must be remarked, that both surfaces of the leaves are of
a similar character.” In the scantily shaded forests of New Holland
the optical effects here alluded to are the more frequent, since two
groups of Myrtaceæ and Leguminosæ, species of Eucalyptus and Acacia,
there constitute nearly one-half of all the greyish-green tree
vegetation. Moreover, between the bast-layers of Melaleuca, there are
formed easily soluble membranes, which force their way outwards, and
by their whiteness reminds us of our birch bark.
The sphere of distribution of the Myrtaceæ is very different in the
two continents. In the New Continent, and especially in its western
parts, this family, according to Joseph Hooker,[QZ] scarcely extends
beyond the parallel of 26° north lat., while in the Southern
Hemisphere, there are in Chili, according to Claude Gay, ten species
of Myrtle and twenty-two of Eugenia, which mixed with Proteaceæ
(Embothrium and Lomatia) and with Fagus obliqua, there constitute
forests. The Myrtaceæ become more frequent from the 38th degree of
south lat.; in the island of Chiloe, where a metrosideros-like species
(Myrtus stipularis) forms almost impenetrable underwood, which is
there named Tepuales; and in Patagonia to the extremity of Tierra del
Fuego in 56° lat. While in Europe the Myrtaceæ do not extend northward
further than 46° lat., they penetrate in Australia, Tasmania, New
Zealand and the Auckland Islands to 50½° south latitude.
Footnote 102:
p. 229—“_Melastomaceæ_.”
This group comprises the genera Melastoma (Fothergilla and Tococa Aub.
and Rhexia (Meriana and Osbeckia), of which we have collected no less
than sixty new species in tropical America alone, on both sides of the
equator. Bonpland has published a splendid work on the Melastomaceæ,
in two volumes, with coloured plates. There are species of Rhexia and
Melastoma which ascend in the chain of the Andes, as Alpine or Paramos
shrubs, to 9600 and even more than 11,000 feet above the level of the
sea; as for instance Rhexia cernua, R. stricta, Melastoma obscurum, M.
aspergillare, and M. lutescens.
Footnote 103:
p. 229—“_The Laurel-form_.”
To this form belong Laurus, Persea, the Ocoteæ, so numerous
in South America, and,—on account of their physiognomic
similarity,—Calophyllum, also the splendidly aspiring Mammea from the
Guttiferæ.
Footnote 104:
p. 229—“_How instructive to the landscape-painter would be a work
which should illustrate the leading forms of vegetation_.”
In order to define with more distinctness what I have here only
briefly referred to, I may be permitted to incorporate the following
considerations from my sketch of a history of landscape painting, and
of a graphical representation of the physiognomy of plants.[RA]
“All that relates to the expression of the passions and the beauty of
the human form has perhaps attained its fullest development in the
temperate northern zone under the skies of Greece and Italy. The
artist, drawing from the depths of imagination, no less than from the
contemplation of beings of his own species, derives the types of
historical painting alike from unfettered creation and from truthful
imitation. Landscape painting, though scarcely a more imitative art,
has a more material basis, and a more earthly tendency. It requires
for its development a greater amount of various and distinct
impressions, which, when imbibed from external contemplation, must be
fertilized by the powers of the mind in order to be presented to the
senses of others as a creative work of art. The grander style of
heroic landscape-painting is the combined result of a profound
appreciation of nature, and of this inward process of the mind.
“Everywhere, in every separate portion of the earth, nature is indeed
only a reflex of the whole. The forms of organization recur again and
again in different combinations. Even the icy north is cheered for
months together by the presence of herbs and large Alpine blossoms
covering the earth, and by a mild azure sky. Hitherto landscape
painting among us has pursued her graceful labours familiar only with
the simpler forms of our native floras, but not therefore without
depth of feeling and richness of creative fancy. Dwelling only on the
native and indigenous form of our vegetation, this branch of art,
notwithstanding that it has been circumscribed by such narrow limits,
has yet afforded sufficient scope for highly-gifted painters, such as
the Caracci, Gaspar Poussin, Claude Lorraine, and Ruysdael, to produce
the happiest and most varied creations of art, by their magical power
of managing the grouping of trees, and the effects of light and shade.
That progress which may still be expected in art, from a more animated
intercourse with the tropical world, and from ideas engendered in the
mind of the artist by the contemplation of Nature in her grandest
forms, will never diminish the fame of the old masters. I have alluded
to this, to recal the ancient bond which unites a knowledge of Nature
with poetry and a taste for art. For in landscape painting, as in
every other branch of art, a distinction must be drawn between the
elements generated by a limited field of contemplation and direct
observation, and those which spring from the boundless depth of
feeling, and from the force of idealising mental power. The grand
conceptions which landscape painting, as a more or less inspired
branch of the poetry of nature, owes to the creative power of the
mind, are, like man himself, and the imaginative faculties with which
he is endowed, independent of place. These remarks especially refer to
the gradations in the form of trees from Ruysdael and Everdingen,
through the works of Claude Lorraine, to Poussin and Annibal Caracci.
In the great masters of art there is no indication of local
limitation. But an extension of the visible horizon, and an
acquaintance with the nobler and grander forms of nature, and with the
luxuriant fulness of life in tropical regions, afford the advantage of
not simply enriching the material groundwork of landscape-painting,
but also of inducing more vivid impressions in the minds of less
highly gifted painters, and thus heightening their powers of artistic
creation.”
Footnote 105:
p. 230—“_From the thick and rough bark of the Crescentiæ and
Gustaviæ_.”
In _Crescentia Cujete_ (the Tutuma tree, whose large fruit-shells are
so indispensable to the natives as household utensils), in
_Cynometra_, the Cacao-tree (_Theobroma_), and the _Perigara Gustavia_
(Linn.), the tender blossoms burst forth from the half-carbonized
bark. When children eat the fruit of the _Pirigara speciosa_ (the
_Chupo_), their whole bodies become tinged with yellow; and this
jaundice, after a continuance of from twenty-four to thirty-six hours,
disappears without the use of medicine.
An indelible impression was produced on my mind by the luxuriant power
of vegetation in the tropical world, when, on entering a Cacao
plantation (_Caca hual_), in the Valles de Aragua, after a damp night,
I saw for the first time large blossoms springing from the root of a
_Theobroma_, deeply imbedded in the black soil. This is one of the
most instantaneous manifestations of the activity of the vegetative
force of organisation. Northern nations speak of “the awakening of
Nature at the first genial breath of Spring;”—expressions that
strongly contrast with the imaginative complaint of the Stagirite, who
regarded vegetable forms as buried in a “still sleep, from which there
is no awakening, and free from the desires that excite to spontaneous
motion.”[RB]
Footnote 106:
p. 230—“_Draw on their heads as caps_.”
These are the flowers of our _Aristolochia cordata_, to which
reference has been made in Illustration 25. The largest flowers in the
world, besides those belonging to the Compositæ (the Mexican
_Helianthus annuus_), are produced by _Rafflesia Arnoldi_,
_Aristolochia_, _Datura_, _Barringtonia_, _Gustavia_, _Carolinea_,
_Lecythis_, _Nymphæa_, _Nelumbium_, _Victoria Regina_, _Magnolia_,
_Cactus_, the Orchideæ, and the Liliaceous forms.
Footnote 107:
p. 231—“_The luminous worlds which spangle the firmament from pole to
pole_.”
The more magnificent portion of the southern sky, in which shine the
constellations of the Centaur, Argo, and the Southern Cross, where the
Magellanic clouds shed their pale light, is for ever concealed from
the eyes of the inhabitants of Europe. It is only under the equator
that man enjoys the glorious spectacle of _all_ the stars of the
southern and northern heavens revealed at one glance. Some of our
northern constellations,—as, for instance, Ursus Major and Ursus
Minor,—owing to their low position when seen from the region of the
equator, appear to be of a remarkable, almost fearful magnitude. As
the inhabitant of the tropics beholds _all_ stars, so too, in regions
where plains, deep valleys, and lofty mountains are alternated, does
Nature surround him with representatives of every form of vegetation.
* * * * *
In the foregoing sketch of a “Physiognomy of Plants,” I have
endeavoured to keep in view three nearly allied subjects,—_the
absolute diversity of forms_; their _numerical_ relations, _i.e._
their local preponderance in the whole number of phanerogamic floras;
and their _geographical and climatic distribution_. If we would rise
to a general view regarding vital forms;—the physiognomy, the study of
the numerical relations (the arithmetic of botany), and the geography
of plants (the study of the local zones of distribution), cannot, as
it seems to me, be separated from one another. The study of the
physiognomy of plants must not be exclusively directed to the
consideration of the striking contrasts of form which the larger
organisms present, when considered separately; but it must rise to the
recognition of the laws which determine _physiognomy of nature
generally_, the picturesque character of vegetation over the whole
surface of the earth, and the vivid impression produced by the
grouping of contrasted forms in different zones of latitude and
elevation. It is when concentrated into this focus that we first
clearly perceive the close and intimate connection existing between
the subjects treated of in the preceding pages. We have here entered
upon a field of inquiry hitherto but little cultivated. I have
ventured to follow the method first propounded with such brilliant
results in Aristotle’s zoological works, and which is so especially
adapted to establish scientific confidence,—a method in which the
incessant effort to arrive at a generalisation of ideas supported by
individual illustrations, is associated with an endeavour to penetrate
to the specialities of phenomena.
The enumeration of forms is, from the physiognomical difference of
their nature, incapable of any strict classification. Here, as
everywhere in the consideration of external forms, there are certain
main types which present the strongest contrasts,—as the groups of the
Arborescent Grasses, the Aloe form and the species of Cactus, Palms,
Acicular-leaved trees, Mimosaceæ, and Bananas. Even scantily dispersed
individuals belonging to these groups determine the character of a
district, and produce a lasting impression on the mind of the
unscientific but susceptible beholder. Other forms, perhaps more
numerous and preponderating, may not appear equally marked either by
the shape or position of the leaves; the relation of the stem to the
branches, luxuriant vigour, animation, and grace; or even by the
melancholy contraction of the leaf-organs.
As, therefore, a physiognomical classification, or a distribution into
groups according to external appearance, does not admit of being
applied to the whole vegetable kingdom collectively, the basis on
which such a classification should be grounded must necessarily be
wholly different from that which has been so happily chosen for the
establishment of our comprehensive systems of the natural families of
plants. Vegetable physiognomy grounds its divisions and the choice of
its types on all that possesses mass,—as the stem, branches, and
appendicular organs (the form, position, and size of the leaf, the
character and brilliancy of the parenchyma), and consequently on all
that is now included under the special term, _the organs of
vegetation_, and on which depend the preservation (nourishment and
development) of the individual; while systematic botany, on the other
hand, bases the arrangement of the natural families of plants on a
consideration of the organs of propagation, on which depends the
preservation of the species.[RC] It was already taught in the school
of Aristotle,[RD] that the generation of seed is the ultimate aim of
the being and life of a plant. The process of development in the
organs of fructification has become, since Caspar Fried. Wolf,[RE] and
our great poet Goëthe, the morphological basis of all systematic
botany.
This science and that also of vegetable physiognomy proceed, I would
here again observe, from two different points of view; the former
depending upon an accordance in the inflorescence and in the
reproduction of the delicate sexual organs; the latter on the
conformation of the parts constituting the axes (the stem and
branches) and on the outline of the leaves, which are mainly
determined by the distribution of the vascular bundles. As, moreover,
the stem and branches, together with their appendicular organs,
predominate by mass and volume, they determine and strengthen the
impression we receive, while they individualize the physiognomical
character of the vegetation, as well as that of the landscape or the
zone in which some distinguished types occur. The law is here
expressed by the accordance and affinity in the marks appertaining to
the vegetative, _i.e._ the nutritient organs. In all European colonies
the inhabitants have been led by resemblances of physiognomy
(_habitus_, _facies_) to apply the names of European forms to certain
tropical plants, which bear wholly different flowers and fruits from
the genera to which these designations originally referred. Everywhere
in both hemispheres, the northern settler has believed he could
recognise Alders, Poplars, Apple and Olive trees; being misled for the
most part by the form of the leaves and the direction of the branches.
The charm associated with the remembrance of native forms has
strengthened the illusion, and European names of plants have thus been
perpetuated from generation to generation in the slave colonies, where
they have been further enriched by denominations borrowed from the
negro languages.
A remarkable phenomenon is presented by the contrast frequently
observed to arise from a striking accordance in physiognomy, coupled
with the greatest difference in the organs of inflorescence and
fructification—between the external form as determined by the
appendicular or leaf-system, and the sexual organs on which are based
the various groups of the natural systems of botany. One would be
disposed _à priori_ to believe that the aspect of vegetative organs
(leaves) exclusively so called, must depend upon the structure of the
organs of reproduction, but this dependence has only been observed in
a very small number of families, as Ferns, Grasses, Cyperaceæ, Palms,
Coniferæ, Umbelliferæ, and Aroideæ. In the Leguminosæ this accordance
between the physiognomical character and the inflorescence can
scarcely be recognized, excepting where they are separated into groups
(as Papilionaceæ, Cæsalpinineæ, and Mimosaceæ.) The types which
exhibit, when compared together, a very different structure of
inflorescence and fructification, notwithstanding external accordance
in physiognomy, are Palms and Cycadeæ, the latter being most nearly
allied to the Coniferæ; _Cucusta_, belonging to the Convolvulaceæ, and
the leafless _Cassytha_, a parasitical Laurinea; _Equisetum_ (from the
division of the Cryptogamia) and _Ephedra_ (a coniferous tree). The
Grossulareæ (_Ribes_) are so nearly allied by their efflorescence to
Cactuses, _i. e._ the family of the Opuntiaceæ, that it is only very
lately that they have been separated from them! One common family
(that of the Asphodeleæ) comprises the gigantic tree, _Dracœna Draco_,
the Common Asparagus, and the coloured flowering _Aletris_. Simple and
compound leaves frequently belong not only to the same family, but
even to the same genus. We found in the elevated plateaux of Peru and
New Granada among twelve new species of _Weinmannia_, five with
simple, and the remainder with pinnate leaves. The genus _Aralia_
exhibits yet greater independence in the leaf-form, which is either
simple, entire, lobed, digitate, or pinnate.[RF]
Pinnate leaves appear to me to belong especially to those families
which occupy the highest grade of organic development, as for
instance, the _Polypetalœ_; among _perigynic_ plants, the Leguminosæ,
Rosaceæ, Terebinthaceæ, and Juglandeæ; among _hypogynic_ plants the
Aurantiaceæ, Cedrelaceæ, and Sapindaceæ. The elegant form of the
doubly pinnate leaf, which constitutes so great an adornment of the
torrid zone, is most frequently met with among the Leguminosæ; among
the Mimosaceæ, and also among some Cæsalpinias, Coulterias and
Gleditschias; but never, as Kunth has observed, among the
Papilionaceæ.
The form of pinnate, and more especially of compound leaves, is
unknown in Gentianeæ, Rubiaceæ, and Myrtaceæ. In the morphological
development presented by the richness and varied aspect of the
appendicular organs of dicotyledons, we are only able to recognize a
very small number of general laws.
ON THE
STRUCTURE AND MODE OF ACTION
OF
VOLCANOS
IN DIFFERENT PARTS OF THE EARTH.
(This Memoir was read at a Public Meeting of the Academy, at Berlin, on
the 24th January, 1823.)
When we consider the influence exerted on the study of nature during the
last few centuries, by the extension of geographical knowledge and by
means of scientific expeditions to remote regions of the earth, we are
at once made sensible of the various character of this influence,
according as the investigations have been directed to the forms of the
organic world, the study of the inorganic crust of the earth, or to the
knowledge of rocks, their relative ages, and their origin. Different
vegetable and animal developments exist in every division of the earth,
whether it be on the plains, where, on a level with the sea, the
temperature varies with the latitude and with the various inflections of
the isothermal lines, or on the steep declivity of mountain ranges,
warmed by the direct rays of the sun. Organic nature imparts to every
region of the globe its own characteristic physiognomy. But this does
not apply to the inorganic crust of the earth divested of its vegetable
covering, for everywhere, in both hemispheres, from the equator to the
poles, the same rocks are found grouped with some relation to each
other, either of attraction or repulsion. In distant lands, surrounded
by strange forms of vegetation, and beneath a sky beaming with other
stars than those to which his eye had been accustomed, the mariner often
recognises, with joyful surprise, argillaceous schists and rocks
familiar to him in his native land.
This independence of geological relations on the actual condition of
climates does not diminish the beneficial influence exercised on the
progress of mineralogy and physical geognosy by the numerous
observations instituted in distant regions of the earth, but simply
gives a particular direction to them. Every expedition enriches natural
history with new genera of plants and animals. At one time we acquire a
knowledge of new organic forms which are allied to types long familiar
to us, and which not unfrequently, by furnishing links till then
deficient, enable us to establish, in all its original perfection, an
uninterrupted chain of natural structures. At another time we become
acquainted with isolated structures, which appear either as the remains
of extinct genera, or members of unknown groups, the discovery of which
stimulates further research. It is not, however, from the investigation
of the earth’s crust that we acquire these manifold additions to our
knowledge, for here we meet rather with an uniformity in the constituent
parts, in the superposition of dissimilar masses, and in their regular
recurrence, which cannot fail to excite the surprise and admiration of
the geologist. In the chain of the Andes, as in the mountains of Central
Europe, one formation appears, as it were, to call forth another. Masses
identical in character assume the same forms; basalt and dolerite
compose twin mountains; dolomite, sandstone, and porphyry form abrupt
rocky walls; while vitreous trachyte, containing a large proportion of
feldspar, rises in bell-shaped and high-vaulted domes. In the most
remote regions large crystals are separated in a similar manner from the
compact texture of the fundamental mass, and, blending and grouping
together into subordinate strata, frequently announce the commencement
of new and independent formations. It is thus that the inorganic world
may be said to reflect itself, more or less distinctly, in every
mountain of any great extent. It is necessary, however, in order
perfectly to understand the most important phenomena of the composition,
relative age, and origin of formations, to compare together the
observations made in regions of the earth most widely remote from each
other. Problems which have long baffled the geologist in his own
northern region, find their solution in the vicinity of the equator. If,
as we have already observed, remote regions do not present us with new
formations, that is to say, with unknown groupings of simple substances,
they at least help us to unravel the great and universal laws of nature,
by showing how different strata of the crust of the earth are mutually
superimposed on, and intersect, each other in the form of veins, or rise
to different elevations in obedience to elastic forces.
Although our geological knowledge may be thus extensively augmented by
researches over vast regions, it can hardly be a matter of surprise that
the class of phenomena constituting the principal subject of this
address should have been so long examined in an imperfect manner, since
the means of comparison were of difficult, and almost, it may be said,
of laborious access.
Until towards the close of the eighteenth century all that was known of
the form of volcanos and of the action of their subterranean forces was
derived from observations made on two volcanic mountains of Southern
Italy, Vesuvius and Etna. As the former of these was the more
accessible, and (like all volcanos of slight elevation) had frequent
eruptions, a hill became to a certain degree the type according to which
a whole world—the mighty volcanos of Mexico, South America, and the
Asiatic Islands—was supposed to be formed. Such a mode of reasoning
involuntarily calls to mind Virgil’s shepherd, who believed that in his
own humble cot he saw the image of the eternal city, Imperial Rome.
This imperfect mode of studying nature might indeed have been obviated
by a more attentive examination of the whole Mediterranean, and
especially of its eastern islands and littoral districts, where mankind
first awoke to intellectual culture and to a higher standard of feeling.
Among the Sporades, trachytic rocks have risen from the bottom of the
sea, and have formed lands similar to those of the Azores, which in the
course of three centuries have appeared periodically at three almost
equal intervals of time. Between Epidaurus and Trœzene, near Methone, in
the Peloponnesus, there is a Monte Nuovo, described by Strabo and since
by Dodwell. Its elevation is greater than that of the Monte Nuovo of the
Phlegræan fields near Baiæ, and perhaps even than that of the new
volcano of Xorullo, in the plains of Mexico, which I found to be
surrounded by many thousand small basaltic cones, upheaved from the
earth, and still emitting smoke. It is not only in the basin of the
Mediterranean, that volcanic fires escape from the permanent craters of
isolated mountains having a constant communication with the interior of
the earth, as Stromboli, Vesuvius, and Etna; for at Ischia, and on Mount
Epomeus, and also, according to the accounts of the ancients, in the
Lelantine plain, near Chalcis, lavas have flowed from fissures which
have suddenly opened on the surface of the earth. Besides these
phenomena, which fall within historical periods, that is, within the
narrow bounds of authentic tradition, and which Ritter purposes
collecting and explaining in his masterly work on geography, the shores
of the Mediterranean present numerous remains of the earlier action of
fire. The south of France exhibits in Auvergne a distinct and peculiar
system of volcanos, linearly arranged, trachytic domes alternating with
cones of eruption, emitting lava streams in the form of bands. The
plains of Lombardy, which are on a level with the sea, and constitute
the innermost bay of the Adriatic, inclose the trachyte of the Euganean
Hills, where rise domes of granular trachyte, obsidian, and pearl-stone.
These masses are developed from each other, and break through the lower
chalk formations and nummulitic limestone, but have never been emitted
in narrow streams. Similar evidence of former revolutions of our earth,
is afforded in many parts of the Greek Continent and in Western Asia,
countries which will undoubtedly some day yield the geologist ample
materials for investigation, when the light of knowledge shall again
shine on those lands whence it first dawned on our western world, and
when oppressed humanity shall cease to groan beneath the weight of
Turkish barbarism.
I allude to the geographical proximity of such numerous and various
phenomena in order to show that the basin of the Mediterranean, with its
series of islands, might have enabled the attentive observer to note all
those phenomena which have recently been discovered under various forms
and structures in South America, Teneriffe, and in the Aleutian islands,
near the Polar region. The materials for observation were, no doubt,
accumulated within a narrow compass; but it was yet necessary that
travels in distant countries and comparisons between extensive tracts of
land, both in and out of Europe, should be undertaken, in order to
obtain a correct idea of the resemblance between volcanic phenomena and
of their dependence on each other.
Language, which so frequently imparts permanence and authority to first,
and often also erroneous views, but which points, as it were,
instinctively to the truth, has applied the term _volcanic_ to all
eruptions of subterranean fire and molten matter; to columns of smoke
and vapour which ascend sporadically from rocks, as at Colares, after
the great earthquake of Lisbon; to Salses, or argillaceous cones
emitting moist mud, asphalt, and hydrogen, as at Girgenti in Sicily, and
at Turbaco in South America; to hot Geyser springs, which rise under the
pressure of elastic vapours; and, in general, to all operations of
impetuous natural forces which have their seat deep in the interior of
our planet. In Central America (Guatimala) and in the Philippine
Islands, the natives even formally distinguish between _Volcanes de agua
y de fuego_, volcanos emitting water, and those emitting fire;
designating by the former appellation, mountains from which subterranean
waters burst forth from time to time, accompanied by a dull hollow sound
and violent earthquakes.
Without denying the connection, which undoubtedly exists among the
phenomena just referred to, it would seem advisable to apply more
definite terms to the physical as well as to the mineralogical portion
of the science of geology, and not at one time to designate by the word
_volcano_ a mountain terminating in a permanent fire-emitting mouth, and
at another to apply it to any subterranean cause, be it what it may, of
volcanic action. In the present condition of our earth, the form of
isolated conical mountains (as those of Vesuvius, Etna, the Peak of
Teneriffe, Tunguragua and Cotopaxi) is certainly the shape most commonly
observed in volcanos. I have myself seen such volcanos varying in height
from the most inconsiderable hill to an elevation of more than 19,000
feet above the level of the sea. Besides such conical forms, however, we
continually meet with permanent fire-emitting mouths, in which the
communication with the interior of the earth is maintained on
far-extended jagged ridges, and not even always from the centre of their
mural summits, but at their extremity towards their slope. Such, for
instance, is Pichincha, situated between the Pacific and the city of
Quito, which has acquired celebrity from Bouguer’s earliest barometric
formulæ, and such are the volcanos on the Steppe de los Pastos, situate
at more than 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. All these variously
shaped summits consist of trachyte, formerly known as trap-porphyry; a
granular stone full of narrow fissures, composed of different kinds of
feldspar (labradorite, oligoklase, and albite), augite, hornblende, and
sometimes interspersed mica, and even quartz. Wherever the evidences of
the first eruption, the ancient structures—if I may use the
expression—remain complete, the isolated cone is surrounded,
circus-like, with a high wall of rock consisting of different
superimposed strata, encompassing it like an outer sheath. Such walls or
circular inclosures are termed _craters of elevation_, and constitute a
great and important phenomenon, upon which that eminent geologist,
Leopold von Buch, from whose writings I have borrowed many facts
advanced in this treatise, presented so remarkable a paper to our
Academy five years ago.
Volcanos which communicate with the atmosphere by means of fire-emitting
mouths, such as conical basaltic hills, and dome-like craterless
trachytic mountains, (the latter being sometimes low, like the Sarcouy,
and sometimes high, like the Chimborazo,) form various groups.
Comparative geography draws our attention, at one time, to small
Archipelagos or independent mountain-systems, with craters and lava
streams, like those in the Canary Isles and the Azores, and without
craters or true lava streams, as in the Euganean hills, and the
Siebengebirge near Bonn; at another time, it makes us acquainted with
volcanos arranged in single or double chains, and extending for many
hundred miles in length, either running parallel with the main direction
of the range, as in Guatimala, Peru, and Java, or intersecting its axis
at right angles, as in tropical Mexico. In this land of the Aztecs
fire-emitting trachytic mountains alone attain the high snow limit: they
are ranged in the direction of a parallel of latitude, and have probably
been upheaved from a chasm extending over upwards of 420 miles,
intersecting the whole continent from the Pacific to the Atlantic.
This crowding together of volcanos, either in rounded groups or double
lines, affords the most convincing proof that their action does not
depend on slight causes located near the surface, but that they are
great and deep-seated phenomena. The whole of the eastern portion of the
American continent, which is poor in metals, has in its present
condition no fire-emitting openings, no trachytic masses, and perhaps no
basalt containing olivine. All the volcanos of America are united in the
portion of the continent opposite to Asia, along the chain of the Andes,
which runs nearly due north and south over a distance of more than 7200
miles.
The whole elevated table-land of Quito, which is surmounted by the high
mountains of Pichincha, Cotopaxi, and Tunguragua, constitutes one sole
volcanic hearth. The subterranean fire bursts sometimes from one and
sometimes from another of these openings, which have generally been
regarded as independent volcanos. The progressive movement of the fire
has, for three centuries, inclined from north to south. Even the
earthquakes, which so fearfully devastate this portion of the globe,
afford striking evidence of the existence of subterranean
communications, not only between countries where there are no
volcanos—as has long been known—but likewise between volcanic apertures
situated at a distance from each other. Thus the volcano of Pasto, east
of the river Guaytara, continued during three months of the year 1797,
to emit, uninterruptedly, a lofty column of smoke, until it suddenly
ceased at the moment of the great earthquake of Riobamba, (at a distance
of 240 miles,) and the mud eruption of the “Moya,” in which from thirty
to forty thousand Indians perished.
The sudden appearance, on the 30th of January, 1811, of the island of
Sabrina, in the group of the Azores, was the precursor of the dreadful
earthquakes which, further westward, shook, from May, 1811, to June,
1813, almost uninterruptedly, first the Antilles, then the plains of the
Ohio and Mississippi, and lastly, the opposite coasts of Venezuela or
Caracas. Thirty days after the total destruction of the beautiful
capital of the province, there was an eruption of the long inactive
volcano of St. Vincent, in the neighbouring islands of the Antilles. A
remarkable phenomenon accompanied this eruption: at the moment of this
explosion, which occurred on the 30th of April, 1811, a terrible
subterranean noise was heard in South America, over a district of more
than 35,000 square miles. The inhabitants of the banks of the Apure, at
the confluence of the Rio Nula, and those living on the remote sea-coast
of Venezuela, agreed in comparing this sound to the noise of heavy
artillery. The distance from the confluence of the Rio Nula with the
Apure (by which I entered the Orinoco) to the volcano of St. Vincent,
measured in a straight line, is no less than 628 miles. This noise was
certainly not propagated through the air, and must have arisen from some
deep-seated subterranean cause; its intensity was, moreover, hardly
greater on the shores of the Caribbean sea, near the seat of the raging
volcano, than in the interior of the country in the basin of the Apure
and the Orinoco.
It would be useless to multiply examples of this nature, by adducing
others which I have collected: I will therefore only refer to one
further instance, namely, the memorable earthquake of Lisbon, an
important phenomenon in the annals of Europe. Simultaneously with this
event, which took place on the 1st of November, 1755, not only were the
Lakes of Switzerland and the sea off the Swedish coasts violently
agitated, but in the eastern portion of the Antilles, near the islands
of Martinique, Antigua, and Barbadoes, the tide, which never exceeds
thirty inches, suddenly rose upwards of twenty feet. All these phenomena
prove, that subterranean forces are manifested either dynamically,
expansively, and attended by commotion, in earthquakes; or possess the
property of producing, or of chemically modifying substances in
volcanos; and they further show, that these forces are not seated near
the surface in the thin crust of the earth, but deep in the interior of
our planet, whence through fissures and unfilled veins they act
simultaneously at widely distant points of the earth’s surface.
The more varied the structure of volcanos, that is to say, of elevations
inclosing a channel through which the molten masses of the interior of
the earth reach the surface, the more important it is to form a correct
idea of these structures by careful measurement. The interest derived
from measurements of this kind, which I made a special subject of
inquiry in the western hemisphere, is increased by the consideration,
that the objects to be measured vary in magnitude at different points. A
philosophical study of nature seeks, in considering the changes of
phenomena, to connect the present with the past.
In order to ascertain the periodic recurrence, or the laws of the
progressive changes in nature, we require certain fixed points, and
carefully conducted observations, which, by their connection with
definite epochs, may serve as a basis for numerical comparisons. If the
mean temperature of the atmosphere and of the earth in different
latitudes, or the mean height of the barometer at the sea level, had
been determined only once in every thousand years, we should know to
what extent the heat of climates has increased or diminished, and
whether any changes have taken place in the height of the atmosphere.
Such points of comparison are especially required to determine the
inclination and declination of the magnetic needle, and the intensity of
those electro-magnetic forces on which Seebeck and Erman, two admirable
physicists belonging to this Academy, have thrown so much light. If it
be a meritorious undertaking on the part of learned societies to
investigate with perseverance the cosmical changes in the heat and
pressure of the atmosphere, and particularly the magnetic direction and
intensity, it is no less the duty of the travelling geologist to direct
attention to the varying height of volcanos in determining the
inequalities of the earth’s surface. The observations which I formerly
made in the Mexican mountains, at the volcano of Toluca, at
Popocatepetl, at the Cofre de Perote, or Nauhcampatepetl, and Xorullo,
and in the Andes of Quito at Pichincha, I have had opportunities since
my return to Europe of repeating, at different periods, on Mount
Vesuvius. Where complete trigonometric or barometric measurements are
wanting, their place may be supplied by angles of altitude laid down
with precision, and taken at points accurately determined. The
comparison of such determinations, made at different periods of time,
may sometimes be even preferable to the complication of more complete
operations.
Saussure measured Vesuvius in 1773, and at that time both the
north-western and south-eastern margins of the crater appeared to him to
be equal in height. He found their elevation above the level of the sea
to be 3894 feet. The eruption of 1794 occasioned a falling in towards
the south, and an inequality in the margins of the crater, which may be
distinguished from a considerable distance even by the most unpractised
eye. Leopold von Buch, Gay Lussac, and myself, measured Mount Vesuvius
three times in the year 1805, and found that the elevation of the
northern margin, la Rocca del Palo, opposite the Somma, was exactly as
it had been given by Saussure, while the southern margin was 479 feet
lower than it had been in 1773. The elevation of the volcano itself
towards Torre del Greco (the side towards which, for thirty years, the
volcanic action has been principally directed) had, at that time,
decreased one-eighth. The cone of cinders bears to the total height of
Vesuvius the relation of 1 : 3; in Pichincha, the ratio is as 1 : 10,
and at the Peak of Teneriffe, as 1 : 22. Of these three volcanic
mountains, Vesuvius has, therefore, comparatively, the highest cone of
cinders; probably because, being a volcano of inconsiderable height, it
has chiefly acted through its summit.
A few months ago, in the year 1822, I succeeded not only in repeating my
earlier barometric measurements of Mount Vesuvius, but also in
determining more completely all the margins of the crater[108] during
three ascents of the mountain.
These determinations are, perhaps, deserving of some degree of
attention, since they embrace the long period of the great eruptions
between 1805 and 1822, and are probably the only measurements hitherto
published of any volcano which admit of comparison in all their parts.
They prove, that the margins of the crater should be regarded as a much
more permanent phenomenon than has hitherto been supposed, from the
hasty observations made on the subject; and that this character
appertains to them everywhere, and not merely in those instances where,
as at the Peak of Teneriffe, and in all the volcanos of the Andes, they
evidently consist of trachyte. According to my latest determinations it
would seem, that since the time of Saussure, a period of forty-nine
years, the north-western margin of Vesuvius has probably not changed at
all, and that the south-eastern one, in the direction of Bosche Tre
Case, which in 1794 had become 426 feet lower, has since then only
altered about 64 feet.
If, in the newspaper reports of great eruptions, we often find
assertions made of an entire change of form in Mount Vesuvius, and if
these assertions appear to be confirmed by the picturesque views of the
volcano made at Naples, the cause of the error arises from the outlines
of the margins of the crater having been confounded with those of the
cones of eruption accidentally formed in its centre, the bottom of which
has been raised by the force of vapours. A cone of eruption of this
kind, formed by the accumulation of masses of rapilli and scoriæ,
gradually came to view, above the south-eastern margin of the crater,
between the years 1816 and 1818. The eruption in the month of February,
1822, increased this cone to such an elevation, that it projected from
107 to 117 feet above the north-western margin of the crater (the Rocca
del Palo). This remarkable cone, which was at length regarded at Naples
as the actual summit of Vesuvius, fell in with a fearful crash at the
last eruption, on the night of the 22nd of October; in consequence of
which, the bottom of the crater, which had continued uninterruptedly
accessible from the year 1811, is now nearly 800 feet below the northern
and 213 feet below the southern margin of the volcano. The varying form
and relative position of the cones of eruption, the apertures of which
must not, as they sometimes are, be confounded with the crater of the
volcano, give to Vesuvius at different epochs a peculiar physiognomy; so
much so, that the historiographer of this volcano, by a mere inspection
of Hackert’s landscapes in the Palace of Portici, might guess the exact
year in which the artist had made his sketch, by the outline of the
summit of the mountain, according as the northern or southern side is
represented in respect to height.
Twenty-four hours after the fall of the cone of scoriæ, which was 426
feet high, and when the small but numerous streams of lava had flowed
off, on the night between the 23rd and 24th of October, there began a
fiery eruption of ashes and rapilli, which continued uninterruptedly for
twelve days, but was most violent during the first four days. During
this period the explosions in the interior of the volcano were so loud
that the mere vibrations of the air caused the ceilings to crack in the
Palace of Portici, although no shocks of an earthquake were then or had
previously been experienced. A remarkable phenomenon was observed in the
neighbouring villages of Resina, Torre del Greco, Torre del’ Annunziata,
and Bosche Tre Case. Here the atmosphere was so completely saturated
with ashes that the whole region was enveloped in complete darkness
during many hours in the middle of the day. The inhabitants were obliged
to carry lanterns with them through the streets, as is often done in
Quito during the eruptions of Pichincha. Never had the flight of the
inhabitants been more general, for lava streams are less dreaded even
than an eruption of ashes, a phenomenon unknown here in any degree of
intensity, and one which fills the imaginations of men with images of
terror from the vague tradition of the manner in which Herculaneum,
Pompeii, and Stabiæ were destroyed.
The hot aqueous vapour which issued from the crater during the eruption,
and diffused itself through the atmosphere, formed, on cooling, a dense
cloud, which enveloped the column of ashes and fire, that rose to an
elevation of between 9000 and 10,000 feet above the level of the sea. So
sudden a condensation of vapour, and, as Gay Lussac has shown, the
formation of the cloud itself, tended to increase electric tension.
Flashes of forked lightning darted in all directions from the column of
ashes, while the rolling thunder might be clearly distinguished from the
deep rumbling sounds within the volcano. In no other eruption had the
play of the electric forces been so powerfully manifested as on this
occasion.
On the morning of the 26th of October the strange report was circulated
that a stream of boiling water was gushing from the crater, and pouring
down the cone of cinders. Monticelli, the zealous and learned observer
of the volcano, soon perceived that this erroneous report originated in
an optical illusion, and that the supposed stream of water was a great
quantity of dry ashes which issued like drift sand from a crevice in the
highest margin of the crater. The long drought, which had parched and
desolated the fields before this eruption of Vesuvius, was succeeded,
towards the termination of the phenomenon, by a continued and violent
rain, occasioned by the _volcanic storm_ which we have just described. A
similar phenomenon characterizes the termination of an eruption in all
zones of the earth. As the cone of cinders is usually wrapped in clouds
at this period, and as the rain is poured forth with most violence near
this portion of the volcano, streams of mud are generally observed to
descend from the sides in all directions. The terrified peasant looks
upon them as streams of water that rise from the interior of the volcano
and overflow the crater, while the deceived geologist believes that he
can recognise in them either sea-water or muddy products of the volcano,
the so-called _eruptions boueuses_, or, in the language of the old
French systematisers, products of an igneo-aqueous liquefaction.
Where, as is generally the case in the chain of the Andes, the summit of
the volcano penetrates beyond the snow-line, attaining sometimes an
elevation twice as great as that of Mount Etna, the inundations we have
described are rendered very frequent and destructive, owing to the
melting and permeating snow.
These are phenomena which have a meteorological connection with the
eruptions of volcanos, and are variously modified by the heights of the
mountains, the circumference of the summits which are perpetually
covered with snow, and the degree to which the walls of cinder cones
become heated; but they cannot be regarded in the light of true volcanic
phenomena. Subterranean lakes, communicating by various channels with
the mountain streams, are frequently formed in deep and vast cavities,
either on the declivity or at the base of volcanos. When the whole mass
of the volcano is powerfully shaken by those earthquakes which precede
all eruptions of fire in the Andes, the subterranean vaults open, and
pour forth streams of water, fishes, and tuffaceous mud. This singular
phenomenon brings to mind the _Pimelodes Cyclopum_, or the Silures of
the Cyclops, which the inhabitants of the plateau of Quito call
Preñadilla, and of which I gave a circumstantial account soon after my
return to Europe. When, on the night between the 19th and 20th of June,
1698, the summit of Mount Carguairazo, situated to the north of
Chimborazo, and having an elevation of more than 19,000 feet, fell in,
all the country for nearly 32 square miles was covered with mud and
fishes. A similar eruption of fish from the volcano of Imbaburu was
supposed to have caused the putrid fever, which, seven years before this
period, raged in the town of Ibarra.
I refer to these facts because they throw some light on the difference
between the eruption of dry ashes and mud-like inundations of tuff and
trass, investing fragments of wood, charcoal, and shells. The quantity
of ashes recently erupted from Mount Vesuvius, like every phenomenon
connected with volcanos and other great and fearful natural phenomena,
has been greatly exaggerated in the public papers; and two Neapolitan
chemists, Vicenzo Pepe and Guiseppe di Nobili, even asserted that the
cinders were mixed with given proportions of gold and silver,
notwithstanding the counter-statements of Monticelli and Covelli.
According to my researches the stratum of ashes which fell during the
twelve days was only three feet in thickness in the direction of Bosche
Tre Case, on the declivity of the cone, where they were mixed with
rapilli, while in the plains its greatest thickness did not exceed from
16 to 19 inches. Measurements of this kind must not be made at spots
where the ashes have been drifted by the wind, like snow or sand, or
where they have been accumulated in pulp-like heaps by means of water.
The times are passed in which, after the manner of the ancients, nothing
was regarded in volcanic phenomena save the marvellous, and when men
would believe, like Ctesias, that the ashes from Etna were borne as far
as the Indian peninsula. A portion of the Mexican gold and silver veins
is certainly found in trachytic porphyry, but in the ashes of Vesuvius
which I myself collected, and which were, at my request, examined by
that distinguished chemist Heinrich Rose, no trace of either gold or
silver was to be discovered.
However much these results, which perfectly correspond with the more
exact observations of Monticelli, may differ from those recently
announced, it cannot be denied that the eruption of ashes, which
continued from the 24th to the 28th of October, is the most memorable
that has been recorded, on unquestionable evidence, in reference to
Mount Vesuvius, since the death of the elder Pliny. The quantity of
ashes erupted on this occasion was probably three times as great as the
whole quantity which has fallen since volcanic phenomena have been
observed with attention in Italy. A stratum from 16 to 19 inches in
thickness does certainly, at first sight, seem very inconsiderable, when
compared with the mass with which we find Pompeii covered. But, without
taking into account the heavy rains and the inundations which must have
increased the bulk of this stratum in the course of ages, and without
reviving the animated contention maintained with much scepticism on the
other side of the Alps, regarding the causes of the destruction of the
Campanian cities, it may, at any rate, be here observed that the
eruptions of a volcano, at widely remote epochs, cannot be compared with
respect to their intensity. All conclusions must be insufficient that
are based on mere analogies of quantitative relations of the lava and
ashes, the height of the column of smoke, and the intensity of the
explosions.
We learn from the geographical description of Strabo, and from the
opinion expressed by Vitruvius on the volcanic origin of pumice, that,
until the year of Vespasian’s death, that is to say, until the eruption
which buried Pompeii, Vesuvius appeared more like an extinct volcano
than a Solfatara. When, after a long-continued repose, subterranean
forces suddenly opened for themselves new channels, penetrating through
strata of primitive rock and trachyte, effects must have been produced
to which no analogy is afforded by those of subsequent occurrence. We
clearly learn from the well-known letter in which Pliny the younger
informs Tacitus of the death of his uncle, that the renewal of the
eruptions, or, one might almost say, the revival of the slumbering
volcano, began with an outbreak of ashes. The same phenomenon was
observed at Xorullo, when the new volcano, in the month of September,
1759, breaking through strata of syenite and trachyte, was suddenly
upheaved in the plain. The country people fled in terror on finding
their cottages covered with ashes thrown up from the earth, which was
bursting in every direction. In the ordinary periodical manifestations
of volcanic activity a shower of ashes usually terminates each partial
eruption. The letter of the younger Pliny contains, moreover, a passage
which clearly shows that the dry ashes falling from the air immediately
attained a height of four or five feet, independent of accumulation by
drifts. “The court,” the narrative continues, “which led to the
apartment in which Pliny took his siesta, was so filled with ashes and
pumice that, had the sleeper tarried longer, he would have found the
passage wholly blocked up.” Within the inclosed limits of a court the
wind cannot have exercised any very considerable influence on the
drifting of the ashes.
I have interrupted my comparative view of volcanos by different
observations in relation to Vesuvius, partly on account of the great
interest excited by its recent eruption, and partly because every great
outpouring of ashes almost involuntarily recalls to mind the classic
soil of Pompeii and Herculaneum. In a note, not adapted to be read to
the audience to whom this lecture is addressed, I have collected all the
elements of the barometric measurements which I made during the close of
last year at Mount Vesuvius, and in the Campi Phlegræi.
We have hitherto considered the form and effects of those volcanos which
are permanently connected, by means of a crater, with the interior of
the earth. The summits of such volcanos are upheaved masses of trachyte
and lava intersected by numerous veins. The permanency of their effects
indicates a highly complex structure. They have, so to say, a certain
individuality of character, which remains unaltered for long periods of
time. Contiguous mountains generally yield wholly different products;
for instance: leucitic and feldspathic lavas, obsidian with pumice, and
basaltic masses containing olivine. They belong to the more recent
phenomena of the earth, usually breaking through all the strata of the
floetz formation, and their lava currents and products are of subsequent
origin to our valleys. Their life, if I may be permitted to use a
figurative expression, depends upon the mode and the duration of their
connection with the interior of the earth. After continuing for
centuries in a state of repose, their activity is often suddenly
revived, and they then become converted into Solfataras, emitting
aqueous vapours, gases, and acids. Occasionally, as at the Peak of
Teneriffe, their summits have already become a laboratory of regenerated
sulphur, while considerable lava currents, being basaltic near the base,
and mixed with obsidian and pumice at greater elevations, where the
pressure is less, continue to flow from the sides of the mountain[109].
Besides volcanos which have permanent craters, there is another kind of
volcanic phenomena less frequently observed than the former, but
especially instructive to the geologist, as they remind us of the
primitive world, that is, of the earliest revolutions of our planet.
Trachytic mountains suddenly open, and after throwing up ashes and lava,
close again never perhaps to re-open. Such has been the case with the
mighty volcano of Antisana in the chain of the Andes, and with Mount
Epomæus in Ischia, in the year 1302. Occasionally such an eruption has
occurred even in the plains, as on the table-land of Quito, in Iceland
at a distance from Hecla, and in the Lelantine plains of Eubœa. Many
upheaved islands belong to this class of transitory phenomena. In these
cases, the connection with the interior of the earth is not permanent,
the action ceasing as soon as the fissure, or channel of communication,
is again closed. Veins of basalt, dolerite, and porphyry, which traverse
almost all formations in different parts of the earth; and the masses of
syenite, augitic porphyry, and amygdaloid, which characterise the most
recent strata of transition rock, and the oldest stratum of the floetz
formation; have all probably been formed in a similar manner. In the
youthful period of our planet, the substances that had continued in a
fluid condition within the earth, broke through its crust, everywhere
intersected with fissures, and became solidified as granular veins, or
were spread out in broad superimposed strata. The products that may be
termed exclusively volcanic, which have come down to us from the
primitive ages of the world, have not flowed in streams or bands like
the lava of our isolated conical mountains. The mixtures of augite,
titanic iron, feldspar, and hornblende, may have been the same at
different periods, sometimes allied to basalt, sometimes to trachyte;
while chemical substances, (as we learn from Mitscherlich’s important
labours and the analogies presented by artificial igneous products,) may
have ranged themselves in layers according to some definite laws of
crystallization. In all cases we perceive that substances similarly
composed have come to the surface of the earth by very different means,
either by being simply upheaved, or escaping through temporary fissures;
and that breaking through the older rocks, that is to say, through the
earlier oxidized earth’s crust, they have flowed in the form of lava
streams from conical mountains having a permanent crater. If we do not
sufficiently distinguish between these various phenomena, our knowledge
of the geology of volcanos will again be shrouded in that obscurity,
from which numerous comparative experiments are now beginning gradually
to release it.
The questions have often been asked, what is it that burns in volcanos,
what generates the degree of heat capable of mixing earths and metals
together in a state of fusion? Modern chemistry has attempted to reply
that it is the earths, metals, and alkalies themselves, that is to say,
the metalloids of these substances, which burn. The solid and already
oxidized crust of the earth separates the surrounding atmosphere, with
the oxygen it contains, from the combustible unoxidized substances in
the interior of our planet. By the contact of these metalloids with the
atmospheric oxygen the disengagement of caloric ensues. The celebrated
and talented chemist, who advanced this explanation of volcanic
phenomena, soon himself relinquished it. The experiments which have been
made in mines and caverns in all parts of the earth, and which M. Arago
and myself have collected in a separate treatise, prove that even at an
inconsiderable depth, the temperature of the earth is much higher than
the mean temperature of the atmosphere at the same place. This
remarkable, and almost universally confirmed fact, is connected with
what we learn from volcanic phenomena. The depth at which we might
regard the earth as a fused mass, has been calculated. The primitive
cause of this subterranean heat is, as in all planets, the formative
process itself, the separation of the spherically conglomerating mass
from a cosmical aëriform fluid, and the cooling of the terrestrial
strata at different depths by the radiation of heat. All volcanic
phenomena are probably the result of a permanent or transient connection
between the interior and the exterior of our planet. Elastic vapours
press the fused oxidizing substances upwards through deep fissures.
Volcanos therefore are intermittent earth-springs, from which the fluid
mixtures of metals, alkalies, and earths, which become consolidated into
lava currents, flow gently and calmly, when being upheaved they find a
vent. In a similar manner, according to Plato’s Phædon, the ancients
regarded all volcanic streams of fire as effusions of the
Pyriphlegethon.
I would fain be permitted to add one yet bolder observation to those I
have already ventured to advance. May not the cause of one of the most
wonderful phenomena presented by the study of petrifactions, be
dependent on the condition of the inner heat of our planet, which is
indicated by thermometric experiments on springs[110] rising from
different depths, and by observations on volcanos? We find tropical
animals, arborescent ferns, palms, and bamboos, buried in the cold
north, and everywhere the primitive world presents a distribution of
organic structures wholly at variance with existing climatic relations.
Many hypotheses have been advanced in elucidation of so important a
problem, such as the approximation of a comet, the altered obliquity of
the ecliptic, and the increased intensity of the sun’s light; but none
of these have satisfied at once the astronomer, the physicist, and the
geologist. I, for my part, would willingly leave undisturbed the axis of
the earth or the light of the sun’s disk, (from whose spots a celebrated
astronomer explained fruitfulness and failure of crops,) yet it appears
to me that in every planet there exist, independently of its relations
to a central body and its astronomical position, numerous causes for the
development of heat, in processes of oxidation, in precipitation, in the
chemically altered capacity of bodies, the increase of electro-magnetic
tension, and in the channels of communication opened between its
internal and external parts.
Wherever, in the primitive world, heat was radiated from the deeply
fissured crust of the earth, palms, arborescent ferns, and all the
animals of the torrid zone, could perhaps have flourished for centuries
over extensive tracts of land. According to this view, which I have
already published in my work entitled _Geognostischer Versuch über die
Lagerung der Gebirgsarten in beiden Hemisphären_,[RG] the temperature of
volcanos would be that of the interior of our earth itself, and the same
causes which now occasion such fearfully devastating results, may have
been able to produce, in every zone, the most luxuriant vegetation on
the newly oxidized crust of the earth and on the deeply fissured strata
of rocks.
Should it be assumed, for the purpose of explaining the wonderful
distribution of tropical forms in their ancient mausolea, that the
long-haired elephantine animals, which are now found embedded in ice,
were once indigenous to northern latitudes, and that animals of similar
forms, belonging to the same type, as, for instance, lions and lynxes,
were capable of living in wholly different climates, such a mode of
explanation would at all events not admit of being extended to vegetable
products. From causes developed by the physiology of vegetation, palms,
bananas, and arborescent monocotyledons, are unable to endure the
deprivation of their appendicular organs, by the northern cold; and in
the geological problem which we are here considering, it seems to me a
matter of difficulty to admit any distinction between vegetable and
animal structures. One and the same mode of explanation must be applied
to both forms.
In concluding this treatise, I have added some uncertain and
hypothetical conjectures to the facts which have been collected in
widely remote regions of the earth. The philosophical study of nature
rises above the requirements of mere delineation, and does not consist
in the sterile accumulation of isolated facts. The active and inquiring
spirit of man may therefore be occasionally permitted to escape from the
present into the domain of the past, to conjecture that which cannot yet
be clearly determined, and thus to revel amid the ancient and
ever-recurring myths of geology.
EXPLANATORY ADDITIONS.
Footnote 108:
P. 363.—“_A more complete determination of the margins of the Crater
of Mount Vesuvius._”
My astronomical fellow-labourer, Oltmanns, who was unhappily too early
lost to science, has re-calculated the barometric measurements I made
on Mount Vesuvius (from the 22nd to the 25th of November, and on the
1st of December, 1822), and compared the results with those yielded by
the measurements given to me in manuscript by Lord Minto, Visconti,
Monticelli, Brioschi, and Poulett Scrope.
A. _Rocca del Palo, the highest northern margin of the Crater of
Vesuvius, was estimated by_—
Feet.
Saussure, in 1773, barometrically, probably according to Deluc’s
formula 3894
Poli (1794), barometrically 3875
Breislak (1794), barometrically, although, as in the case of
Poli, it is uncertain what formula was used 3920
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt (1805),
barometrically, according to the formula of Laplace, as in all
the following barometric results 3856
Brioschi (1810), trigonometrically 4079
Visconti (1816), trigonometrically 3977
Lord Minto (1822), barometrically, and frequently repeated 3971
Poulett Scrope (1822). This calculation is somewhat uncertain,
owing to the unknown relation of the diameters of the tubes to
those of the cistern 3862
Monticelli and Covelli (1822) 3990
Humboldt (1822) 4022
The most probable final result is 2026 feet above the hermitage, or
3996 feet above the level of the sea.
B. _The lowest south-eastern margin of the Crater, opposite Bosche Tre
Case._
After the eruption of 1794, this margin was 426 feet lower than
the Rocca del Palo, consequently, if the latter be estimated at
3996 feet, it would be 3570
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt (1805), barometrically 3414
Humboldt (1822), barometrically 3491
C. _The elevation of the cone of scoriæ that fell into the Crater on
the 22nd October, 1822._
Lord Minto, barometrically 4156
Brioschi, trigonometrically, according to different combinations—
Either 4067
Or 4099
The most probable final result for the height of the cone of scoriæ
that fell in during the year 1822, is 4131 feet.
D. _Punta Nasone, the highest summit of the Somma._
Shuckburgh (1794), barometrically, probably according to his own
formula 3734
Humboldt (1822), barometrically, according to the formula of
Laplace 3747
E. _Plain of the Atrio del Cavallo._
Humboldt (1822), barometrically 2577
F. _Base of the cone of ashes._
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt (1805), barometrically 2366
Humboldt (1822), barometrically 2482
G. _Hermitage of Salvatore._
Gay-Lussac, Leopold von Buch, and Humboldt (1805), barometrically 1918
Lord Minto (1822), barometrically 1969
Humboldt (1822), again barometrically 1974
Some of my measurements have appeared in Monticelli’s _Storia de’
fenomeni del Vesuvio, avvenuti negli anni 1821–1823_, p. 115, but
owing to the correction of the height of the mercury in the cistern
having been omitted, the numbers are not given with perfect exactness.
When it is remembered that the results contained in the above table
were obtained with barometers of very different construction, at
different hours of the day, during the prevalence of various winds,
and on the unequally heated declivity of a volcano, in a locality
where the decrease of the atmospheric temperature differs very
considerably from that assumed in our barometrical formulæ, the amount
of correspondence between the various results will appear sufficiently
satisfactory.
My measurements of 1822, at the time of the Congress of Verona, when I
accompanied the late King to Naples, were conducted with more care and
under more favourable circumstances than those of 1805. Differences of
elevations are moreover always preferable to absolute elevations.
These differences show, that since 1794, the relative condition of the
margins of the Rocca del Palo and of that towards Bosche Tre Case had
remained almost the same. I found, in 1805, for the height, 441, and
in 1822, nearly 524 feet. A distinguished geologist, Mr. Poulett
Scrope, obtained 473 feet, although his absolute heights for these two
margins of the crater appear somewhat too low. So inconsiderable a
variation in a period of twenty-eight years, and during violent
disturbances in the interior of the mountain, is undoubtedly a
remarkable phenomenon.
The height to which the cones of scoriæ rise from the bottom of the
crater at Vesuvius also deserves special attention. Shuckburgh found
in 1776 a cone of this nature to be 3932 feet above the level of the
Mediterranean; and, according to Lord Minto—a remarkably exact
observer—the cone of scoriæ which fell in on the 22nd of October,
1822, was even 4156 feet high. On both occasions therefore the cone of
scoriæ in the crater exceeded the highest point of the margin of the
crater. On comparing the measurements of Rocca del Palo from 1773 to
1822, one is almost involuntarily led to hazard the bold conjecture
that the northern margin of the crater has been gradually upheaved by
subterranean forces. The correspondence of the three measurements made
between 1773 and 1805 is almost as striking as in those between 1816
and 1822. No doubt can be entertained as to the height being from 3970
to 4021 feet during the latter period. Ought less confidence to be
attached to the measurements made thirty or forty years previously,
and which only gave from 3875 to 3894 feet? After a longer lapse of
time the question may be decided, as to how much is attributable to
errors of measurement, and how much to the upheaval of the margin of
the crater. There is here no accumulation of loose masses from above;
if therefore the solid trachytic lava strata of the Rocca del Palo
actually rise, we must assume that they are upheaved from below by
volcanic forces.
My learned and indefatigable friend, Oltmanns, has published the
details of all these measurements with critical remarks.[RH] Would
that this work might incite geognosists to enter upon a series of
hypsometric observations, by which, in the course of time, Vesuvius,
which is, excepting Stromboli, the most accessible of all European
volcanos, may be thoroughly understood in all periods of its
development.
Footnote 109:
p. 371—“_At elevations where the pressure is less_.”
Compare Leopold von Buch on the Peak of Teneriffe, in his
_Physikalische Beschreibung der canarischen Inseln_, 1825, s. 213, and
in the _Abhandlungen der königl. Akademie zu Berlin, aus den J.
1820–21_, s. 99.
Footnote 110:
p. 373—“_Springs which rise from different depths_.”
Compare Arago in the _Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour 1835_, p.
234. The increase of the temperature is in our latitudes 1° Fahr. for
nearly every 54 feet. In the Artesian boring at the New Salt-works
(Oeynhausen’s Bath) near Minden, which is the greatest known depth
that has been reached below the surface of the sea, the temperature of
the water at 2231 feet, is fully 91° Fahrenheit, whilst the mean upper
temperature of the air may be assumed at 49°·3 Fahr. It is very
remarkable that, even in the third century, Saint Patricius, bishop of
Pertusa, should have been led, from the thermal springs near Carthage,
to form a very correct view of such an increase of heat.[RI]
VITAL FORCE, OR THE RHODIAN GENIUS.
The Syracusans, like the Athenians, had their Poecile,[RJ] where
representations of gods and heroes, the works of Grecian and Italian
art, adorned the richly decorated halls of the Portico. Incessantly the
people streamed thither; the young warrior to feast his eyes upon the
deeds of his forefathers, the artist to contemplate the works of the
great masters. Among the numerous paintings which the active enterprise
of the Syracusans had collected from the mother country, there was but
one which for full a century had continued to attract the attention of
every visitor. Even when, the Olympian Jupiter, Cecrops, the founder of
cities, and the heroic courage of Harmodius and Aristogiton, failed to
attract admirers, a dense crowd still pressed round this one picture.
Whence this preference? Was the painting a rescued work of Apelles, or
did it bear the impress of the school of Callimachus? No! although it
possessed both grace and beauty, yet neither in the blending of the
colours, nor in the character and style of its composition, could it be
compared with many other paintings in the Poecile.
The crowd—and how numerous are the classes included in this
denomination—ever admires and wonders at what it does not understand!
For more than a century had that painting been publicly exhibited, and
yet, although Syracuse contained within its narrow limits more artistic
genius than all the rest of sea-girt Sicily, the riddle of its meaning
still remained unsolved. It was not even known to what temple it had
formerly belonged, for it had been saved from a stranded vessel, which
was only conjectured, from the freight it carried, to have come from
Rhodes.
The foreground of the picture was occupied by a numerous group of youths
and maidens, whose uncovered limbs, although well formed, were not cast
in that slender mould which we so much admire in the statues of
Praxiteles and Alcamenes. The fuller development of their limbs, which
bore indications of laborious exercise,—the human expression of passion
and of care stamped on their features,—all seemed to divest them of a
heavenly or God-like type, and to fix them as creatures of the earth.
Their hair was simply adorned with leaves and wild flowers. Their arms
were extended towards each other with impassioned longing, but their
earnest and mournful gaze was rivetted on a Genius, who, surrounded by a
brilliant halo, hovered in the midst of the group. On his shoulder was a
butterfly, and in his right hand he held aloft a flaming torch. His
limbs were moulded with child-like grace; his eye radiant with celestial
light. He looked imperiously upon the youths and maidens at his feet. No
other characteristic traits could be distinguished in the picture. Some,
however, thought they could perceive at his foot the letters ζ and σ,
and as antiquarians were then no less bold than they are now, they
inferred, though far from happily, that the artist was called Zenodorus,
the name borne at a later date by the modeller of the Colossus of
Rhodes.
“The Rhodian Genius,” for so this mysterious painting was called, did
not however want for interpreters in Syracuse. Virtuosi, especially the
younger of them, on their return from a flying visit to Corinth or
Athens, would have deemed themselves deficient in all pretensions to
connoisseurship, had they not immediately advanced some new explanation.
Some regarded the Genius as the personification of spiritual Love,
forbidding the enjoyment of sensual pleasures; others were of opinion
that the dominion of Reason over the Passions was here signified. The
wiser preserved silence, and while they conjectured that the painting
was intended to represent something of a sublimer character, delighted
to linger in the Poecile to admire the simple composition of the group.
The question continued to remain undecided. Copies of the painting, with
various additions, were sent to Greece, but without eliciting any
explanation respecting its origin. At length, however, when at the early
rising of the Pleiades the Ægean Sea was again opened to navigation,
ships from Rhodes entered the port of Syracuse. They contained a
treasure of statues, altars, candelabras, and pictures, which a love of
art had caused the Dionysii to collect in Greece. Among the paintings
there was one which was instantly recognised as the companion to the
“Rhodian Genius.” It was of the same size, and exhibited a similar tone
of colouring, although in a better state of preservation.
The Genius stood as before in the centre, but without the butterfly; his
head was drooping, his torch extinguished and reversed. The group of
youths and maidens thronged simultaneously around him in mutual embrace;
their looks were no longer sad and submissive, but announced a wild
emancipation from restraint, and the gratification of long-nourished
passion.
The Syracusan antiquaries had already begun to accommodate their former
explanations of the “Rhodian Genius” to the newly arrived painting, when
the Tyrant ordered it to be conveyed to the house of Epicharmus. This
philosopher of the school of Pythagoras dwelt in the remote part of
Syracuse called Tyche. He seldom visited the court of the Dionysii, not
but that learned men from all the Greek colonies assembled there, but
because proximity to princes is apt to rob the most intellectual of
their spirit and freedom. He occupied himself unceasingly in studying
the nature of things and their forces, the origin of plants and animals,
and those harmonious laws by which the celestial bodies on a large, and
the snow-flake and the hail-stone on a small scale, assume a globular
form. Decrepid with age, he caused himself to be carried daily to the
Poecile, and thence to the harbour of Nasos, where, as he said, the wide
ocean presented to his eye an image of the Boundless and the Infinite,
which his mind strove in vain to comprehend. He was honoured alike by
the lower classes and by the tyrant, but he avoided the latter, while he
joyfully cultivated and often assisted the former.
Epicharmus lay weak and exhausted on his couch, when the newly arrived
work of art was brought to him by the command of Dionysius. He was
furnished at the same time with a faithful copy of the “Rhodian Genius,”
and the philosopher now caused both paintings to be placed before him.
He gazed on them long and earnestly, then called together his scholars,
and in accents of emotion thus addressed them:
“Remove the curtain from the window, that I may once more feed my eyes
with the sight of the richly animated and living earth. Sixty years long
have I pondered on the internal springs of nature and on the differences
inherent in matter, but it is only this day that the ‘Rhodian Genius’
has taught me to see clearly that which before I had only conjectured.
While the difference of sexes in all living beings beneficently binds
them together in prolific union, the crude matters of inorganic nature
are impelled by like instincts. Even in the darkness of chaos, matter
was accumulated or separated according as affinity or antagonism
attracted or repelled its various parts. The celestial fire follows the
metals, the magnet, the iron; amber when rubbed attaches light bodies;
earth blends with earth; salt separates from the waters of the sea and
joins its like, while the acid moisture of the _stypteria_ (στυπτηρία
ὑγρά) and the fleecy salt _Trichitis_, love the clay of Melos.
Everything in inanimate nature hastens to associate itself with its
like. No earthly element (and who will dare to class light as such?) can
therefore be found in a pure and virgin state. Everything as soon as
formed hastens to enter into new combinations, and nought, save the
disjoining art of man, can present in a separate state ingredients which
ye would vainly seek in the interior of the earth, or in the moving
oceans of air and water. In dead inorganic matter absolute repose
prevails as long as the bonds of affinity remain unsevered, and as long
as no third substance intrudes to blend itself with the others; but even
after this disturbance unfruitful repose soon again succeeds.
“Different, however, is the blending of the same substances in animal
and vegetable bodies. Here vital force imperatively asserts its rights,
and, heedless of the affinity and antagonism of the atoms asserted by
Democritus, unites substances which in inanimate nature ever flee from
each other, and separates that which is incessantly striving to unite.
“Draw nearer to me, my disciples, and recognise in the ‘Rhodian Genius,’
in the expression of his youthful vigour, in the butterfly on his
shoulder, in the commanding glance of his eye, the symbol of _vital
force_ as it animates every germ of organic creation. The earthly
elements at his feet are striving to gratify their own desires and to
mingle with one another. Imperiously the Genius threatens them with
upraised and high-flaming torch, and compels them, regardless of their
ancient rights, to obey his laws.
“Look now on the new work of art which the Tyrant has sent me to
explain; and turn your eyes from the picture of life to the picture of
death. The butterfly has soared upwards, the extinguished torch is
reversed, and the head of the youth is drooping. The spirit has fled to
other spheres, and the vital force is extinct. Now the youths and
maidens join their hands in joyous accord. Earthly matter again resumes
its rights. Released from all bonds they impetuously follow their sexual
instincts, and the day of his death is to them a day of nuptials.—Thus
dead matter, animated by vital force, passes through a countless series
of races, and perchance enshrines in the very substance in which of old
a miserable worm enjoyed its brief existence, the divine spirit of
Pythagoras.[RK]
“Go, Polycles, and tell the Tyrant what thou hast heard! And ye, my
beloved, Euryphamos, Lysis, and Scopas, come nearer—and yet nearer to
me! I feel that the faint vital force within me can no longer retain in
subjection the earthly matter, which now reclaims its freedom. Lead me
once more to the Poecile, and thence to the wide sea-shore. Soon will ye
collect my ashes.”
ILLUSTRATION AND NOTE.
In the Preface to the Second and Third Editions of this work (See
preliminary pages of this translation) I have already noticed the
republication of the preceding tale, which was first printed in
Schiller’s _Horen_ (for the year 1795, part 5, pages 90–96). It embodies
the development of a physiological idea in a semi-mythical garb. In the
year 1793, in the Latin _Aphorisms from the Chemical Physiology of
Plants_, appended to my _Subterranean Flora_, I had defined the _vital
force_ as the unknown cause which prevents the elements from following
their original attractive forces. The first of my aphorisms ran thus:—
“Rerum naturam si totam consideres, magnum atque durabile, quod inter
elementa intercedit, discrimen perspicies, quorum altera affinitatum
legibus obtemperantia, altera, vinculis solutis, varie juncta apparent.
Quod quidem discrimen in elementis ipsis eorumque indole neutiquam
positum, quum ex sola distributione singulorum petendum esse videatur.
Materiam segnem, brutam, inanimam eam vocamus, cujus stamina secundum
leges chymicæ affinitatis mixta sunt. Animata atque organica ea
potissimum corpora appellamus, quæ, licet in novas mutari formas
perpetuo tendant, vi interna quadam continentur, quominus priscam
sibique insitam formam relinquant.
“Vim internam, quæ chymicæ affinitatis vincula resolvit, atque obstat,
quominus elementa corporum libere conjungantur, vitalem vocamus. Itaque
nullum certius mortis criterium putredine datur, qua primæ partes vel
stamina rerum, antiquis juribus revocatis, affinitatum legibus parent.
Corporum inanimorum nulla putredo esse potest.”[RL]
These opinions, against which the acute Vicq d’Azyr has protested in his
_Traité d’Anatomie_, vol. i. p. 5, but which are still entertained by
many eminent persons among my friends, I have placed in the mouth of
Epicharmus. Reflection and prolonged study in the departments of
physiology and chemistry have deeply shaken my earlier belief in
peculiar, so-called vital forces. In the year 1797, at the conclusion of
my _Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser, nebst
Vermuthungen über den chemischen Process des Lebens in der Thier- und
Pflanzenwelt_ (vol. ii. pp. 430–436), I already declared that I by no
means regarded the existence of these peculiar vital forces as
established. Since that period I have not applied the term _peculiar
forces_ to that which may possibly be produced only by the combined
action of the separate already long known substances and their material
forces. We may, however, deduce a more certain definition of _animate_
and _inanimate_ substances from the chemical relations of the elements,
than can be derived from the criteria of voluntary movement, the
circulation of fluid in solid parts, and the inner appropriation and
fibrous arrangement of the elements. I call that substance _animate_
“whose voluntarily separated parts change their composition after
separation has taken place, the former external relations still
continuing the same.” This definition is merely the expression of a
fact. The equilibrium of the elements is maintained in animate matter by
virtue of their being parts of one whole. One organ determines another,
one gives to another the temperature, the tone as it were, in which
these, and no other affinities operate. Thus in organisation all is
reciprocal, means and end. The rapidity with which organic parts change
their compound state, when separated from a complex of living organs,
differs greatly according to the degree of their dependence, and the
nature of the component materials. The blood of animals, which is
variously modified in the different classes, undergoes a change earlier
than the juices of plants. Fungi generally decompose more rapidly than
the leaves of trees; and muscle more readily than the cutis.
Bone, the elementary structure of which has only been understood of late
years, the hair of animals, the ligneous part of vegetable substances,
the shells or husks of fruit, and the feathery calix (_pappus_) of
plants, are not inorganic and devoid of life; but approximate, even in
life, to the condition which they manifest after their separation from
the rest of the organism. The higher the degree of vitality or
irritability of an animate substance, the more striking or rapid will be
the change in its compound state after separation. “The aggregate of the
cells is an organism, and the organism _lives_ as long as its parts
continue actively subservient to the whole. Considered antithetically to
inanimate nature, the organism _appears_ to be self-determining.”[RM]
The difficulty of satisfactorily referring the vital phenomena of
organism to physical and chemical laws, depends chiefly (and almost in
the same manner as the prediction of meteorological processes in the
atmosphere) on the complication of the phenomena, and on the great
number of the simultaneously acting forces, as well as the conditions of
their activity.
I have faithfully adhered in the _Cosmos_ to the same mode of
representing and considering the so-called _vital forces_, and
affinities,[RN] the formative impulse and the principle of organising
activity. I there wrote as follows:[RO] “The mythical ideas long
entertained of the imponderable substances, and vital forces, peculiar
to each mode of organization, have complicated our views generally, and
shed an uncertain light on the path we ought to pursue.
“The most various forms of intuition have thus, age after age, aided in
augmenting the prodigious mass of empirical knowledge, which in our own
day has been enlarged with ever-increasing rapidity. The investigating
spirit of man strives, from time to time, with varying success, to break
through those ancient forms and symbols invented to subject rebellious
matter to rules of mechanical construction.”
Further in the same work,[RP] I have said, “It must, however, be
remembered, that the inorganic crust of the earth contains within it the
same elements that enter into the structure of animal and vegetable
organs. A physical cosmography would therefore be incomplete, if it were
to omit a consideration of these forces, and of the substances which
enter into solid and fluid combinations in organic tissues, under
conditions which, from our ignorance of their actual nature, we
designate by the vague term of _vital forces_, and group into various
systems, in accordance with more or less perfectly conceived
analogies.”[RQ]
THE
PLATEAU, OR TABLE-LAND,
OF
CAXAMARCA,
THE ANCIENT CAPITAL OF THE INCA ATAHUALLPA,
AND THE
FIRST VIEW OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN,
_From the Ridge of the Andes_.
After having sojourned for a whole year on the ridge of the Andes, or
Antis,[111], between 4° north and 4° south latitude, amidst the
table-lands of New Granada, Pastos, and Quito, and consequently at an
elevation varying between 8,500 and 13,000 feet above the level of the
sea, it is delightful to descend gradually through the more genial
climate of the Cinchona or Quina Woods of Loxa, into the plains of the
Upper Amazon. There an unknown world unfolds itself, rich in magnificent
vegetation. The little town of Loxa has given its name to the most
efficacious of all fever barks,—the Quina, or the Cascarilla fina de
Loxa. This bark is the precious produce of the tree, which we have
botanically described as the Cinchona Condaminea; but which, (from the
erroneous supposition that all the Cinchona known in commerce was
obtained from one and the same tree,) had previously been called
Cinchona officinalis. The fever bark first became known, in Europe,
about the middle of the seventeenth century. Sebastian Badus affirms,
that it was brought to Alcala de Henares in the year 1632; but according
to other accounts, it was brought to Madrid in 1640, when the Countess
de Chinchon[112], the wife of the Peruvian Viceroy, arrived from Lima,
(where she had been cured of an intermittent fever,) accompanied by her
physician, Juan del Vego. The finest kind of Cinchona is obtained at the
distance of from eight to twelve miles southward of the town of Loxa,
among the mountains of Uritusinga, Villonaco, and Rumisitana. The trees
which yield this bark grow on mica slate and gneiss, at the moderate
elevations of 5755 and 7673 feet above the level of the sea, nearly
corresponding, respectively, with the heights of the Hospital on the
Grimsel, and the Pass of the Great St. Bernard. The Cinchona Woods in
these parts are bounded by the little rivulets Zamora and Cachyacu.
The tree is felled in its first flowering season, or about the fourth or
seventh year of its growth, according as it may have been reared from a
strong shoot or from seed. At the time of my journey in Peru we learned,
with surprise, that the quantity of the Cinchona Condaminea annually
obtained at Loxa by the Cascarilla gatherers, or Quina hunters
(_Cascarilleros_ and _Caçadores de Quina_), amounted only to 110 hundred
weight. At that time none of this valuable product found its way into
commerce; all that was obtained was shipped at Payta, a port of the
Pacific, and conveyed round Cape Horn to Cadiz, for the use of the
Spanish Court. To procure the small supply of 11,000 Spanish pounds, no
less than 800 or 900 Cinchona trees were cut down every year. The older
and thicker stems are becoming more and more scarce; but, such is the
luxuriance of growth, that the younger trees, which now supply the
demand, though measuring only six inches in diameter, frequently attain
the height of from 53 to 64 feet. This beautiful tree, which is adorned
with leaves five inches long and two broad, seems, when growing in the
thick woods, as if striving to rise above its neighbours. The upper
branches spread out, and when agitated by the wind the leaves have a
peculiar reddish colour and glistening appearance which is
distinguishable at a great distance. The mean temperature of the woods
of the Cinchona Condaminea varies between 60° and 66° Fahrenheit; that
is to say, about the mean annual temperature of Florence and the Island
of Madeira: but the extremes of heat and cold experienced at those
points of the temperate zone, are never felt in the vicinity of Loxa.
However, comparisons between climates in very different degrees of
latitude, and the climate of the table-lands of the tropical zone, must,
from their very nature, be unsatisfactory.
Descending from the mountain node of Loxa, south-south-east, into the
hot valley of the Amazon River, the traveller passes over the Paramos of
Chulucanas, Guamani, and Yamoca. These Paramos are the mountainous
deserts, which have been mentioned in another portion of the present
work; and which, in the southern parts of the Andes, are known by the
name of Puna, a word belonging to the Quichua language. In most places,
their elevation is about 10,125 feet. They are stormy, frequently
enveloped for several successive days in thick fogs, or visited by
terrific hail-storms; the hail-stones being not only of different forms,
generally much flattened by rotation, but also run together into thin
floating plates of ice called papa-cara, which cut the face and hands in
their fall. During this meteoric process, I have sometimes known the
thermometer to sink to 48° and even 43° Fahrenheit, and the electric
tension of the atmosphere, measured by the voltaic electrometer, has
changed, in the space of a few minutes, from positive to negative. When
the temperature is below 43° Fahrenheit, snow falls in large flakes,
scattered widely apart; but it disappears after the lapse of a few
hours. The short thin branches of the small leaved myrtle-like shrubs,
the large size and luxuriance of the blossoms, and the perpetual
freshness caused by the absorption of the moist atmosphere—all impart a
peculiar aspect and character to the treeless vegetation of the Paramos.
No zone of Alpine vegetation, whether in temperate or cold climates, can
be compared with that of the Paramos in the tropical Andes.
The solemn impression which is felt on beholding the deserts of the
Cordilleras, is increased in a remarkable and unexpected manner, by the
circumstance that in these very regions there still exist wonderful
remains of the great road of the Incas, that stupendous work by means of
which, communication was maintained among all the provinces of the
empire along an extent of upwards of 1000 geographical miles. On the
sides of this road, and nearly at equal distances apart, there are small
houses, built of well-cut free-stone. These buildings, which answered
the purpose of stations, or caravanseries, are called Tambos, and also
Inca-Pilca, (from Pircca, the Wall). Some are surrounded by a sort of
fortification; others were destined for baths, and had arrangements for
the conveyance of warm water: the larger ones were intended exclusively
for the family of the sovereign. At the foot of the volcano Cotopaxi,
near Callo, I had previously seen buildings of the same kind in a good
state of preservation. These I accurately measured, and made drawings
from them. Pedro de Cieça, who wrote in the sixteenth century, calls
these structures Aposentos de Mulalo[113]. The pass of the Andes, lying
between Alausi and Loxa, called the Paramo del Assuay, a much frequented
route across the Ladera de Cadlud, is at the elevation of 15,526 feet
above the level of the sea, and consequently almost at the height of
Mont Blanc. As we were proceeding through this pass, we experienced
considerable difficulty in guiding our heavily laden mules over the
marshy ground on the level height of the Pullal; but whilst we journeyed
onward for the distance of about four miles, our eyes were continually
rivetted on the grand remains of the Inca Road, upwards of 20 feet in
breadth. This road had a deep under-structure, and was paved with
well-hewn blocks of black trap porphyry. None of the Roman roads which I
have seen in Italy, in the south of France and in Spain, appeared to me
more imposing than this work of the ancient Peruvians; and the Inca road
is the more extraordinary, since, according to my barometrical
calculations, it is situated at an elevation of 13,258 feet above the
level of the sea, a height exceeding that of the summit of the Peak of
Teneriffe by upwards of 1000 feet. At an equal elevation, are the ruins
said to be those of the palace of the Inca Tupac Yupanqui, and known by
the name of the Paredones del Inca, situated on the Assuay. From these
ruins the Inca road, running southward in the direction of Cuenca, leads
to the small but well-preserved fortress of the Cañar[114], probably
belonging to the same period, viz.: the reign of Tupac Yupanqui, or that
of his warlike son Huayna Capac.
We saw still grander remains of the ancient Peruvian Inca road, on our
way between Loxa and the Amazon, near the baths of the Incas on the
Paramo of Chulucanas, not far from Guancabamba, and also in the vicinity
of Ingatambo, near Pomahuaca. The ruins at the latter place are situated
so low, that I found the difference of level between the Inca road at
Pomahuaca, and that in the Paramo del Assuay, to be upwards of 9700
feet. The distance in a direct line, as determined by astronomical
latitudes, is precisely 184 miles; and the ascent of the road is about
3730 feet greater than the elevation of the Pass of Mont Cenis, above
the Lake of Como. There are two great causeways, paved with flat stones,
and in some places covered with cemented gravel[115], on Macadam’s plan.
One of these lines of road runs through the broad and barren plain lying
between the sea-coast and the chain of the Andes, whilst the other
passes along the ridge of the Cordilleras. Stones, marking the distances
at equal intervals, are frequently seen. The rivulets and ravines were
crossed by bridges of three kinds; some being of stone, some of wood,
and others of rope. These bridges are called by the Peruvians, Puentes
de Hamaca, or Puentes de Maroma. There were also aqueducts for conveying
water to the Tambos and fortresses. Both lines of road were directed to
Cuzco, the central point and capital of the great Peruvian empire,
situated in 13° 31′ south lat., and according to Pentland’s Map of
Bolivia, at the elevation of 11,378 feet above the level of the sea. As
the Peruvians had no wheeled carriages, these roads were constructed for
the march of troops, for the conveyance of burthens borne by men, and
for flocks of lightly laden Lamas; consequently, long flights of
steps[116], with resting-places, were formed at intervals in the steep
parts of the mountains. Francisco Pizarro and Diego Almagro, in their
expeditions to remote parts of the country, availed themselves with much
advantage of the military roads of the Incas; but the steps just
mentioned were formidable impediments in the way of the Spanish cavalry,
especially as in the early period of the Conquista, the Spaniards rode
horses only, and did not make use of the sure-footed mule, which, in
mountainous precipices, seems to reflect on every step he takes. It was
only at a later period that the Spanish troops were mounted on mules.
Sarmiento, who saw the Inca roads whilst they were in a perfect state of
preservation, mentions them in a _Relacion_ which he wrote, and which
long lay buried in the Library of the Escurial. “How,” he asks, “could a
people, unacquainted with the use of iron, have constructed such great
and magnificent roads, (_caminos tan grandes, y tan sovervios_), and in
regions so elevated as the countries between Cuzco and Quito, and
between Cuzco and the coast of Chili?” “The Emperor Charles,” he adds,
“with all his power, could not have accomplished even a part of what was
done by the well-directed Government of the Incas, and the obedient race
of people under its rule.” Hernando Pizarro, the most educated of the
three brothers, who expiated his misdeeds by twenty years of captivity
in Medina del Campo, and who died at 100 years of age, in the odour of
sanctity (_en olor de Santidad_), observes, alluding to the Inca roads:
“Throughout the whole of Christendom, no such roads are to be seen as
those which we here admire.” Cuzco and Quito, the two principal capitals
of the Incas, are situated in a direct line south-south-east,
north-north-west in reference the one to the other. Their distance
apart, without calculating the many windings of the road, is 1000 miles;
including the windings of the road, the distance is stated by Garcilaso
de la Vega, and other Conquistadores, to be “500 Spanish leguas.”
Notwithstanding this vast distance, we are informed, on the
unquestionable testimony of the Licentiate Polo de Ondegardo, that
Huayna Capac, whose father conquered Quito, caused certain materials to
be conveyed thither from Cuzco, for the erection of the royal buildings,
(the Inca dwellings). In Quito, I found this tradition still current
among the natives.
When, in the form of the earth, nature presents to man formidable
difficulties to contend against, those very difficulties serve to
stimulate the energy and courage of enterprising races of people. Under
the despotic centralizing system of the Inca Government, security and
rapidity of communication, especially in relation to the movement of
troops, were matters of urgent state necessity. Hence the construction
of great roads, and the establishment of very excellent postal
arrangements by the Peruvians. Among nations in the most various degrees
of civilization, national energy is frequently observed to manifest
itself, as it were by preference, in some special direction; but the
advancement consequent on this sort of partial exertion, however
strikingly exhibited, by no means affords a criterion of the general
cultivation of a people. Egyptians, Greeks[117], Etruscans, and Romans,
Chinese, Japanese, and Indians, present examples of these contrasts. It
would be difficult to determine, what space of time may have been
occupied in the execution of the Peruvian roads. Those great works, in
the northern part of the Inca Empire, on the table-land of Quito, must
certainly have been completed in less than thirty or thirty-five years;
that is to say, in the short interval between the defeat of the Ruler of
Quito, and the death of the Inca Huayna Capac. With respect to the
southern, or those specially styled the Peruvian roads, the period of
their formation is involved in complete obscurity.
The date of the mysterious appearance of Manco Capac is usually fixed
400 years prior to the arrival of Francisco Pizarro, (who landed on the
Island of Puná in the year 1532), consequently, about the middle of the
twelfth century, and full 200 years before the foundation of the city of
Mexico (Tenochtitlan); but instead of 400 years, some Spanish writers
represent the interval between Manco Capac and Pizarro to have been 500,
or even 550 years. However the history of the Peruvian empire records
only thirteen reigning princes of the Inca dynasty, which, as Prescott
justly observes, is not a number sufficient to fill up so long a period
as 550, or even 400 years. Quezalcoatl, Botchia, and Manco Capac, are
the three mythical beings, with whom are connected the earliest traces
of cultivation among the Aztecs, the Muyscas, (properly Chibchas), and
the Peruvians. Quezalcoatl, who is described as bearded and clothed in
black, was High Priest of Tula, and afterwards a penitent, dwelling on a
mountain near Tlaxapuchicalco. He is represented as having come from the
coast of Panuco; and, therefore, from the eastern part of Anahuac, on
the Mexican table-land. Botchia, or rather the bearded, long-robed
Nemterequeteba[118], (literally messenger of God, a Buddha of the
Muyscas), came from the grassy steppes eastward of the Andes chain, to
the table-lands of Bogotá. Before the time of Manco Capac, some degree
of civilization already existed on the picturesque shores of the Lake of
Titicaca. The fortress of Cuzco, on the hill of Sacsahuaman, was built
on the model of the more ancient structures of Tiahuanaco. In like
manner, the Aztecs imitated the pyramidal buildings of the Toltecs, and
the latter copied those of the Olmecs (Hulmecs); and thus, by degrees,
we arrive at historic ground in Mexico as early as the sixth century of
the Christian era. According to Siguença, the Toltecic Step Pyramid of
Cholula, was copied from the Hulmecic Step Pyramid of Teotihuacan. Thus,
through every stage of civilization, we pass into an earlier one, and as
human intelligence was not aroused simultaneously in both continents, we
find that in every nation the imaginative domain of mythology
immediately preceded the period of historical knowledge.
The early Spanish Conquistadores were filled with admiration on first
beholding the roads and aqueducts of the Peruvians; yet not only did
they neglect the preservation of those great works, but they even
wantonly destroyed them. As a natural consequence of the destruction of
the aqueducts, the soil was rendered unfertile by the want of
irrigation. Nevertheless, those works, as well as the roads, were
demolished for the sake of obtaining stones ready hewn for the erection
of new buildings; and the traces of this devastation are more observable
near the sea-coast, than on the ridges of the Andes, or in the deeply
cleft valleys with which that mountain-chain is intersected. During our
long day’s journey from the syenitic rocks of Zaulac to the valley of
San Felipe, (rich in fossil remains and situated at the foot of the icy
Paramo of Yamoca), we had no less than twenty-seven times to ford the
Rio de Guancabamba, which falls into the Amazon. We were compelled to do
this on account of the numerous sinuosities of the stream, whilst on the
brow of a steep precipice near us, we had continually within our sight
the vestiges of the rectilinear Inca road, with its Tambos. The little
mountain stream, the Rio de Guancabamba, is not more than from 120 to
150 feet broad; yet so strong is the current, that our heavily laden
mules were in continual danger of being swept away by it. The mules
carried our manuscripts, our dried plants, and all the other objects
which we had been a whole year engaged in collecting; therefore, every
time that we crossed the stream, we stood on one of the banks in a state
of anxious suspense until the long train of our beasts of burthen,
eighteen or twenty in number, were fairly out of danger.
This same Rio de Guancabamba, which in the lower part of its course has
many falls, is the channel for a curious mode of conveying
correspondence from the coast of the Pacific. For the expeditious
transmission of the few letters that are sent from Truxillo to the
province of Jaen de Bracamoros, they are despatched by a swimming
courier, or, as he is called by the people of the country, “_el correo
que nada_.” This courier, who is usually a young Indian, swims in two
days from Pomahuaca to Tomependa; first proceeding by the Rio de
Chamaya, (the name given to the lower part of the Rio de Guancabamba)
and then by the Amazon river. The few letters of which he is the bearer,
he carefully wraps in a large cotton handkerchief, which he rolls round
his head in the form of a turban. On arriving at those parts of the
rivers in which there are falls or rapids, he lands, and goes by a
circuitous route through the woods. When wearied by long-continued
swimming, he rests by throwing one arm on a plank of a light kind of
wood of the family of the Bombaceæ, called by the Peruvians _Ceiba_, or
_Palo de balsa_. Sometimes the swimming courier takes with him a friend
to bear him company. Neither troubles himself about provisions, as they
are always sure of a hospitable reception in the huts which are
surrounded by abundant fruit-trees in the beautiful Huertas of Pucara
and Cavico.
Fortunately, the river is free from crocodiles, which are first met with
in the upper course of the Amazon, below the cataract of Mayasi; for the
slothful animal prefers to live in the more tranquil waters. According
to my calculation, the Rio de Chamaya has a fall[119] of 1778 feet, in
the short distance of 52 geographical miles; that is to say, measuring
from the Ford (_Paso_) de Pucara, to the point where the Chamaya
disembogues in the river Amazon, below the village of Choros. The
Governor of the province Jaen de Bracamoros assured me, that letters
sent by the singular water post conveyance just mentioned, are seldom
either wetted or lost. After my return from Mexico, I myself received,
when in Paris, letters from Tomependa, which had been transmitted in
this manner. Many of the wild Indian tribes, who dwell on the shores of
the Upper Amazon, perform their journeys in a similar manner; swimming
sociably down the stream in parties. On one occasion, I saw the heads of
thirty or forty individuals, men, women, and children, of the tribe of
the Xibaros, as they floated down the stream on their way to Tomependa.
The _Correo que nada_ returns by land, taking the difficult route of the
Paramo del Paredon.
On approaching the hot climate of the basin of the Amazon, the aspect of
beautiful and occasionally very luxuriant vegetation delights the eye.
Not even in the Canary Islands, nor on the warm coasts of Cumana and
Caracas, had we beheld finer orange-trees than those which we met with
in the Huertas de Pucara. They consisted chiefly of the sweet
orange-tree (_Citrus aurantium_, Risso); the bitter orange-tree (_Citrus
vulgaris_, Risso) was less numerous. These trees, laden with their
golden fruit in thousands, attain there a height of between 60 and 70
feet; and their branches, instead of growing in such a way as to give
the trees rounded tops or crowns, shoot straight up like those of the
laurel. Near the ford of Cavico a very unexpected sight surprised us. We
saw a grove of small trees, about 18 or 19 feet high, the leaves of
which, instead of being green, appeared to be of a rose colour. This
proved to be a new species of Bougainvillæa, a genus first determined by
Jussieu the elder, from a Brazilian specimen in Commerson’s _Herbarium_.
But on a nearer approach we found that these trees were really without
leaves, properly so called, and that what, from a distant view, we had
mistaken for leaves, were bright rose-coloured bracts. Owing to the
purity and freshness of the colour, the effect was totally different
from that of the hue which so pleasingly clothes many of our
forest-trees in autumn. The Rhopala ferruginea, a species of the South
African family of the Proteaceæ, has found its way hither, having
descended from the cool heights of the Paramo de Yamoca into the warm
plains of the Chamaya. We likewise frequently saw here the beautifully
pinnated Porlieria hygrometrica, one of the Zygophylleæ, which, by the
closing of its leaves, indicates change of weather, generally the
approach of rain. This plant is more certain in its tokens than any of
the Mimosaceæ, and it very rarely deceived us.
At Chamaya we found rafts (_balsas_) in readiness to convey us to
Tomependa, where we wished to determine the difference of longitude
between Quito and the mouth of the Chinchipe; a point of some importance
to the geography of South America on account of an old observation of La
Condamine[120]. We slept as usual in the open air, and our resting-place
was on the sandy shore called the Playa de Guayanchi, at the confluence
of the Rio de Chamaya and the Amazon. Next morning we proceeded down the
latter river as far as the Cataract and the Narrows, or the Pongo of
Rentema. Pongo, the name given to River Narrows by the natives, is a
corruption of the word _Puncu_, which, in the Quichua language,
signifies a door or gate. In the Pongo de Rentema huge masses of rock
consisting of coarse-grained sandstone (conglomerate), rise up like
towers and form a rocky dam across the stream. I measured a base line on
the flat sandy shore, and found that the Amazon River, which, further
eastwards, spreads into such mighty width, is, at Tomependa, scarcely
1400 feet broad. In the celebrated River Narrows, called the Pongo de
Manseriche, between Santiago and San Borja, the breadth is less than 160
feet. The Pongo de Manseriche is formed by a mountain ravine, in some
parts of which the overhanging rocks, roofed by a canopy of foliage,
permit only a feeble light to penetrate, and by the force of the current
all the drift-wood, consisting of trunks of trees in countless numbers,
is broken and dashed to atoms. The rocks by which all these Pongos are
formed, have, in the course of centuries, undergone many changes. The
Pongo de Rentema, which I have mentioned above, was, a year before my
visit to it, in part broken up by a high flood; indeed the inhabitants
of the shores of the Amazon still preserve by tradition a lively
recollection of the sudden fall of the once lofty masses of rock along
the whole length of the Pongo. This fall took place in the early part of
the last century, and the debris suddenly dammed up the river and
impeded the current. The consequence was, that the inhabitants of the
village of Puyaya, situated at the lower part of the Pongo de Rentema,
were filled with alarm on beholding the dry bed of the river; but, after
the lapse of a few hours, the waters recovered their usual course. There
appears to be no reason for believing that these remarkable phenomena
are occasioned by earthquakes. The river, which has a very strong
current, seems, as it were, to be incessantly labouring to improve its
bed. Of the force of its efforts some idea may be formed from the fact
that, notwithstanding its vast breadth, it sometimes rises upwards of 26
feet above its ordinary level in the space of 20 or 30 hours.
We remained seventeen days in the hot valley of the Marañon or the
Amazon River. To proceed from thence to the coast of the Pacific it is
necessary to cross the chain of the Andes, between Micuipampa and
Caxamarca (in 6° 57′ S. lat., and 78° 34′ W. long.), at a point where,
according to my observations, it is intersected by the magnetic equator.
At a still higher elevation are situated the celebrated silver mines of
Chota. Then, after having passed the ancient Caxamarca (the scene, 316
years ago, of the most sanguinary drama in the history of the Spanish
Conquista), and also Aroma and Guangamarca, the route descends, with
some interruptions, into the Peruvian lowlands. Here, as in nearly all
parts of the Andes, as well as of the Mexican Mountains, the highest
points are picturesquely marked by tower-like masses of erupted porphyry
and trachyte, the former frequently presenting the effect of immense
columns. In some places these masses give a rugged cliff-like aspect to
the mountain ridges; and in other places they assume the form of domes
or cupolas. They have here broken through a formation, which, in South
America, is extensively developed on both sides of the equator, and
which Leopold von Buch, after profound research, has pronounced to be
cretaceous. Between Guambos and Montan, nearly 12,800 feet above the
level of the sea, we found marine fossils[121] (Ammonites about 15
inches in diameter, the large Pecten alatus, oyster-shells, Echini,
Isocardias, and Exogyra polygona). A species of Cidaris, which, in the
opinion of Leopold von Buch, does not differ from one found by
Brongniart in the old chalk at the Perte du Rhone, we collected in the
basin of the Amazon at Tomependa, and likewise at Micuipampa; that is to
say, at elevations differing the one from the other by no less than
10,550 feet. In like manner, in the Amuich chain of the Caucasian
Daghestan, the chalk of the banks of the Sulak, scarcely 530 feet above
the level of the sea, is again found on the Tchunum, at the elevation of
full 9,600 feet, whilst, on the summit of the Shadagh Mountain, 13,950
feet high, the Ostrea diluviana (Goldf.), and the same chalk, present
themselves. Abich’s admirable Caucasian observations furnish the most
decided confirmation of Leopold von Buch’s geognostic views respecting
the cretaceous Alpine development.
From the solitary farm of Montan, surrounded with flocks of Lamas, we
ascended further southward the eastern declivity of the Cordilleras,
until we reached the level height in which is situated the argentiferous
mountain Gualgayoc, the principal site of the far-famed mines of Chota.
Night was just drawing in, and an extraordinary spectacle presented
itself to our observation. The Cerro de Gualgayoc is separated by a deep
cleft-like valley (Quebrada), from the limestone mountain Cormolache.
The latter is an isolated hornstone rock, presenting, on the northern
and western sides, almost perpendicular precipices, and containing
innumerable veins of silver, which frequently intersect and run into
each other. The highest shafts are 1540 feet above the floor of the
stoll or groundwork, called the Socabon de Espinachi. The outline of the
mountain is broken by numerous tower-like points and pyramidal notches;
and hence the summit of the Cerro de Gualgayoc bears the name of Las
Puntas. This mountain presents a most decided contrast to that
smoothness of surface which miners are accustomed to regard as
characteristic of metalliferous districts. “Our mountain,” said a
wealthy mine-owner whom we visited, “looks like an enchanted castle
(_como si fuese un castillo encantado_).” The Gualgayoc bears some
resemblance to a cone of dolomite, but it is still more like the notched
ridges of the Mountain of Monserrat in Catalonia, which I have also
visited, and which has been so pleasingly described by my brother. Not
only is the silver mountain Gualgayoc perforated on every side, and to
its very summit, by many hundred large shafts, but the mass of the
siliceous rock is cleft by natural openings, through which the dark blue
sky of these elevated regions is visible to the observer standing at the
foot of the mountain. The people of the country call these openings
windows (_Las ventanillas de Gualgayoc_). On the trachytic walls of the
volcano of Pichincha similar openings were pointed out to us, and there,
likewise, they were called windows, (_Ventanillas de Pichincha_.) The
singular aspect of the Gualgayoc is not a little increased by numerous
sheds and habitations, which lie scattered like nests over the
fortress-looking mountain wherever a level spot admits of their
erection. The miners carry the ore in baskets, down steep and dangerous
footpaths, to the places where it is submitted to the process of
amalgamation.
The value of the silver obtained from the mines of Gualgayoc during the
first thirty years of their being worked, from 1771 to 1802, is supposed
to have amounted to upwards of thirty-two millions of piastres.
Notwithstanding the hardness of the quartzose rock, the Peruvians, even
before the arrival of the Spaniards, extracted rich argentiferous galena
from the Cerro de la Lin, and also from the Chupiquiyacu; of this fact
many old shafts and galleries bear evidence. The Peruvians also obtained
gold from the Curimayo, where also natural sulphur is found in the
quartz rock as well as in the Brazilian Itacolumite. We took up our
temporary abode, in the vicinity of the mines, in the little mountain
town of Micuipampa, situated at an elevation of 11,873 feet above the
sea, and where, though only 6° 43′ from the equator, water freezes
within doors, at night, during a great part of the year. This
wilderness, almost devoid of vegetation, is inhabited by 3000 or 4000
persons, who are supplied with articles of food from the warm valleys,
as they themselves can grow nothing but some kinds of cabbage and salad,
the latter exceedingly good. Here, as in all the mining towns of Peru,
_ennui_ drives the richer inhabitants, who, however, are not the best
informed class, to the dangerous diversions of cards and dice. The
consequence is, that the wealth thus quickly won is still more quickly
spent. Here one is continually reminded of the anecdote related of one
of the soldiers of Pizarro’s army, who complained that he had lost in
one night’s play, “a large piece of the sun,” meaning a plate of gold
which he had obtained at the plunder of the Temple of Cuzco. At
Micuipampa the thermometer, at eight in the morning, stood at 34°.2, and
at noon, at 47°.8 Fahrenheit. Among the thin Ichhu-grass (possibly our
Stipa eriostachya), we found a beautiful Calceolaria (_C.
Sibthorpioides_), which we should not have expected to see at such an
elevation.
Near the town of Micuipampa there is a high plain called the Llano or
the Pampa de Navar. In this plain there have been found, extending over
a surface of more than four English square miles, and immediately under
the turf, immense masses of red gold ore and wire-like threads of pure
silver. These are called by the Peruvian miners _remolinos_, _clavos_,
and _vetas manteadas_, and they are overgrown by the roots of the Alpine
grasses. Another level plain, to the west of the Purgatorio, and near
the Quebrada de Chiquera, is called the Choropampa (the Muscle-Shell
Plain), the word _churu_ signifying in the Quichua language a muscle or
cockle, particularly a small eatable kind, which the people of the
country now distinguish by their Spanish names _hostion_ or _mexillon_.
The name Choropampa refers to fossils of the cretaceous formation, which
in this plain are found in such immense numbers that at an early period
they attracted the attention of the natives. In the Choropampa there has
been found near the surface of the earth, a rich mass of pure gold, spun
round, as it were, with threads of silver. This fact proves how slight
may be the affinity between many of the ores upheaved from the interior
of the earth, through fissures and veins, and the nature of the adjacent
rock, and how little relative antiquity exists between them and that of
the formation they have broken through. The rock of the Gualgayoc, as
well as that of the Fuentestiana, is very watery, whilst in the
Purgatorio perfect dryness prevails. In the Purgatorio, notwithstanding
the height of the strata above the sea-level, I found to my
astonishment, that the temperature in the mine was 67°.4 Fahr., whilst
in the neighbouring Mina de Guadalupe the water in the mine was about
52°.2 Fahr. In the open air the thermometer indicates only 42°.1 Fahr.,
and the miners, who labour very hard, and who work almost without
clothing, say that the subterranean heat in the Purgatorio is stifling.
The narrow path from Micuipampa to the ancient Inca city Caxamarca is
difficult even for mules. The original name of the town was Cassamarca
or Kazamarca, that is to say, the City of Frost. Marca, in the
signification of a district or town, belongs to the northern dialect of
the Chinchaysuyo, or the Chinchasuyu, whilst in the common Quichua
language the word means the story of a house, and also a fortress and
place of defence. For the space of five or six miles, the road led us
through a succession of Paramos, where we were without intermission
exposed to the fury of a boisterous wind and the sharp angular hail
peculiar to the ridges of the Andes. The height of the road is for the
most part between 9600 and 10,700 feet above the sea-level. There I had
the opportunity of making a magnetic observation of general interest,
viz., for determining the point where the north inclination of the
needle passes into the south inclination, and also the point at which
the traveller has to cross the magnetic equator[122].
Having at length reached the last of these mountain wildernesses, the
Paramo de Yanaguanga, the traveller joyfully looks down into the fertile
valley of Caxamarca. It presents a charming prospect, for the valley,
through which winds a little serpentine rivulet, is an elevated plain of
an oval form, in extent from 96 to 112 square miles. The plain bears a
resemblance to that of Bogota, and like it is probably the bed of an
ancient lake; but in Caxamarca there is wanting the myth of the
miracle-working Botchia, or Idacanzas, the High Priest of Iraca, who
opened a passage for the waters through the rocks of Tequendama.
Caxamarca lies 640 feet higher than Santa Fé de Bogota, and consequently
its elevation is equal to that of the city of Quito; but being sheltered
by surrounding mountains, its climate is much more mild and agreeable.
The soil of Caxamarca is extraordinarily fertile. In every direction are
seen cultivated fields and gardens, intersected by avenues of willows,
varieties of the Datura (bearing large red, white, and yellow flowers),
Mimosas, and beautiful Quinuar trees (our Polylepsis villosa, a Rosacea
approximating to the Alchemilla and Sanguisorba). The wheat harvest in
the Pampa de Caxamarca is, on the average, from fifteen to twenty-fold;
but the prospect of abundant crops is sometimes blighted by night
frosts, caused by the radiation of heat towards the cloudless sky, in
the strata of dry and rarefied mountain air. These night frosts are not
felt within the roofed dwellings.
Small mounds, or hillocks, of porphyry (once perhaps islands in the
ancient lake) are studded over the northern part of the plain, and break
the wide expanse of smooth sandstone. From the summit of one of these
porphyry hillocks, we enjoyed a most beautiful prospect of the Cerro de
Santa Polonia. The ancient residence of Atahuallpa is on this side,
surrounded by fruit gardens, and irrigated fields of lucern (Medicago
sativa), called by the people here _Campos de alfalfa_. In the distance
are seen columns of smoke, rising from the warm baths of Pultamarca,
which still hear the name of Baños del Inca. I found the temperature of
these sulphuric springs to be 156°.2 Fahr. Atahuallpa was accustomed to
spend a portion of each year at these baths, where some slight remains
of his palace have survived the ravages of the Conquistadores. The large
deep basin or reservoir (_el tragadero_) for supplying these baths with
water, appeared to me, judging from its regular circular form, to have
been artificially cut in the sandstone rock, over one of the fissures
whence the spring flows. Tradition records that one of the Inca’s
sedan-chairs, made of gold, was sunk in this basin, and that all
endeavours to recover it have proved vain.
Of the fortress and palace of Atahuallpa, there also remain but few
vestiges in the town, which now contains some beautiful churches. Even
before the close of the sixteenth century, the thirst for gold
accelerated the work of destruction, for, with the view of discovering
hidden treasures, walls were demolished and the foundations of buildings
recklessly undermined. The Inca’s palace is situated on a hill of
porphyry, which was originally cut and hollowed out from the surface,
completely through the rock, so that the latter surrounds the main
building like a wall. Portions of the ruins have been converted to the
purposes of a town jail and a Municipal Hall (Casa del Cabildo). The
most curious parts of these ruins, which however are not more than
between 13 and 16 feet in height, are those opposite to the monastery of
San Francisco. These vestiges, like the remains of the dwelling of the
Caciques, consist of finely-hewn blocks of free-stone, two or three feet
long, laid one upon another without cement, as in the Inca-Pilca, or
fortress of the Cañar, in the high plain of Quito.
In the porphyritic rock there is a shaft which once led to subterraneous
chambers and into a gallery, (by miners called a stoll,) from which, it
is alleged, there was a communication with the other porphyritic rocks
already mentioned;—those situated at Santa Polonia. These arrangements
bear evidence of having been made as precautions against the events of
war, and for the security of flight. The burying of treasure was a
custom very generally practised among the Peruvians in former times; and
subterraneous chambers still exist beneath many private dwellings in
Caxamarca.
We were shown some steps cut in the rock, and the footbath used by the
Inca (_el lavatorio de los pies_). The operation of washing the
sovereign’s feet was performed amidst tedious court ceremonies[123].
Several lateral structures, which, according to tradition, were allotted
to the attendants of the Inca, are built some of free-stone with gable
roofs, and others of regularly shaped bricks, alternating with layers of
siliceous cement. The buildings constructed in this last-mentioned
style, to which the Peruvians give the name of _Muros y obra de tapia_,
have little arched niches or recesses. Of their antiquity I was for a
long time doubtful, though I am now convinced that my doubts were not
well-grounded.
In the principal building, the room is still shown in which the
unfortunate Atahuallpa was confined for the space of nine months, from
the date of November, 1532[124]. The notice of the traveller is still
directed to the wall, on which he made a mark to denote to what height
he would fill the room with gold, on condition of his being set free.
This height is variously described. Xerez in the _Conquista del Peru_
(which Barcia has preserved to us), Hernando Pizarro in his letters, and
other writers, all give different accounts of it. The captive monarch
said, “that gold in bars, plates, and vessels should be piled up as high
as he could reach with his hand.” The dimensions of the room, as given
by Xerez, are equivalent to 23 feet in length and 18 in breadth.
Garcilaso de la Vega, who quitted Peru in 1560, in his twentieth year,
estimates that the treasures brought from the temples of the Sun in
Cuzco, Huaylas, Huamachuco, and Pachacamac, up to the fatal 29th of
August, 1533, the day of the Inca’s death, amounted to 3,838,000 ducados
de oro[125].
In the chapel of the town jail, which, as I have mentioned above, is
erected on the ruins of the Inca Palace, a stone, stained, as it is
alleged, with “indelible spots of blood,” is viewed with horror by the
credulous. It is placed in front of the altar, and consists of an
extremely thin slab, about 13 feet in length, probably a portion of the
porphyry or trachyte of the vicinity. To make an accurate examination of
this stone, by chipping a piece off, would not be permitted. The three
or four spots, said to be blood stains, appear in reality to be nothing
but hornblende and pyroxide run together in the fundamental mass of the
rock. The Licentiate Fernando Montesinos, though he visited Peru
scarcely a hundred years after the taking of Caxamarca, gave currency to
the fabulous story that Atahuallpa was beheaded in prison, and that
traces of blood were still visible on a stone on which the execution had
taken place. There appears no reason to question the fact, since it is
borne out by the testimony of many eye-witnesses, that the Inca
willingly allowed himself to be baptized by his cruel and fanatical
persecutor, the Dominican monk, Vicente de Valverde. He received the
name of Juan de Atahuallpa, and submitted to the ceremony of baptism to
avoid being burnt alive. He was put to death by strangulation (_el
garrote_), and his execution took place publicly in the open air.
Another tradition relates that a chapel was erected above the stone on
which Atahuallpa was strangled, and that the remains of the Inca repose
beneath that stone. Supposing this to be correct, the alleged spots of
blood are not accounted for. The fact is, however, that the body was
never deposited under the stone in question. After the performance of a
mass for the dead and other solemn funeral ceremonies, at which the
brothers Pizarro were present in deep mourning(!), the body was conveyed
first to the cemetery of the Convento de San Francisco, and afterwards
to Quito, Atahuallpa’s birthplace. This removal to Quito was in
compliance with the wish expressed by the Inca prior to his death. His
personal enemy, the crafty Rumiñavi, from artful political motives,
caused the body to be interred in Quito with great solemnity. Rumiñavi
(literally the stone-eye) received this name from a defect in one of his
eyes, occasioned by a wart. (In the Quichua language _rumi_ signifies
stone, and _ñavi_ eye.)
Descendants of the Inca still dwell in Caxamarca, amidst the dreary
architectural ruins of departed splendour. These descendants are the
family of the Indian Cacique, or, as he is called in the Quichua
language, the Curaca Astorpilca. They live in great poverty, but
nevertheless contented and resigned to their hard and unmerited fate.
Their descent from Atahuallpa, through the female line, has never been a
doubtful question in Caxamarca; but traces of beard would seem to
indicate some admixture of Spanish blood. Huascar and Atahuallpa, two
sons of the great Huayna Capac (who for a child of the Sun was somewhat
disposed to free-thinking)[126], reigned in succession before the
invasion of the Spaniards. Neither of these two princes left any
acknowledged male heirs. In the plains of Quipaypan, Huascar was made
prisoner by Atahuallpa, by whose order he was shortly after secretly put
to death. Atahuallpa had two other brothers. One was the insignificant
youth Toparca, who in the autumn of 1533 Pizarro caused to be crowned as
Inca; and the other was the enterprising Manco Capac, who was likewise
crowned, but who afterwards rebelled: neither of these two princes left
any known male issue. Atahuallpa indeed left two children; one a son,
who received in Christian baptism the name of Don Francisco, and who
died young; the other a daughter, Doña Angelina, who became the mistress
of Francisco Pizarro, with whom she led a wild camp life. Doña Angelina
had a son by Pizarro, and to this grandson of the slaughtered monarch
the Conqueror was fondly attached. Besides the family of Astorpilca,
with whom I became acquainted in Caxamarca, the families of Carguaraicos
and Titu-Buscamayca were, at the time I visited Peru, regarded as
descendants of the Inca dynasty. The race of Buscamayca has since that
time become extinct.
The son of the Cacique Astorpilca, an interesting and amiable youth of
seventeen, conducted us over the ruins of the ancient palace. Though
living in the utmost poverty, his imagination was filled with images of
the subterranean splendour and the golden treasures which, he assured
us, lay hidden beneath the heaps of rubbish over which we were treading.
He told us that one of his ancestors once blindfolded the eyes of his
wife, and then, through many intricate passages cut in the rock, led her
down into the subterranean gardens of the Inca. There the lady beheld,
skilfully imitated in the purest gold, trees laden with leaves and
fruit, with birds perched on their branches. Among other things, she saw
Atahuallpa’s gold sedan-chair (_una de las andas_) which had been so
long searched for in vain, and which is alleged to have sunk in the
basin at the Baths of Pultamarca. The husband commanded his wife not to
touch any of these enchanted treasures, reminding her that the period
fixed for the restoration of the Inca empire had not yet arrived, and
that whosoever should touch any of the treasures would perish that same
night. These golden dreams and fancies of the youth were founded on
recollections and traditions transmitted from remote times. Golden
gardens, such as those alluded to (_Jardines ó huertas de oro_), have
been described by various writers who allege that they actually saw
them; viz., by Cieza de Leon, Parmento, Garcilaso, and other early
historians of the Conquista. They are said to have existed beneath the
Temple of the Sun at Cuzco, at Caxamarca, and in the lovely valley of
Yucay, which was a favourite seat of the sovereign family. In places in
which the golden Huertas were not under ground, but in the open air,
living plants were mingled with the artificial ones. Among the latter,
particular mention is always made of the high shoots of maize and the
maize-cobs (_mazorcas_) as having been most successfully imitated.
The son of Astorpilca assured me that underground, a little to the right
of the spot on which I then stood, there was a large Datura tree, or
Guanto, in full flower, exquisitely made of gold wire and plates of
gold, and that its branches overspread the Inca’s chair. The morbid
faith with which the youth asserted his belief in this fabulous story,
made a profound and melancholy impression on me. These illusions are
cherished among the people here, as affording them consolation amidst
great privation and earthly suffering. I said to the lad, “Since you and
your parents so firmly believe in the existence of these gardens, do you
not, in your poverty, sometimes feel a wish to dig for the treasures
that lie so near you?” The young Peruvian’s answer was so simple and so
expressive of the quiet resignation peculiar to the aboriginal
inhabitants of the country, that I noted it down in Spanish in my
Journal. “Such a desire (_tal antojo_),” said he, “never comes to us. My
father says that it would be sinful (_que fuese pecado_). If we had the
golden branches, with all their golden fruits, our white neighbours
would hate us and injure us. We have a little field and good wheat
(_buen trigo_).” Few of my readers will I trust be displeased that I
have recalled here the words of young Astorpilca and his golden dreams.
An idea generally spread and firmly believed among the natives is, that
it would be criminal to dig up and take possession of treasures which
may have belonged to the Incas, and that such a proceeding would bring
misfortune upon the whole Peruvian race. This idea is closely connected
with that of the restoration of the Inca dynasty, an event which is
still expected, and which in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries was
looked forward to with especial confidence. Oppressed nations always
fondly hope for the day of their emancipation, and for the
re-establishment of their old forms of government. The flight of Manco
Inca, the brother of Atahuallpa, who retreated into the forests of
Vilcapampa, on the declivity of the Eastern Cordillera; and the abode of
Sayri Tapac and Inca Tupac Amaru in those wildernesses, are events which
have left lasting recollections in the minds of the people. It is
believed that descendants of the dethroned dynasty settled still further
eastward in Guiana, between the rivers Apurimac and Beni. These notions
were strengthened by the myth of _el Dorado_ and the golden city of
Manoa, which popular credulity carried from the west and propagated
eastward. So greatly was the imagination of Sir Walter Raleigh inflamed
by these dreams, that he raised an expedition in the hope of conquering
“the imperial and golden city.” There he proposed to establish a
garrison of three or four thousand English, and to levy from “the
Emperor of Guiana, a descendant of Huayna Capac, and who holds his Court
with the same magnificence, an annual tribute of £300,000 sterling, as
the price of the promised restoration to the throne in Cuzco and
Caxamarca.” Wherever the Peruvian Quichua language prevails, traces of
the expected restoration of the Inca rule[127] exist in the minds of
many of the natives possessing any knowledge of their national history.
We remained five days in the capital of the Inca Atahuallpa, which, at
that time, numbered only 7000 or 8000 inhabitants. Our departure was
delayed by the necessity of obtaining a great number of mules to convey
our collections, and of selecting careful guides to conduct us across
the chain of the Andes to the entrance of the long but narrow Peruvian
sandy desert called the _Desierto de Sechura_. Our route across the
Cordilleras lay from north-east to south-west. Having passed over the
old bed of the lake, on the pleasant level height of Caxamarca, we
ascended an eminence at an elevation of scarcely 10,230 feet: and we
were then surprised by the sight of two strangely-shaped porphyritic
mounds called the Aroma and the Cunturcaga. The latter is a favourite
haunt of the gigantic vulture, which we call the Condor; _kacca_, in the
Quichua language, signifying _the rocks_. The porphyritic heights just
mentioned are in the form of columns having five, six, or seven sides,
from 37 to 42 feet in height, and some of them are crooked and bent as
if in joints. Those which crown the Cerro Aroma are remarkably
picturesque. The peculiar distribution of the columns, which are ranged
in rows one above another, and frequently converging, presents the
appearance of a two-storied building, roofed by a dome of massive rock,
which is not columnar. These erupted masses of porphyry and trachyte
are, as I have on a former occasion remarked, characteristic of the
ridges of the Andes, to which they impart a physiognomy totally
different from that of the Swiss Alps, the Pyrenees, and the Siberian
Altai.
From Cunturcaga and Aroma we descended, by a zigzag route, a steep
declivity of 6400 feet into the cleft-like valley of the Magdalena, the
lowest part of which is 4260 feet above the sea level. Here there is an
Indian village consisting of a few miserable huts, surrounded by the
same species of cotton-trees (_Bombax discolor_), which we first
observed on the banks of the Amazon. The scanty vegetation of the valley
of Magdalena somewhat resembles that of the province of Jaen de
Bracamoros, but we missed, with regret, the red groves of Bougainvillæa.
Magdalena is one of the deepest valleys I have seen in the chain of the
Andes. It is a decided cleft, running transversely from east to west,
and bounded on each side by the Altos of Aroma and Guangamarca. Here
recommences the same quartz formation which was so long enigmatical to
me. We had previously observed it in the Paramo de Yanaguanga, between
Micuipampa and Caxamarca, at an elevation of 11,722 feet, and on the
western declivity of the Cordillera it attains the thickness of many
thousand feet. Since Leopold von Buch has proved that the cretaceous
formation is widely extended, even in the highest chains of the Andes,
and on both sides of the isthmus of Panama, it may be concluded that the
quartz formation, of which I have just made mention (perhaps transformed
in its texture by the action of volcanic power), belongs to the free
sandstone intervening between the inner chalk and the gault and
greensand. From the genial valley of the Magdalena we again proceeded
westward, and, for the space of two hours and a half, we ascended a
steep wall of rock 5116 feet high, which rises opposite to the
porphyritic groups of the Alto de Aroma. In this ascent we felt the
change of temperature the more sensibly, as the rocky acclivity was
frequently overhung with cold mist.
After having travelled for eighteen months without intermission, within
the restricted boundaries of the interior of a mountainous country, we
felt an ardent desire to enjoy a view of the open sea, a desire which
was heightened by repeated disappointments. Looking from the summit of
the volcano of Pichincha, over the thick forests of the Provincia de las
Esmeraldas, no sea horizon is distinctly discernible owing to the great
distance and the height of the point of view. It is like looking down
from a balloon into empty space; the fancy divines objects which the eye
cannot distinguish. Afterwards, when, between Loxa and Guancabamba, we
arrived at the Paramo de Guamani (where there are many ruins of
buildings of the times of the Incas), our mule-drivers confidently
assured us that, beyond the plain, on the other side of the low
districts of Piura and Lambajeque, we should have a view of the sea. But
a thick mist overhung the plain and obscured the distant coast. We
beheld only variously-shaped masses of rock, now rising like islands
above the waving sea of mist, and now vanishing. It was a view similar
to that which we had from the Peak of Teneriffe. We experienced a
similar disappointment whilst proceeding through the Andes Pass of
Guangamarca, which I am now describing. Whilst we toiled along the
ridges of the mighty mountain, with expectation on the stretch, our
guides, who were not very well acquainted with the way, repeatedly
assured us that, after proceeding another mile, our hopes would be
fulfilled. The stratum of mist, in which we were enveloped, seemed
sometimes to disperse for a moment, but whenever that happened, our view
was bounded by intervening heights.
The desire which we feel to behold certain objects is not excited solely
by their grandeur, their beauty, or their importance. In each individual
this desire is interwoven with pleasing impressions of youth, with early
predilections for particular pursuits, with the inclination for
travelling, and the love of an active life. In proportion as the
fulfilment of a wish may have appeared improbable, its realization
affords the greater pleasure. The traveller enjoys, in anticipation, the
happy moment when he shall first behold the constellation of the Cross,
and the Magellanic clouds circling over the South Pole; when he shall
come in sight of the snow of the Chimborazo, and of the column of smoke
ascending from the volcano of Quito; when, for the first time, he shall
gaze on a grove of tree-ferns, or on the wide expanse of the Pacific
Ocean. The days on which such wishes are fulfilled mark epochs in life,
and create indelible impressions; exciting feelings which require not to
be accounted for by any process of reasoning. The longing wish I felt to
behold the Pacific from the lofty ridges of the Andes was mingled with
recollections of the interest with which, as a boy, I had dwelt on the
narrative of the adventurous expedition of Vasco Nunez de Balboa[128].
That happy man, whose track Pizarro followed, was the first to behold,
from the heights of Quarequa, on the isthmus of Panama, the eastern part
of the great “South Sea.” The reedy shores of the Caspian, viewed from
the point whence I first beheld them, viz., from the Delta formed by the
mouths of the Volga, cannot certainly be called picturesque, yet the
delight I felt on first beholding them, was enhanced by the recollection
that, in my very earliest childhood, I had been taught to observe, on
the map, the form of the Asiatic inland sea. The impressions aroused
within us in early childhood, or excited by the accidental circumstances
of life[129], frequently, in after years, take a graver direction, and
become stimulants to scientific labours and great enterprises.
After passing over many undulations of ground, on the rugged mountain
ridges, we at length reached the highest point of the Alto de
Guangamarca. The sky, which had so long been obscured, now suddenly
brightened. A sharp south-west breeze dispersed the veil of mist; and
the dark blue canopy of heaven was seen between the narrow lines of the
highest feathery clouds. The whole western declivity of the Cordillera
(adjacent to Chorillos and Cascas), covered with huge blocks of quartz
13 or 15 feet long; and the plains of Chala and Molinos, as far as the
sea coast near Truxillo, lay extended before our eyes, with a wonderful
effect of apparent proximity. We now, for the first time, commanded a
view of the Pacific. We saw it distinctly; reflecting along the line of
the coast an immense mass of light, and rising in immeasurable expanse
until bounded by the clearly-defined horizon. The delight which my
companions, Bonpland and Carlos Montufar, shared with me in viewing this
prospect, caused us to forget to open the barometer on the Alto de
Guangamarca. According to a calculation which we made at a place
somewhat lower down (an isolated farm called the Hato de Guangamarca),
the point at which we first gained a view of the ocean, must have been
at no greater an elevation than between 9380 and 9600 feet.
The view of the Pacific was solemnly impressive to one, who, like
myself, was greatly indebted for the formation of his mind, and the
direction given to his tastes and aspirations, to one of the companions
of Captain Cook. I made known the general outline of my travelling
schemes to John Forster, when I had the advantage of visiting England
under his guidance, now more than half a century ago. Forster’s charming
pictures of Otaheite had awakened throughout Northern Europe a deep
interest (mingled with a sort of romantic longing), in favour of the
islands of the Pacific Ocean. At that period, when but few Europeans had
been fortunate enough to visit those islands, I cherished the hope of
seeing them, at least in part; for the object of my visit to Lima was
twofold: first, to observe the transit of Mercury over the solar disc,
and secondly, to fulfil a promise I had made to Captain Baudin, on my
departure from Paris. This promise was to join him in the
circumnavigatory voyage which he was to undertake as soon as the French
Republic could furnish the necessary funds.
American papers circulated in the Antilles announced that the two French
corvettes, _Le Géographe_ and _Le Naturaliste_, were to sail round Cape
Horn, and to touch at Callao de Lima. This information, which I received
when in the Havannah, after having completed my Orinoco journey, caused
me to relinquish my original plan of proceeding through Mexico to the
Philippines. I lost no time in engaging a ship to convey me from Cuba to
Carthagena de Indias. But Captain Baudin’s expedition took quite a
different course from that which had been expected and announced.
Instead of proceeding by the way of Cape Horn, as had been intended at
the time when it was agreed that Bonpland and I should join it, the
expedition sailed round the Cape of Good Hope. One of the objects of my
visit to Peru, and of my last journey across the chain of the Andes, was
thus thwarted; but I had the singular good fortune, at a very
unfavourable season of the year, in the misty regions of Lower Peru, to
enjoy a clear bright day. In Callao I observed the passage of Mercury
over the sun’s disc, an observation of some importance in aiding the
accurate determination of the longitude of Lima[130], and of the
south-western part of the new continent. Thus, amidst the serious
troubles and disappointments of life, there may often be found a grain
of consolation.
ILLUSTRATIONS AND ADDITIONS.
Footnote 111:
p. 390—“_On the Ridge of the Andes or Antis._”
The Inca Garcilaso, who was well acquainted with the native language
of his country, and who loved to trace etymologies, invariably calls
the chain of the Andes, “las Montañas de los Antis.” He states
positively that the great mountain-chain, eastward of Cuzco, derives
its name from the race of the Antis and from the province Anti, which
was situated to the east of the capital of the Incas. The quaternary
divisions of the Peruvian empire, according to the four cardinal
points, reckoning from Cuzco, did not derive their names from the very
circumstantial words (having reference to the sun) which in the
Quichua language signify east, west, north, and south (intip
llucsinanpata, intip yaucunanpata, intip chaututa chayananpata, intip
chaupunchau chayananpata). Those divisions were named from provinces
and races of people (Provincias llamadas Anti, Cunti, Chincha y Colla)
situated to the east, west, north, and south, with reference to the
city of Cuzco, which was the centre of the empire. The four divisions
of the Inca theocracy were accordingly named Antisuyu, Cuntisuyu,
Chinchasuyu, and Collasuyu; the word _Suyu_ signifying _strip_ or
_part_. Notwithstanding the great distance between them, Quito
belonged to Chinchasuyu; and in proportion as the Incas, by their
religious wars, extended their faith, their language, and their
despotic government, these Suyus acquired greater dimensions and
became more unequal in magnitude. With the names of the provinces was
thus associated an indication of their position; and “to name those
provinces,” observes Garcilaso, “was the same as to say to the east or
to the west.” (Nombrar aquellos Partidos era lo mismo que decir al
Oriente, ó al Poniente.) The snow-chain of the Andes was regarded as
an eastern chain. “La Provincia Anti da nombra á las Montañas de los
Antis. Llamáron à la parte del Oriente Antisuyu, por la qual tambien
llaman Anti á toda aquella gran Cordillera de Sierra Nevada que pasa
al Oriente del Peru, por dar á entender, que está al Oriente.”
(_Commentarios Reales_, p. i. pp. 47, 122.)[RR] Later writers have
supposed the name of the Andes chain to be derived from the word Anta,
which, in the Quichua language, signifies copper. That metal was
indeed of the highest importance to a people who for their edged-tools
or cutting instruments, employed not iron, but a sort of copper mixed
with tin; but still the name of copper mountains would scarcely have
been extended over so vast a chain. Professor Buschmann has justly
observed, that the final “_a_” is retained in the word _anta_ when it
forms part of a compound; and Garcilaso expressly adduces as an
example _anta_, copper, and _antamarca_, province of copper. Moreover
in the ancient language of the Inca empire (the Quichua), words and
their compounds are so simple in formation that the conversion of
“_a_” into “_i_” out of the question; so that _Anta_, copper, and
_Anti_ or _Ante_ (the country or an inhabitant of the Andes or the
mountain-chain itself) must be regarded as words totally distinct from
each other. In dictionaries of the Quichua language, with explanations
in Spanish, the word _Anti_ or _Ante_ has the following
interpretations: _la tierra de los Andes_;—_el Indio, hombre de los
Andes_;—_la Sierra de los Andes_. The original signification or
derivation of the word is buried in the darkness of past ages. Besides
Antisuyu, some other compounds of which Anti or Ante forms a part,
are, Anteruna (the native inhabitant of the Andes), Anteunccuy or
Antionccoy (the sickness of the Andes; _mal de los Andes pestifero_.)
Footnote 112:
p. 390—“_The Countess de Chinchon_.”
This lady was the wife of the Viceroy Don Geronimo Fernandez de
Cabrera, Bobadilla y Mendoza, Conde de Chinchon, who governed Peru
from 1629 to 1639. The cure of the Vice-Queen took place in the year
1638. A tradition which is current in Spain, but which I have
frequently heard contradicted in Loxa, names Juan Lopez de Cañizares,
Corregidor of the Cabildo de Loxa, as the person by whom the Quina
(Cinchona) bark was first brought to Lima, and universally recommended
as a medicine. In Loxa, I have heard it affirmed that the salutary
properties of the tree were long previously, though not generally,
known in the mountainous regions. Immediately after my return to
Europe, I expressed doubts whether the discovery had really been made
by the natives in the vicinity of Loxa, for the Indians in the
neighbouring valleys, where intermittent fevers are very prevalent,
have an aversion to the Quina bark.[RS] The story which sets forth
that the natives learned the virtues of the Cinchona from the lions,
“who cure themselves of intermittent fever by gnawing the bark of the
Quina tree,”[RT] appears to be merely a monkish fiction, and wholly of
European origin. No such disease as the lion’s fever is known in the
New Continent; for the so-called great American lion (_Felis
concolor_) and the small mountain lion (the _Puma_, whose footmarks I
have seen on the snow) are never tamed, consequently never become the
subjects of observation. Nor are the various species of the feline
race, in either continent, accustomed to gnaw the bark of trees. The
name “Countess’s Powder” (_Pulvis Comitissæ_) originated in the
circumstance of the bark having been dealt out as a medicine by the
Countess de Chinchon. But this name was subsequently metamorphosed
into “Cardinal’s” or “Jesuit’s” Powder, because Cardinal de Lugo,
Procurator-General of the Order of the Jesuits, made known the
medicine, whilst he was on a journey through France, and recommended
it the more urgently to Cardinal Mazarin, as the brethren of the Order
were beginning to carry on a profitable trade in the South American
Quina bark, which they contrived to obtain through their missionaries.
It is scarcely necessary to mention that Protestant physicians
suffered themselves sometimes to be influenced by religious
intolerance and hatred of the Jesuits, in the long controversy that
was maintained, respecting the good or evil effects of the fever bark.
Footnote 113:
p. 393—“_Aposentos de Mulalo_.”
The Aposentos are dwellings or inns. They are called in the Quichua
language _Tampu_, whence the Spanish term _Tambo_ (an inn). On the
subject of these Aposentos see Cieça’s _Chronica del Peru_ (cap. 41
ed. de 1544, p. 108), and my _Vues des Cordillères_ (Pl. xxiv).
Footnote 114:
p. 394—“_The fortress of the Cañar_.”
This fortress is situated near Turche, and at an elevation of about
10,640 feet.[RU] Not far distant from the Fortaleza del Cañar is
situated the celebrated ravine of the sun, called the Inti-Guaycu (in
the Quichua language _huaycco_). In this ravine there are some rocks
on which the natives imagine they see the image of the sun, and a
bench called the Inga-Chungana (Incachuncana), the Inca’s play. I made
drawings of both. (_Vues des Cord._, pl. xviii. et xix.)
Footnote 115:
p. 394—“_Causeways covered with cemented gravel_.”
See Velasco’s _Historia de Quito_, 1844, (t. i. p. 126–128), and
Prescott’s _History of the Conquest of Peru_, (vol. i. p. 157.)
Footnote 116:
p. 395—“_Flights of Steps_.”
See Pedro Sancho in Ramusio, vol. iii. fol. 404, and the Extracts from
Manuscript Letters of Hernando Pizarro, of which Mr. Prescott, the
great historical writer, now at Boston, has so advantageously availed
himself (vol. i. p. 444). “El camino de las sierras es cosa de ver,
porque en verdad en tierra tan fragosa en la cristiandad no se han
visto tan hermosos caminos, toda la mayor parte de calzada.”[RV]
Footnote 117:
p. 396—“_Greeks, Romans, &c., present examples of these contrasts_.”
“The Greeks,” says Strabo, (lib. v. p. 235, Casaub,) “in building
their cities sought to produce a happy result by aiming at the union
of beauty and solidity; but, on the other hand, the Romans directed
particular attention to objects which the Greeks neglected; paving the
streets with stone, building aqueducts to provide a plentiful supply
of water, and constructing drainage for carrying all the uncleanliness
of the city into the Tiber. They likewise paved all the roads in the
country, so that the merchandize brought by trading vessels might be
conveniently transported from place to place.”
Footnote 118:
p. 397—“_Nemterequeteba, the messenger of God_.”
Civilization in Mexico (the Aztec country of Anahuac), and in that
country which, in the Peruvian theocracy, was called the Empire of the
Sun, has so rivetted the attention of Europe, that a third point of
dawning civilization, the mountainous regions of New Granada, was long
totally lost sight of. I have already treated this subject in some
detail.[RW] The government of the Muyscas of New Granada bore some
resemblance to the constitution of Japan: the temporal ruler
corresponded with the Cubo or Seogun at Jeddo, and the spiritual ruler
was like the sacred Daïri at Meaco. The table-land of Bogota was
called by the natives of the country Bacata, _i. e._, the utmost limit
of the cultivated plains considered with reference to the mountain
wall. When Gonzalo Ximenez de Quesada advanced thither he found the
country ruled by three powers, whose relative subordination one to
another is not now clearly understood. The spiritual chief was the
electoral high priest of Iraca or Sogamoso (Sugamuxi, the place at
which Nemterequeteba is said to have disappeared), the temporal
princes were the Zake (Zaque of Hunsa or Tunja), and the Zipa of
Funza. The last-named prince seems to have been, in the feudal
constitution, originally subordinate to the Zake.
The Muyscas had a regular system of computing time, with intercalation
for the amendment of the lunar year. For money they made use of small
circular gold plates, cast, and all equal in diameter, (a circumstance
worthy of remark, as traces of coinage even among the ancient and
highly civilized Egyptians have hitherto been sought in vain). Their
temples of the Sun were built with stone columns, some vestiges of
which have recently been discovered in Leiva.[RX] The race of the
Muyscas should properly be distinguished by the denomination Chibchas;
for Muysca, in the Chibcha language, merely signifies _men_ or
_people_. The origin and the elements of civilization, introduced
among the Muyscas, were attributed to two mythical beings, Bochica and
Nemterequeteba, who are frequently confounded one with another.
Bochica was the most mythical of the two; having been in some degree
regarded as divine and even equal to the Sun. His fair companion Chia
or Huythaca occasioned, through her magical art, the submersion of the
beautiful valley of Bogota, and for that reason she was banished from
the earth by Bochica, and made to revolve round it as the moon.
Bochica struck the rocks of Tequendama, and thereby opened a passage
through which the waters flowed off in the neighbourhood of the
Giants’ Field (Campo de Gigantes), where, at the elevation of 8792
feet above the level of the sea, the bones of elephant-like Mastodons
have been discovered. It is stated by Captain Cochrane,[RY] and by Mr.
John Ranking,[RZ] that animals like the Mastodon still live in the
Andes, and that they cast their teeth. Nemterequeteba, surnamed
Chinzapogua, (_el enviado de Dios_, the envoy of God,) was regarded as
a human being. He is represented as a bearded man, who came from the
East, from Pasca, and who disappeared at Sogamoso. The foundation of
the sanctuary of Iraca is sometimes ascribed to Nemterequeteba and
sometimes to Bochica. The latter, it would appear, also bore the name
of Nemterequeteba, and, therefore, that the one should have been
confounded with the other, on such unhistoric ground, is a
circumstance easily accounted for.
My old friend Colonel Acosta, in his admirable work entitled
_Compendio de la Historia de la Nueva Granada_, endeavours to show,
through the evidence of the Quichua language, that New Granada is the
native land of the potato plant. In the _Compendio_ (p. 185), he
observes, “that as the potato (_Solanum tuberosum_) is known in Usmè
by the indigenous name _Yomi_, and not by the Peruvian name, and as it
was found by Quesada, cultivated in the province of Velez in 1537, a
period when its introduction from Chile, Peru, and Quito must have
been improbable, the plant may be regarded as indigenous to New
Granada.” It must, however, be borne in mind that the Peruvians had
invaded Quito, and made themselves completely masters of it before
1525, in which year the death of the Inca Huayna Capac occurred.
Indeed, the southern provinces of Quito fell under the dominion of
Tupac Inca Yupanqui at the close of the fifteenth century.[SA] The
history of the first introduction of the potato into Europe is,
unfortunately, involved in much obscurity, but the merit of the
introduction is still very generally supposed to be due to Sir John
Hawkins, who is said to have brought the plant from Santa Fé in the
year 1563 or 1565. But a fact, which appears to be better
authenticated, is, that the first potatoes grown in Europe were those
planted by Sir Walter Raleigh on his estate at Youghal in Ireland,
from whence they were conveyed to Lancashire. The Banana-tree
(_Musa_), which, since the arrival of the Spaniards, has been
cultivated in all the warmer parts of New Granada, is believed, by
Colonel Acosta (p. 205), to have been known only in Choco before the
Conquista. The name Cundinamarca, which by affected erudition was
applied to the young republic of New Granada in the year 1811, a name
suggestive of golden dreams (sueños dorados), would properly be
Cundirumarca, not Cunturmarca.[SB] Luis Daza, who accompanied the
small invading army commanded by the Conquistador Sebastian de
Belalcazar, who advanced from the south, mentions having heard of a
distant country, rich in gold, and inhabited by the race of the
Chicas. This country, Daza states, was called Cundirumarea, and its
prince solicited auxiliary troops from Atahuallpa in Caxamarca. The
Chichas have been confounded with the Chibchas or Muyscas of New
Granada; and by a similar mistake the name of the unknown more
southerly region has been transferred to this country.
Footnote 119:
p. 400—“_Fall of the Rio de Chamaya_.”
See my _Recueil des Observ. Astron._, vol. i. p. 304; Nivellement
Barométrique, No. 236–242. I made a drawing of the swimming courier,
representing him in the act of winding round his head the handkerchief
containing the letters. See _Vues des Cordillères_, pi. xxxi.
Footnote 120:
p. 401—“_A point of some importance to the geography of South America,
on account of an old observation of La Condamine_.”
My object was to connect chronometrically, Tomependa, (the
starting-point of La Condamine’s journey) and other places on the
Amazon river, geographically determined by him, with the town of
Quito. La Condamine was in Tomependa in June, 1743; consequently, 59
years before I visited that place, which I found, after astronomical
observations made during three consecutive nights, to be situated in
south lat. 5° 31′ 28″, and west long. 78° 34′ 55″). By my
observations, and a laborious recalculation of all those previously
made, Oltmanns has shewn that until the time of my return to France
the longitude of Quito had been erroneously determined, and that the
error made a difference of full 50½ arc-minutes.[SC] Jupiter’s
satellites, lunar distances, and occultations afford a satisfactory
accordance, and all the elements of the calculation are before the
public. The too easterly longitude which had been determined for Quito
was, by La Condamine, carried to Cuenca and the Amazon river. “Je
fis,” says La Condamine, “mon premier essai de navigation sur un
radeau (_balsa_) en descendant la rivière de Chinchipe jusqu’à
Tomependa. Il fallut me contenter d’en déterminer la latitude et de
conclure la longitude par les routes. J’y fis mon testament politique
en rédigeant l’extrait de mes observations les plus importantes.”[SD]
Footnote 121:
p. 403—“_At the elevation of nearly 12,800 feet above the sea, we
found marine fossils_.”
See my _Essai géognostique sur le Gisement des Roches_, 1823, p. 236;
and for the first zoological determination of the fossils contained in
the cretaceous formation of the Andes chain, see Leopold de Buch,
_Pétrifications recueillies en Amérique_ par Alex. de Humboldt et
Charles Degenhardt, 1839 (in fol.), pp. 2, 3, 5, 7, 9, 11, 18, 22.
Pentland found fossil shells of the Silurian formation in Bolivia, and
on the Nevado of Antakana at the elevation of 17,480 feet. (See Mary
Somerville’s _Physical Geography_, 1849, vol. i. p. 185.)
Footnote 122:
p. 407—“_The point at which the Andes-chain is intersected by the
magnetic equator_.”
See my _Rélation Hist. du Voyage aux Régions Equinoxiales_, t. iii. p.
622; and _Cosmos_, vol. i. pp. 191, 432; where, through errors of the
press, the longitude is in one place marked 48° 40′, and in another
80° 40′, whereas it ought to be 80° 54′.
Footnote 123:
p. 409—“_Tedious court ceremonies_.”
Conformably with an ancient ceremonial, Atahuallpa spat, not on the
ground, but into the hand of a distinguished lady of the Court circle.
“This was done,” observes Garcilaso, “by reason of his majesty.” “El
Inca nunca escupia en el suelo, sino en la mano de una Señora mui
principal, por Magestad.” (Garcilaso, _Comment. Reales_, p. ii. p.
46.)
Footnote 124:
p. 410—“_Captivity of Atahuallpa_.”
The captive Inca was, at his own desire, a short time before he was
put to death, conducted into the open air, for the purpose of seeing a
large comet, described to have been of a greenish black hue, and
nearly as thick as a man’s body; (“_una cometa verdinegra, poco menos
gruesa que el cuerpo de un hombre_,” Garcilaso, p. ii. p. 44). This
comet, which Atahuallpa saw shortly before his death, (therefore, in
July or August, 1533), he supposed to be the same comet of evil omen,
which had appeared at the death of his father Huayna Capac, and was
certainly identical with that observed by Appian.[SE] The comet was
seen by Appian, on the 21st of July, standing high in the north, near
the constellation of Perseus; and it appeared like a sword held by
Perseus, in his right hand.[SF] The year in which the Inca Huayna
Capac died, is considered by Robertson not to be satisfactorily
determined; but the investigations of Balboa and Velasco shew, that
the event must have occurred about the end of 1525. The statements of
Hevelius (_Cométographie_, p. 844), and of Pingré (vol. i. p. 485),
obtain additional confirmation from the testimony of Garcilaso. (p. i.
p. 321,) and the traditions preserved among the Amautas (“que son los
filosofos de aquella republica”). I may here add the remark, that
Oviedo is certainly incorrect in stating in the yet unpublished
continuation of his “_Historia de las Indias_,” that the name of the
Inca was not Atahuallpa, but Atabaliva. See Prescott’s _Conquest of
Peru_, vol. i. p. 498.
Footnote 125:
p. 410—“_Ducados de Oro_,” (3,838,000 _golden ducats_.)
The sum mentioned in the text is that stated by Garcilaso de la
Vega.[SG] On this subject, however, Padre Blas Valera and Gomera give
different accounts.[SH] Moreover, it is difficult to ascertain the
precise value of the Ducado Castellano or Peso de Oro.[SI] The
intelligent historian, Prescott, has had the opportunity of consulting
a manuscript, bearing the promising title of “_Acta de Reparticion del
Rescate de Atahuallpa_,” (Act of assessment for the ransom of
Atahuallpa). The Peruvian booty shared by the brothers Pizarro and by
Almagro, appears to be too highly estimated by Prescott, who says it
amounted to 3,500,000_l._ sterling, but the ransom money, the
treasures of the different temples of the Sun, and of the Huertas de
Oro, were all included in that amount.[SJ]
Footnote 126:
p. 412—“_The great Huayna Capac, who, for a Child of the Sun, was
somewhat disposed to free-thinking_.”
The nightly disappearance of the sun excited, in the mind of the Inca,
many philosophic doubts respecting the government of the world by that
luminary. Among the Inca’s remarks on this subject, as recorded by
Padre Bias Valera, are the following:—“Many maintain that the sun
lives and is the creator and maker of all things (_el hacedor de todas
las cosas_); but whosoever desires to do a thing completely must
continue at his task without intermission. Now many things are done
when the sun is absent, therefore, he cannot be the creator of all. It
may also be doubted whether the sun be really living, for, though
always moving round in a circle, he is never weary (_no se cansa_). If
the sun were a living thing he would, like ourselves, become weary;
and if he were free, he would, doubtless, sometimes move into parts of
the heavens in which we never see him. The sun is like an ox bound by
a rope, being obliged always to move in the same circle (_como una Res
atada que siempre hace un mismo cerco_), or like an arrow which can
only go where it is sent, and not where it may itself wish to go.”
(Garcilaso, _Comment. Reales_, p. i. lib. viii. cap. 8, p. 276.) The
Inca’s simple comparison of the circling movement of a heavenly body
to that of an ox fastened by a rope is very curious, owing to a
circumstance which may be explained here. Huayna Capac died at Quito
in 1525 (seven years prior to the invasion of the Spaniards), and his
empire was divided between Huascar and Atahuallpa. Now, in the native
language of Peru, the name Huascar signifies rope, and Atahuallpa
means a cock or a fowl. Instead of _res_ Huayna Capac probably used
the word signifying, in his native language, _animal_ generally; but,
even in Spanish, the word _res_ is not applied exclusively to oxen,
but is employed to denote cattle of all kinds. How far the Padre, with
the view of weaning the natives from the dynastic service of the Inca,
may have mingled passages from his own sermons with the heresies of
the Inca, we need not here inquire. That it was deemed very important
to keep these doubts from the knowledge of the lower classes of the
people is evident, from the very conservative policy and the state
maxims of the Inca Roca, the conqueror of the province of Charcas.
This Inca founded schools exclusively for the higher classes, and,
under heavy penalties, prohibited instruction being given to the
common people, lest it should render them presumptuous, and cause them
to disturb the State. (No es licito que enseñen á los hijos de los
Plebeios las Ciencias, porque la gente baja no se eleve y ensobervezca
y menoscabe la Republica; Garcilaso, p. i. p. 276.) Thus the theocracy
of the Incas may be said to have resembled the Slave States in the
free land of the North American Union.
Footnote 127:
p. 415—“_Expected restoration of the Inca rule_.”
I have treated this subject at length in another work.[SK] Sir Walter
Raleigh had heard of an old prophecy current in Peru, which foretold
“that from Inglaterra those Ingas shoulde be againe in time to come
restored and deliuered from the seruitude of the said conquerors. I am
resolued that if there were but a small army afoote in Guiana marching
towards Manoa, the chiefe citie of Inga, he would yield her Majesty by
composition, so many hundred thousand pounds yearely, as should both
defend all enemies abroad and defray all expenses at home, and that he
woulde besides pay a garrison of 3000 or 4000 soldiers very royally to
defend him against other nations. The Inca will be brought to tribute
with great gladnes.”[SL] A restoration project, which promised to be
highly satisfactory to both parties, but, unfortunately for the
success of the scheme, the dynasty which was to be restored and which
was to pay for the restoration was wanting.
Footnote 128:
p. 418—“_The adventurous expedition of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa_.”
I have, in another work, mentioned the fact that Columbus, long before
his death, full ten years prior to Balboa’s expedition, was aware of
the existence of the South Sea, and its near proximity to the eastern
coast of Veragua.[SM] Columbus was led to the knowledge of this fact,
not by theoretical speculations on the configuration of Eastern Asia,
but by positive and local information obtained from the inhabitants
themselves, information which he collected on his fourth voyage (11th
May, 1502, to the 7th November, 1504). This fourth voyage led the
Admiral from the coast of Honduras to the Puerto de Mosquitos, and
even as far as the western extremity of the Isthmus of Panama. The
natives reported (and Columbus commented on their reports in the
_Carta rarissima_ of the 7th of July, 1503), “that not far from the
Rio de Belen, the other sea (the South Sea), turns (boxa) to the
mouths of the Ganges; so that the countries of the Aurea (_i.e._, the
Chersonesus Aurea of Ptolemy) are situated, in relation to the eastern
shores of Veragua, as Tortosa (at the mouth of the Ebro) is in
relation to Fuentarabia (on the Bidassoa) in Biscay, or as Venice in
respect to Pisa.” But, although Balboa first saw the South Sea from
the heights of the Sierra de Quarequa, on the 25th of September,[SN]
it was several days later before Alonzo Martin de Don Benito, who had
discovered a passage from the mountains of Quarequa to the gulf of San
Miguel, embarked on the South Sea in a canoe.[SO]
The recent acquisition of the western coast of the New Continent by
the United States of North America, and the fame of the golden
treasures of New (now called Upper) California, have rendered the
question of forming a direct communication between the shores of the
Atlantic and the western regions, by the isthmus of Panama, more
urgent than ever. I, therefore, consider it my duty here once more to
direct attention to the fact, that the shortest route to the shores of
the Pacific, as pointed out by the natives to Alonzo Martin de Don
Benito, is in the eastern part of the Isthmus, and led to the Golfo de
San Miguel. We know that Columbus[SP] sought for a narrow pass
(estrecho de tierra firme); and in the official documents extant, of
the dates of 1505, 1507, and especially in that of 1514, mention is
made of the sought-for opening (abertura), and of the pass (passo),
which, in this district, should lead directly to the “Indian Land of
Spices.” A channel of communication between the Atlantic and the
Pacific, is a subject which has more or less occupied my attention for
the space of forty years; and in my published works, as well as in the
several memoirs which, with honourable confidence, the Free States of
Spanish America have requested me to write, I have constantly
recommended a hypsometrical survey of the Isthmus throughout its whole
length, but more especially at two points, viz., where at Darien and
what was formerly the deserted province of Biruquete, it joins the
South American Continent, and where, between Atrato and the Bay of
Cupica, on the shore of the Pacific, the mountain chain of the Isthmus
almost entirely disappears.[SQ]
In the year 1828 and 1829, General Bolivar, at my request, caused the
Isthmus between Panama and the mouth of the Rio Chagres to be
accurately levelled by Lloyd and Falmarc.[SR] Since that time, other
measurements have been executed by intelligent and experienced French
engineers, and plans have been drawn out for canals and railways with
locks and tunnels. But these measurements have invariably been made in
the meridian direction between Porto-bello and Panama, or westward
from thence, towards Chagres and Cruces. The most important points of
the eastern and south-eastern parts of the Isthmus, on both shores,
have in the meantime been overlooked. Until those parts shall be
described geographically, according to accurate (but easily obtained)
chronometrical determinations of latitude and longitude; and
hypsometrically, with reference to their superficial conformation, by
barometrical measurements and elevations, I see no reason to alter the
views I have always entertained on this subject. Accordingly, at the
present time (1849), I here repeat the opinion I have often before
expressed; viz., _that the assertion is groundless and altogether
premature_, that the Isthmus of Panama is unsuited to the formation of
an Oceanic Canal—one with fewer sluices than the Caledonian
Canal—capable of affording an unimpeded passage, at all seasons of the
year, to vessels of that class which sail between New York and
Liverpool, and between Chili and California.
According to examinations, the results of which the Directors of the
Deposito Hidrografico of Madrid have caused to be inserted in all
their maps since 1809, it appears that on the Antillean shore of the
Isthmus, the creek called the Ensenada de Mandinga, stretches so far
to the south that its distance from the Pacific shore, eastward of
Panama, appears to be only between 4 and 5 German geographical miles
(15 to an equatorial degree) or 16 to 20 English geographical miles.
On the Pacific coast also, the deep Golfo de San Miguel, into which
falls the Rio Tuyra, with its tributary the river Chuchunque
(Chucunaque), runs far into the Isthmus. The river Chuchunque too, in
the upper part of its course, runs within 16 geographical miles of the
Antillean shore of the Isthmus, westward of Cape Tiburon. For upwards
of twenty years I have been repeatedly consulted on the problem of the
Isthmus of Panama, by companies having ample pecuniary means at their
disposal; but in no instance has the simple advice I have given been
followed. Every engineer who has been scientifically educated knows
the fact that between the tropics, even without corresponding
observations, good barometrical measurements (horary variations being
taken into account) may be relied on as correct, within from 75 to 96
feet. Besides it would be easy to establish, for the space of a few
months, one on each shore, two fixed barometric stations; and
frequently to compare the portable instruments used in the preliminary
levelling with each other, and with those at the fixed stations. The
point demanding the most attentive examination is that where the range
of mountains between the Isthmus and the main continent of South
America sinks into hills. Considering the importance of this subject
to the commercial interests of the whole world, the examination should
not, as heretofore, be restricted within narrow bounds. A complete
comprehensive survey, including the whole eastern part of the
Isthmus—the results of which would be alike useful in facilitating
every possible scheme, whether of canals or railroads—can alone decide
the much discussed problem, either affirmatively or negatively. This
work will in the end be undertaken, but had my advice been adopted, it
would have been done at first.
Footnote 129:
p. 418—“_Impressions excited by the accidental circumstances of
life_.”
In _Cosmos_ I have adverted to the incitements to the Study of Nature.
(Vol. ii. p. 371, Bohn’s edition.)
Footnote 130:
p. 420—“_Of importance in determining the longitude of Lima_.”
At the time of my expedition the longitude of Lima, as determined by
Malaspina and marked in the maps published by the Deposito
Hidrografico de Madrid, was 5^h 16′ 53″. The transit of Mercury over
the Sun’s disc, on the 9th of November, 1802 (which I observed at
Callao, the port of Lima, from the Round Tower of the Fort of San
Felipe), gave for Callao, by the mean of the contact of both limbs,
5^h 18′ 16″ 5; by the external contact only, 5^h 18′ 18″ (79° 34′
30″). This result, obtained from the transit of Mercury, has been
confirmed by Lartigue and Duperrey; and by observations made during
Capt. Fitzroy’s expeditions of the “Adventurer” and the “Beagle.”
Lartigue fixed the longitude of Callao at 5^h 17′ 58″; Duperrey made
it 5^h 18′ 16″; and Capt. Fitzroy 5^h 18′ 15″. After having calculated
the longitudinal difference between Callao and the Convent of San Juan
de Dios at Lima, by carrying chronometers from the one place to the
other during four journeys, I found that the observations of the
transit of Mercury determined the longitude of Lima to be 5^h 17′ 51″
(79° 27′ 45″ W. from Paris, or 77° 6′ 3″ W. from Greenwich.) See my
_Recueil d’observations astron._, vol. ii. p. 397, and _Relation
hist._, t. iii. p. 592.
POTSDAM, _June, 1849_.
THE END.
INDEX.
Abyssinia, elevation of the mountains of, 116, 118.
Acaciæ, various species of, in South America, 307;
of Australia, 313.
Accaouais, tribe of the, 184.
Achaguas, savage tribe of, 197.
Acicular, or needle-leaved trees, natural history of, and their
extensive geographical diffusion, 314, _et seq._;
varieties of, 325, 328.
Aconcagua, elevation of the volcano of, 205.
Actiniæ, the, 252.
Adansonia, a colossal species of dragon-tree (known as the Baobab or
monkey-bread tree), 270, 271, 273.
Aërial Ocean, the influence of its pressure on plants, 292, 295, 296.
Africa, extensive barren plains in the interior of, 2;
deserts of, uninhabitable by man, 3;
Oasis of, 2;
deserts of described by Herodotus, 9;
causes of excessive heat, 9;
mountains of, 9;
Northern Africa one connected sea of sand, 9, 110;
character of its vegetation, 10;
two races of men separated by the great north desert, 19, 140;
nomadic tribes of, 50.
Agouti, the antelope of South America, 12.
Aguas Calientes, elevation of, 208.
Ahuahuetes, a colossal species of tree, 274.
Air, currents of, on the vertical ascent of, 266;
influence of its pressure on plants, 292, 295, 296.
Alders, 231.
Allco, a Peruvian dog, 218.
Alleghanys, temperature of the, 102, 103.
Almond tree, the Bertholletia excelsa, 158, 179.
Aloes, one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 228, 332;
various species of, 334.
Alpine regions, elevation and temperature of, 84.
Altai, mountain plateau of, 53;
the mountain-chain of, 63, 64.
Aluates, the plaintive cry of the, 199.
Amazon, plain of the, 6;
the wild luxuriance of its regions, 19;
called the “Great River” by the natives, 155;
its extent, 157;
boundless wooded plain of the, 161.
——, Upper, plains of, 390;
breadth of, at Tomependa, 401.
Amentaceæ, 194, 285.
America, migrations to, through Northern Asia, 11, 131;
absence of cereal food in, 12;
pastoral life unknown to the aborigines, 12;
on the cosmological origin of, 105;
the southern hemisphere cooler than the northern, 107.
——, North, inclination of the eastern shore, 29;
natural features and configuration of, 31–40;
no pastoral tribes discovered among the aborigines, 42;
on the climate and distribution of heat in, 102 _et seq._
——, South, the vast Steppes of, 6, 8, 85;
physical causes of the diminution of heat, 7, 96 _et seq._;
presents a remarkable similarity to the south-western continent of
the old world, 8, 105;
character of its vegetation, 10;
aborigines of, 11;
cattle of, 11;
quadrupeds of, 12, 133;
the regions by which the Steppes of, are bounded, 19;
the wild luxuriance of nature, 19;
various races of man, 20;
mountain systems of, 30, 31;
forests of, 98;
general disquisition on the climate of, 96–109;
vast savannahs of, 98;
early civilization of, 130, 131;
limits of European civilization in, 140;
carved rocks found in, 147–151;
the great rivers of, 155 _et seq._;
different routes proposed in the unknown portions of, 177;
Schomburgk’s journey across the continent of, 176, 177;
the early maps of, 181;
their uncertainty, 182;
immense extent of the woody region between the plains of Venezuela,
and the Pampas of Buenos Ayres, 194;
the vegetable kingdom of, as yet imperfectly explored, 292–294;
Humboldt’s journey across, from Caxamarca to the Pacific, 393–420.
Ammon, temple of, 2;
nomos of, 44;
the probability of its having stood on the sea-shore, 264.
Ammonites, found on the Andes, 403.
Amucu, lake of, 159, 179, 184, 185;
where situated, 186, 187.
Amygdaleæ, 95.
Anai, village of, 187.
Andes, chain of the, 31;
the seat of active volcanos, 43;
inhabited by the Spanish race, 192;
chain of, in Bolivia, various elevations of the, 205;
sojourn on the ridge of the, 290;
paramos of the, 292;
Humboldt’s journey across, from Caxamarca to the Pacific Ocean,
390–420;
elevation of, at the Paramo del Assuay, 393;
succession of Paramos, 407;
picturesquely marked by masses of erupted porphyry and trachyte, 403;
marine fossils found 12,800 feet above the level of the sea, 403;
illustrative notes of the, 421;
derivation of, 423;
the point where they are intersected by the magnetic equator, 407,
429.
Animal kingdom, great divisions of the, 222.
Animal life existing in the solitudes of the loftiest mountains, 210;
in the atmosphere, in the waters, and the earth, 211–214.
Animalcules of the atmosphere, the water, and the earth, 211–214.
Animals which yield milk, 11, 125, 126;
of South America, 12, 133;
struggles and conflicts of, 17;
on the hybernation of, 242, 243;
domestic, inquiry respecting the origin of, 52;
nocturnal life of, in the primeval forests of South America, 191 _et
seq._;
traits of, 198, 199;
various cries of, 199, 200;
illustrative notes, 202.
Antilles, sea of the, 23;
springs among the islands of the, 155, 174;
inhabited by the Spanish race, 191.
Antisana, mountainous plain of, 17;
great elevation of, 139;
cavern of, its great elevation, 237;
volcano of, 371.
Anurahdepura, the sacred fig-tree of, 275.
Aparecidas las islands so called, 24.
Apes, the foreboders of rain, 20, 141;
nocturnal cry of, 199, 203.
Aposentos de Mulalo, of the Andes, 393, 423.
Apure, River, steppes of the, 6;
observations on, 194.
——, Llanos de, temperature of, 137.
Aqueducts, of the Peruvians, 398.
Aragua, valley of, 24.
Arborescent vegetation, 322.
Aristolochia, immense blossoms of the, 230, 348.
Armadillo, of South America, 12.
Arum cordifolium, vital heat of the, 330.
Arundinaria, 180.
Ascaris, 213, 251.
Asia, Central, contains the largest steppes in the world, 3, 4, 94;
the mountain plateaux of, 53–62;
table of elevations, 58;
general review of the mountain chains of, 63–73;
the volcanos of, distant from the sea, 65;
vegetation of the steppes of, 95.
Astrææ, the, 253.
Atabapo, the river, 159;
blackness of its water, 160.
Atahuallpa, the ancient fortress and palace of, 408–411;
his captivity, 410, 429;
historical notices of, 411 _et seq._;
death of, and the appearance of a comet, 429;
his descendants at Caxamarca, 11, 411–413.
Ataruipe, cave of, the tomb of an extinct tribe, 171, 188;
numerous skeletons found, 171, 172.
Atlantic Ocean, northern waters of, agitated by a gyratory movement,
120–122;
form of a longitudinal furrowed valley, 154, 174;
calmness of its surface in certain latitudes, 154, 174.
Atlantic and Pacific, immense advantages to be derived from a
communication, 433.
Atlantis, Island of, 55.
Atlas, Mount, covered with perpetual snow, 9;
inhabitants to the north of, 19;
Greater and Lesser, remarks on, 88, 89;
elevation of, 89;
on the position of the Atlas of the ancients, 110–113.
Atmosphere, animalcules of the, 211;
the influence of its pressure on plants, 222, 295, 296.
Atolls (coral-walls), situation of, 254;
origin of, 259;
process of formation of, 262.
Atures, cataracts of the, 153 _et seq._;
general account of, 162 _et seq._
——, the brave Indian tribe, melancholy legend of, 172;
verses on the parrot of, 189.
Australia, Acacias, Myrtaceæ, and Casuarinæ, the principal vegetable
forms of, 313.
Auvergne, plateau of, its elevation, 58.
Avars, early migration of the, 5.
Avenacecæ, 128.
Axum, plateau of, its elevation, 58.
Azteks, ruins of the fortress of the, 127;
seat of the, 207;
relics of civilization found, 207;
pyramidal buildings of the, 398.
Badger, hybernation of the, 244.
Balboa, Vasco de, his adventurous expedition over the South American
Continent, 418, 432.
Balch Pass, elevation of the, 79.
Bambusaceæ, one of the most beautiful ornaments of tropical climates,
334, 335.
Bananas, 221;
one of the plants by which the aspect of Nature is principally
determined, 224, 227;
cultivated from the earliest infancy of civilization, 305.
Banisterias, 173.
“Banks,” of steppes, probably the marine shoals of the primeval world,
1, 26;
phenomena of, explained, 27;
composed of floetz strata, 28;
immense tracts of, in the deserts of Africa and Asia, 28.
Banyan-tree, colossal size of, 275.
Baobab, colossal dimensions of the, 271, 272.
Baraguan, narrow pass of, 162.
Barjikang Pass, elevation and vegetation of the, 78.
Basalt, formation of, 218.
Bats of the South American steppes, 15.
Bavaria, plateau of, its elevation, 58.
“Bay of Sadness,” 155.
Bear, hybernation of the, 224.
Bees, discovered at the summit of the Rocky Mountains, 33.
Befaria, the purple-flowering, 23.
Beke, on the Mountains of the Moon, 115, 116.
Bengal, bay of, an arrested effort of Nature to form an inland sea,
254.
Bertholletia excelsa, colossal size of, 158, 179.
Bignonia, 173.
Binimi, fatal expedition to, 188.
Birds, hybernation of, 242;
the ratio of their numerical distribution, 288.
Bison, of North America, 40–42.
Bixa Orellana, pigment of, 171.
Black Sea. See Euxine.
Boa-constrictor of the Orinoco, 20, 142;
periodic torpidity of, 243.
Bolivia, geographical observations on, 204, 205.
Bolson de Massimi, el, elevation of, 208.
Bombaceæ, one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 224.
Botany. See Plants and Vegetation.
Bougainvillæa, new and beautiful species of, 400, 401.
Brahmins, geographical notions of the, 67.
Branco River, 178, 181, 182, 183, 184.
Buenos Ayres, situation and temperature of, 109.
Buffalo, of South America, 11, 125, 126;
of the Mississippi, 40–42.
Butterflies, on the summit of Mont Blanc and on the Chimborazo, 232,
233.
Cacao, Montes de, 194–202.
Cactus, the, 15, 138;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 225;
indigenous to America, 310;
its natural history, 311, 312.
Caladium, belongs exclusively to tropical climates, 329.
California, mountain coast-range of, 36, 37;
volcanos still active in, 37;
its golden treasures, and the advantages of the discovery, 433.
Cameji, on the Orinoco, 163;
mouth of the, 166.
Camel, “the ship of the desert,” 3, 51;
great utility of the, 51;
natural history of the, 52, 53.
Camosi, rock of, 165.
Canada, monument discovered in the prairies of, 82.
Cañar, fortress of, 394, 424.
Canaries, inhabited by the Spanish race, 191.
Caouac, the food of the Indians, 145.
Cape Nun, situation of, 93.
Cape Town, situation and temperature of, 139.
Capybara, of the Orinoco, 198.
Caracas, alpine valleys of 1, 2, 4;
the vast steppes of, 6;
littoral chain of, 22;
a mountainous region, 23;
sugar-cane of, 26;
Llanos of, 26, 94;
plateau of, its elevation, 58.
Carguairazo, volcano of, falling in of the summit from an eruption, and
curious phenomenon, 367.
Caribbean Gulf, 1.
—— Islands, disintegration of the, 23.
Carichana, Indian mission of, 161.
Carolinias, 160.
Carpathian Mountains, general features of the, 40.
Casas Grandas, ruins of an Aztek palace, 126.
Caschmere, valley of, 69.
Cassiquiare, the river of, 159, 160.
Cactaceæ, 138.
Castille, plateau of, its elevation, 58.
Casuarineæ, 221;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 226;
the principal vegetable form of Australia, 313, 314;
physiognomy of the, 330.
Cataracts of the Orinoco, dissertation on the, 139 _et seq._;
illustrative notes to, 174–190.
—— of Maypures and Atures, general account of, 162 _et seq._
Cattle of South America, 11, 125;
vast quantities of, in the Pampas of, 14, 137.
Caura, sources of the, 162.
Causeways of the Inca road over the Andes, 394, 424.
Caxamarca (the ancient capital of the Inca Atahuallpa), Humboldt’s
journey over the plateau or table-land of, 390–420;
the scene of the sanguinary history of the Spanish conquest, 403;
originally called Cassamarca, the “City of Frost,” 407;
fertile valley of, 407;
general description of, 408;
ancient fort and palace of Atahuallpa, 408–411;
descendants of the Inca resident at, 411–415;
Humboldt’s departure from, 415;
and arrival at the Pacific, 419;
illustrative notes on, 421–436.
Cayos Flamenco, Bonito, &c. coral islands of, 257.
Celaya, elevation of the, 208.
Central fire of the earth connected with volcanic eruptions, 65, 66,
67, 360, 361, 372.
Cereals, on the culture of, 128, 129.
Cerro Duida River, 178.
Cervus Mexicanus, 133.
Cesalpineæ, 220.
Chagos Bank, formed of coral, 254, 255.
Chamaya, Rio de, 399, 400, 401;
fall of its waters, 400, 427.
Chasars, early migration of the, 5.
Cherson, situation and temperature of, 104.
Chiguires, herds of, in South America, 12, 135.
Chihuahua, elevation of, 208.
Chimborazo, elevation of, 43;
butterflies and other winged insects found on the summit of, 210,
232;
peculiar colour of the water flowing from, 160;
elevation of the four peaks, Pomarape, Gualateiri, Parinacota, and
Sahama, 204;
the vertical height, 234;
probable derivation of the name, 234;
defined as “the snow of Chimbo,” 235;
the name probably transmitted from a bygone age, 235.
Chinchilla, the, 233.
Chinchon, Countess de, biographical notices of, 390, 422.
Chinese, ancient orographic knowledge of the, 56.
Choropampa, plain of, 406.
Chota, ruins of, 204;
silver mines of, 402, 403.
Cidaris, species of, 403.
Cinchona, its first discovery and medical virtues, 390, 422;
its habitat and natural history, 391.
Cinchona bark hunters, 281.
Civilization, limits of, in South America, 19, 140;
and remains of, 207;
progressive stages of, 398;
in ancient Mexico and Peru, 425.
Climate, of South America, 7;
general disquisition on, 95 _et seq._;
of North America, 100 _et seq._;
forms the various characteristics of nations, 219.
Climbing plants, 331, 332.
Coast Reefs, situation of, 253.
Cochabamba, Cordilleras of, 84.
Cocuyza, el Mogote de, rock of, 161.
Cœlebogyne, germination of the, 245.
Colossochelys, 222.
Columbia, cataracts and shores of the, 37.
Columbus, his voyage through the fucus banks of the ocean, 49, 50;
his first discovery of the new continent, 156, 175, 432;
his observations on the equinoctial currents, 175.
Compositæ, numerical relations of the, 279, 280, 281, 283, 284, 286;
numerous species of, 291.
Condor, the giant among vultures, 210, 237;
various names of the, 237;
its native region, 237;
immense altitude to which it soars, 237, 238;
its habits, 239;
mode of capture, 239.
Coniferæ, 194, 221;
on the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is principally
determined, 227;
their extensive geographical diffusion, 314, 322, 323, _et seq._
Coral animals, labours of the, 214.
—— animalcules, wonderful formation of, 252 _et seq._;
depth at which they can exist, 259.
—— Islands, 257.
—— Reefs, natural history of, 253, 257 _et seq._
Corals, the greatest number in the Ægean Sea, 259;
various forms of, in the Red Sea, 255.
Cordilleras, of South America, vast extent of, 42;
names of the highest points, 43;
of Cochabamba, 84;
of Peru, 210;
deserts of the, 393;
remains of the great road of the Incas across the, 393.
Corentyn River, exploration of the, 150.
Cormolache, mountain of, 404.
Cosiquiriachi, elevation of, 208.
Cosmos, quoted. See Humboldt.
Creeping Plants, 227, 331.
Crescentia, delicate blossoms from the rough bark, 230, 348.
Crocodile, of the Orinoco, 20, 142, 198;
periodic torpidity of, 243.
Crotalus, the, 251.
Cruciferæ, 95, 285, 286.
Cryptogamia, 215;
wonderful regermination of the, 241;
numerical distribution of, 337.
Cumadanimari, hills of, 164.
Cumana, expedition to, 181.
Cunabami, mountain group of, 162.
Cupiliferæ, their geographical distribution, 322.
Curata, the Indian name of the colossal grass of South America, 180.
Curare, an Indian poison, 151, 152.
Curtius, Professor, his verses on the Parrot of the Atures, 189.
Cuzco, the capital of the Incas of Peru, 395;
ancient fortress of, 397, 398.
Cyathea speciosa, 338.
Cyclidiæ, the, 213.
Cynometia, delicate blossoms spring from the rough bark, 348.
Cyperaceæ (Cypresses), 94, 95, 231, 284;
gigantic forms of, 326.
Date Palms, geographical situation of, 297, 302.
Dead, Indian method of preserving the, 171.
Dead Sea, specimens of the Porites elongata from the, 260.
Delf and Pottery, remains of, found in South America, 207.
Deserts, general view of, 1 _et seq._;
of Africa, 2, 3;
probable causes of their sterility, 10;
of Northern Africa, 110.
See Steppes.
Dhawalagiri, elevation of the, 68, 71, 236.
Dicotyledons, numerous species of, 292.
Diodorus, his traditions respecting the primeval formation of the
Mediterranean and of Samothrace, 262, 263.
Diœcious Plants, fructification of, 244, 246.
Djawahir, elevation of the, 69, 71.
Djebel-al-Komr, the Mountains of the Moon, 9.
Dogs, wild, herds of, in South America, 85;
objects of Indian adoration, 85;
natural history of, 86–88.
Dolphins of the Orinoco, 199, 202.
Dorado, fabulous, 185, 188.
“Dormideras,” the name of, applied to certain plants, 94.
Dormouse, hybernation of the, 243.
Dragon Tree, colossal dimensions of the, 220, 268 _et seq._;
its habitats, 268;
its prodigious age, 269, 270.
Dragon’s Mouth, at the entrance of the Orinoco, 155, 175.
Drought of the Steppes, 14, 15;
effects of the change from, 16, 139.
Duida, the mountain of, described, 158.
Durango, in Mexico, elevation of, 268.
Earth, the food of the Otomaks and other Indians, 142–146;
on the indurating and heat-emitting mass of the, 218, 267, 268.
Earthquake, submersion of a forest by an, 28;
evidence of subterranean fire communications, 360;
of 1811 and 1813, which shook the various parts of the New Continent,
260.
Eels, electric, 17;
mode of capturing, 18;
experiments on, 113.
Egypt, once overflowed by the sea, 264;
left uncovered by the retreat of the Mediterranean, 264.
El Dorado, the fable of, 159.
Elater Noctilucus, phosphorescence emitted from the, 250.
Elbow Lake, situation of, 40.
Electric Fishes, 248.
Electricity, operations and extent of, 19, 140.
Elements, perpetual struggle of the, 387.
Elias, Mount, an active volcano, 37.
Elysian Plains, of the ancients, 111.
Encaramada, engravings on the rock of, 164.
Engravings on the rocks of central America, 147, 148;
on the rocks of Uruana and Encaramada, 164.
Ephedra, the different species of, 328.
Epicharmus, the philosopher of Syracuse, his illustrations of vital
force from the painting of the “Rhodian Genius,” 383–385.
Equinoctial Current, observations on the, 175.
Eratosthenes, geographical views of, 67.
Ericaceæ, 308, 310;
the vegetable covering of the earth’s surface, 110, 225.
See Heaths.
Escalloniæ, of the family of the Eriaceæ, geographical distribution of,
344.
Esmeralda, town of, 176, 179.
Esquimaux. See Indians.
Euglenes, the, 213.
Euphorbiaceæ, 197, 245, 285.
Euxine, primeval outburst of the waters of, 262;
originally an inland lake, 263;
forced the passage of the Dardanelles, 263;
extract from Strabo, recording the primeval convulsion of its waters
on the authority of Strato, 263.
Fan Palms of South America, 12, 13, 135, 136.
Fair Weather, Mount, an active volcano, 38.
Ferns, growth of, in different climates, 108;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 229, 337–340;
numerical relation and geographical distribution of, 280, 337;
climatic relations under which they flourish, 339, 340.
Fish, the swimming-bladder of, 251.
Flamingoes, multitudes of, 197.
Floetz, strata of, 1.
Flora Japonica, curious properties of the, 320.
Forests of South America, 19, 98;
plants composing the, 280.
—— primeval, on the nocturnal life of animals in the, 191 _et seq._;
between the Orinoco and the Amazon, 193;
definition and description of, 193;
the Spanish word _Monte_ applied both to a forest and a mountain,
193;
between the plains of Venezuela and Pampas of Buenos Ayres, immense
extent of, 194;
of Europe and Northern Asia, 194;
impenetrability of some portions of, 195;
illustrative notes, 202.
Fort George, situation and temperature of, 104.
Fossils, Marine, found on the Andes, 403, 428.
“Fountain of Youth,” fatal expedition to discover the, 188.
Frémont, Captain, geographical investigations of, 29, 32;
lofty peak called after his name, 32, 33.
Fresnillo, elevation of, 208.
Frogs, vitality of, under water, 242.
Fucus, immense size of the marine Macrocystis pyrifera, 276;
banks of the ocean, 47–50.
Galapagos, the, 256.
Gallinazos, different species of, 239;
appreciated for their utility, 240.
Gallionellæ, 212.
Gambia, the river, 3.
Gebette River, 179.
Geneva, situation and temperature of, 104.
Geognostic (or Geological) profiles, 33.
Gerard, Dr., his visit to Shahil Pass, 76.
Gila River, delf and pottery found on the banks of, 207.
Globe, primeval, distribution of land and water different from the
present, 164.
Glumaceæ, 95;
numerical relation of the, 279, 283, 284.
Gobi, Steppe of, 5, 58;
elevation of, 59.
Gomphrenas, 214.
Gonzales, Juan, shipwrecked, 172.
Gothard, Mont, height of, 35.
Gottenburg, situation and temperature of, 104.
Gramineæ, 94, 285, 286.
Granite, masses of leaden-coloured, 19, 141;
turned black by the waters of the Orinoco, 163, 164.
Grasses of the Steppes, 16;
farinaceous, culture of, 128;
colossal stalks of a species of, 158, 180;
arborescent, 221;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 228, 334–337.
Greeks, extent of their maritime discoveries, 111.
Grossulariaceæ, 310.
Guaharibes, waterfall of the, 158.
Guaicas, tribe of the, 158.
Guainia, the river, 159, 160.
Gualgaya, argentiferous mountain of, 404;
value of silver obtained from, 405.
Guamani, Paramo de, 417.
Guanaco, of South America, 126.
Guanaxuato, elevation of, 208.
Guancabamba, Rio de, 398;
the swimming couriers of, 399, 400.
Guanches, race of the, 51.
Guangamarca, Andes pass of, 417, 418.
Guaranes, a tribe of South America, 12, 13, 134, 135.
Guareke Indians, savannahs inhabited by the, 163;
melancholy legend of the, 172;
their extinction, 172;
skeletons and skulls of, 172.
Guaviare, the river, 159, 160.
Guayaquil, Rio de, peculiar blackness of its water, 160.
Guaycas, Indians, 178.
Guiana, the granitic stones of, 155;
impenetrable forests of, 161;
method of preserving the dead among the tribes of, 171;
observations on the coast of, 176.
Guinea, negroes of, eat earth, 145.
Guirion, mission of, 182.
Gulf-stream of Mexico, 121–124.
Gustavia, delicate blossoms spring from the rough bark, 230, 348.
Gymnotus, the electric eel, 17;
mode of capturing, 18;
experiments on, 139.
Hami, oasis of, 62.
Hanno, Periplus of, 113.
Harudsch, desert near the mountains of, 2;
basaltic mountains of, 44;
geological features of, 45.
Heat, physical causes for the diminution of in South America, 7;
general disquisition on, 96 _et seq._;
of North America, 103 _et seq._;
of the interior of the earth, 373, 379.
Heaths, of northern Europe, may be regarded as steppes, 2.
——, (Ericaceæ), one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of
nature is principally determined, 225;
the habitats and natural history of, 308, 309.
Hedgehog, hybernation of the, 212.
“Hell’s Mouth,” the whirlpool so called, 162.
Hermesia castanifolia, 197, 202.
Herodotus, has described the deserts of Northern Africa, 9.
Herrera, his observations on the voyage of Columbus, 156, 175.
Hesperides, of the ancients, 111.
Hillhouse, Mr., navigates the Massaruni, 184, 185.
Himalaya, estimated height of the, 32;
mountain plateau of the, 54;
the mountain chain of, 63, 68;
observations of various travellers, 70;
general elevation of, 71;
on the perpetual snow-line of the, 74.
Hindoo-Coosh, situation of the, 67.
Hiongnu, a tribe of Eastern Asia, 52, 80, 81.
Hobart Town, situation and temperature of, 109.
Hordaceæ, 128.
Horse, the constant attendant of man, 17;
everywhere exposed to attack, 17.
Huancaya, canine worship of the Indians of, 85.
Huayna Capac, of the family of the Incas, 412, 430, 431.
Humboldt, Alexander von, his journey over the plateau or table-land of
Caxamarca to the shores of the Pacific, 390–420
(see Caxamarca);
illustrative notes of the journey, 421–436.
——, works of, referred to in various notes;—
Annales de Chimie et de Physique, 152, 278.
Annales des Sciences Naturelles, 205, 255, 258, 328.
Asie Centrale, 59, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 67, 69, 71, 73, 89, 91, 97,
99, 113, 234, 260.
Cosmos, 41, 49, 53, 73, 114, 118, 124, 265, 273, 303, 305, 346, 388,
389.
De Distributione geographica plantarum, 278, 296, 304, 338, 343.
Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne, 31, 34, 37, 43, 88, 206,
257, 305, 306, 430, 434.
Essai sur la Géographie des Plantes, 84, 129, 136, 138, 277, 281,
305, 306.
Examen Critique de l’Histoire de la Géographie, 32, 48, 50, 88, 134,
236, 265, 271, 316, 322.
Fragment d’un tableau géologique de l’Amérique Méridionale, 23.
Letter to the Editor of the Annalen der Physik und Chemie, 249.
Mémoire sur les Montagnes de l’Inde, 53.
Mémoire sur les Lignes Isothermes, 87.
Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, 185.
Recueil d’Observations Astronomiques, 234, 238, 428.
Recueil d’Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie Comparée, 24, 139,
141, 203, 237, 251.
Relation Historique du Voyage aux
Régions équinoxiales, 29, 29, 46, 48, 82, 85, 133, 134, 137, 139,
141, 144, 147, 152, 180, 202, 203, 242, 250, 269, 305, 336, 338,
432, 434.
Sur la Fixation des limites des Guyanes Française et Portuguaise,
178.
Treatise on the Quina Woods, 423.
Uber die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser, 295.
Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples indigènes de l’Amérique,
131, 236, 269, 424, 425.
Humming-birds, seen at an elevation of 14,600 feet, 237.
Huns, early migration of the, 5;
various races of, 80, 81.
Hybernation of animals, 242, 243.
Hydras, the, 252.
Hylæa, of the Amazon, 6.
Hymeneæ, 220.
Hypsometric observations on the heights of mountains and their peaks,
204–209.
Illimani Peaks, situation and elevation of, 204.
Inca roads of Peru, remains of, 393–397, 424;
flights of steps, 395, 424.
Inca Roca, State policy of, 431.
Incas of Peru, their early conquest of Quito, 236;
ancient fort and palace of the, at Caxamarca, 408–411;
descendants of, 411–413;
treasures taken from their temples by the Spaniards, 410, 430;
their worship of the Sun, 430, 431;
expected restoration of their ancient rule, 415, 432.
See Atahuallpa.
India, mountain plateaux of, 55.
Indians, driven on the coast of Germany, 124;
of the Orinoco, method of preserving their dead, 171.
Infusoria, vital tenacity of, 241, 242, 244;
marine, luminosity of the, 247 _et seq._
Insect life in the atmosphere, the ocean, and the earth, 211–214.
Insects, carried to an elevation of 19,000 feet above the plains, 232,
233.
“Inundation, the Valley of,” 183.
Ipomucena Islands, 187.
Ipurucotos, tribe of the, 182.
Islands formed of coral reefs, 257.
Italian scenery, 216;
sky, 217.
Jagua Palm, beauties of the 392.
Jaguar, of South America, 12;
traits of the, 195, 196, 197.
Jainti-dhára, elevation of the, 80.
Jao, sources of the, 162;
mouth of, 164.
Japan, history of the peopling of, 12, 131;
the character of its vegetation different from that of the Asiatic
continent, 320.
Jardin des Plantes, at Paris, rich collections of the, 287, 288.
Jardines del Rey, 257.
Jarures, race of the, 20.
Juncaceæ, 95, 285.
Kalmuck-Kirghis tribes, extensive steppes occupied by, 3.
Kashmir, valley of, its elevation, 59.
Keeling-Atoll, a coral lagoon, 255.
Keri, rocks of, 163, 164, 165.
Kinchinjinga, the highest point of the Himalaya, 68.
Kuen-lün, the mountain plateau of, 53;
the mountain chain of, 63, 66, 67.
Kyllyngiæ, the steppes covered with, 16.
Kyungar Pass, elevation and vegetation of, 79.
Labiatæ, 285, 286.
Lagoon Islands, 254;
hypothesis respecting, 261.
Lagos, elevation of, 208.
Lake Istaca, sources and elevation of, 40.
—— Superior, its elevation, 39.
Lakhur Pass, ascent to the, 80.
Lama, of South America, 126.
Landscape-painters, leading forms of vegetation, instructions to, 346.
—— painting, on the beauties of, as derived from the vegetable kingdom,
346, 347.
Languages, variety of, in the South American wilds, 20;
changes in the terms of, 191;
in language truth to nature should be the chief object, 192.
Latent life, disquisition on, 242, 243.
Lecideæ, 10, 125.
Leguminosæ, 280, 284, 285, 286.
Lemaur, Don F., his trigonometrical survey of the Bahia de Xagua, 174.
Lepidosiren, periodic torpidity of, 243.
Leprariæ, the, 214.
Leucopria, 213;
modulata, 251.
Lianes, or creeping plants, one of the vegetable forms by which the
aspect of Nature is principally determined, 227, 331.
Lichens, 10, 125.
Liliaceæ, one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
chiefly determined, 229, 341.
Lima, observations for determining the longitude of, 420, 435, 436.
Limande, of the Orinoco, 203.
Lions, of South America, 12;
nocturnal roar of, 199;
not to be found in the Sahara, 90.
Lithodendra, the, 253.
Lithophytes, the, 214, 251 _et seq._
Llanos of South America, 2;
the great plains of the, 7;
extent of, 8;
adapted for breeding cattle, 10;
have become habitable to man, 13, 14;
extension of, 22;
of Caracas, 26, 27, 94;
elevation of, 27;
of Barcelona, 28;
effect of, on the mind, 28;
general observations on, 29;
of the valley of the Amazon, 83;
situated in the torrid zone, 88;
de Apure, temperature of, 137;
extensively overflowed by the Orinoco, 185.
Löffling’s expedition to Cumana, 181.
London’s Arboretum, &c., quoted, 273.
Loxa, town of, 390.
Luminosity of sea-water, 246;
attributed to Mollusca, 247 _et seq._
Lupata, Cordilleras of, covered with eternal snow, 9;
mountain range of, 120.
Lyctonia, ancient land of, 265, 266.
Macos, race of the, 20.
Macrocystis pyrifera, a species of marine fucus, colossal size of, 276.
Macusi Indians, religious traditions of the, 147.
Madagascar River, hedgehogs and tortoises of, 242, 243.
Madrepores, the, 253.
Magdalena River, called “The Great Water,” by the natives, 155;
valley of, 416.
Magellan, straits of, the temperature of, 107.
Magnetic needle, physical effects of the sudden variations of the, 249.
Mahu River, description of the, 186.
Majonkong Indians, mountainous country of the, 176, 180.
Malvaceæ (Mallows), one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of
Nature is principally determined, 224;
its various families, 305, 306;
on the natural history of the, 306.
Mammalia, the ratio of their numerical distribution, 287, 288.
Man, various races of, in the South American wilds, 20, 142;
his ferocity in a savage state, 20, 151;
discordant elements of, even in civilized life, 21;
everywhere is man opposed to man, 21;
the monuments of his creative genius pass away, while the
life-springs of Nature remain eternal, 173.
Manco Capac, his mysterious appearance in Peru, 397.
Manimi, perilous cataract ledges of, 166.
Mapires, the coffins of the Indians, 171.
Maps, of South America, 181.
Maquitares, race of the, 20.
Mar de Sargasso, geographical situation of, 48.
Marañon, valley of, 402.
Maravaca, mountain of, 179.
Marmot, the, 233.
Massaruni River, navigated, 184, 185.
Mastodons, elephantine, 222.
Matter, vital force of, affinitive and repulsive, 383;
various combinations of, 384, 385.
Mauritia-palms of South America, 12;
useful and nutritious properties of, 13, 135, 136.
Maypures, cataracts of, 153 _et seq._;
general account of the waterfalls of, 162, _et seq._;
missionary village of, 163;
Parrot of, 172.
Mediterranean, great catastrophe by which it was formed, 216, 262–265;
Strato’s account of, 263.
——, three peninsulas of the, Iberian, Italian, and Hellenic, 265.
Medusa hysocella, electric light struck from the, 249.
Mehemet Ali, his exploring expeditions to the Mountains of the Moon,
117.
Melastomaceæ, 160;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 229, 346.
Melocactuses, the, 15, 138, 226;
vegetable springs, 312.
Meta, whirlpool and rock at the entrance of the, 161.
Mexican Gulf, rotatory stream of the, 121–124;
coral islands in the, 256.
Mexico, plateau of, its elevation, 58;
elevation of, in the equinoctial zone, 208;
general elevation of, 209;
the Coniferæ and oaks of, 315 _et seq._
Microscope, wonderful discoveries of the, 211.
Migrations, through northern Asia to the western coast of America, 11,
131.
Mimosas, the steppes of South America covered with, 16, 216;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 224;
the habitat and natural history of, 307, 308.
Mirage, deceptive appearances of the, 13, 137.
Mississippi, its sources and elevation, 39;
the forest, prairies of, 40;
temperature of the valley of the, 102, 103.
Missouri, deposits of the, 38.
Mœris, Lake, probably once connected with the sea, 244.
Mollusca, marine luminosity of the, 246, 247 _et seq._
Monad, question respecting the, 241.
Mongolian Steppe, in Central Asia, 4, 19
Monkeys of South America, cries of, 199, 203.
Monocotyledons, numerous species of, 212.
Moon, natural representations of, 165.
——, Mountains of the, 9;
disquisition on, 114, 115.
Mont Blanc, 210.
Monte, the term, in Spanish, applied both to mountain and forest, 194.
Monte Video, situation and temperature of, 104.
—— Nuovo, in the Peloponnesus, 356.
Mouflon, the long-horned, of South America, 11.
Mountains, of South America, system of, 30, 31;
plan for measuring the heights of, 33;
vast range in North America, 35–38;
the Cordilleras the longest chain in the world, 42, 43;
plateaux of Asia, 53–62;
table of elevations, 68;
general view of the great mountain chains of Asia, 63–73;
on the snow-lines of, 73 _et seq._;
masses of, in South America, 84;
numerous terms for, in the Castilian dialects, 191, 202;
the names of, derived from the most ancient relics of languages, 236;
transparency of the atmosphere of, 238;
process of their formation, 262.
Mule, instinctive cunning of the, for allaying his thirst, 15.
Musk Ox, of South America, 11, 125;
of the Mississippi, 40.
Muyscas, the ancient inhabitants of New Granada, 425;
civilization of, 426.
Mylodon robustus, 222.
Myrtaceæ (Myrtles), 179, 280;
of Australia, 312;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 229, 343–345.
Mysore, plateau of, its elevation, 58.
Naiads, the, 213.
Nations, characteristics of, formed by climate, 219.
Natron Lakes, of Egypt, 44.
Nature, the study of, conducive to intellectual repose, 21;
her powerful influence in the regions of the tropics, 154, 215;
the life-springs of, ever prolific and eternal, 173;
the many voices of, revealed in animal existence, 200–201;
periodic stagnation of 215;
great convulsion of, in the Mediterranean, 216, 262–265;
general physiognomy of, 218, 219;
principally determined by sixteen forms of plants, 221;
vital force of, illustrated by Epicharmus, 383–385.
Negroes, various hordes of, in Africa, 19.
Nemterequeteba, the ancient Peruvian “messenger of God,” 397, 425, 426.
Nevado de Sorata, immense elevation of, 43.
—— de Illimani, elevation of, 43.
—— situation and elevation of peaks, 204.
New Granada, the ancient seat of civilization, 425, 426;
the native land of the potato, 426, 427.
Niagara, origin of the falls of, 165.
Nile, on the sources of the, 115–129;
windings of, in Abyssinia, 157.
Noon-day, the stillness of in the tropics, contrasted with the night,
200;
all larger animals then take refuge in the forest, 201.
Oaks, cover the mountain plains of the equator in South America, 231;
immense size and age of an oak in the department of Charente, 275;
elevated situation of, growing in Mexico, 135.
Oases, of the African desert, 2, 3;
number of, in Egypt, 44;
the name of, Egyptian, 45.
Ocean, vegetation of the, 48, 49;
phosphorescence of the, 212, 245.
Ocellinæ, the, 253.
Oco, rock of, 163.
Opuntiaceæ, 310.
Orange River, its elevation, 58.
—— trees, number and magnitude of, in the Huertas de Pucara, 400.
Orchideæ, natural history of the, 312, 313;
one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 226, 227.
Oregon, territory of, 35;
temperature of, 104.
Orinoco, the wild luxuriance of its regions, 19;
rock engravings on the banks of, 82;
the great steppe extending from the mouth of the, 81;
accounts of the cataracts of, 153 _et seq._;
the name unknown in the interior of the country, 155;
simply called “the river,” 155;
current produced by the, 155;
the mighty waters of poured into the Atlantic, 156;
general description of, 157 _et seq._;
its general course and remarkable windings, 159;
picturesque rocky vales of, 161;
its course along the chain of the Parime, 161, 162;
separates the forest of Guiana from the extensive savannahs, 162;
danger to boatmen from floating forest trees, 162;
possesses the singular property of colouring black the reddish masses
of granite, 163, 164;
on the sources of the, 158, 175, 176, 178, 180;
the ancient water level considerably depressed, 164;
illustrative notes, 174–190;
passes through the mountains of the Parime, 200.
Orotava, colossal dragon-tree of, 268, 269.
Orphic Argonaut, mythical narrations of, 265.
Otaheiti, sugar cane of, 25.
Otomacs, or Ottomaks, a tribe of Indians who eat earth, lizards, &c.,
20, 142, 143;
observations on, 144, 145;
the poison curare used by, 151.
Ox, the constant attendant of man, 17;
everywhere exposed to attack, 17.
Pacaraima Mountains, 182, 183, 184.
——, latitude of, 185, 186.
Pachydermata, 222.
Pacific Ocean, first view of, from the Guangamarca of the Andes, 419;
immense advantages to be derived from a direct communication with the
Atlantic, 433.
Paco, of South America, 126.
Padano River, 176, 179.
Padurello, 212.
Palms of South America, 12, 13, 135, 136, 298;
the Piriguao, one of the noblest forms of the, 161, 185;
the family of, 221;
the most stately of all vegetable forms, by which the aspect of
nature is principally determined, 223;
on the habitat and natural history of, 297–304;
form and colour of the fruit, 303.
Pampa de Navar, 406.
Pampas of South America, 2;
general observation on, 29.
Panama, Isthmus of, various measurements of, 434, 435.
Paragua, a general name for water or sea, 193.
Paraguamusi River, 183.
Paramo de la Suma Paz, the mountain group of the Caracas, its
elevation, vegetation, &c., 4, 84;
the highest Alpine regions, 83, 94;
of the Andes, in Peru, elevation and description of, 392, 407.
Paramu River, 176.
Parasitic vermes, 251.
Parime, mountain chain of the, 161, 162, 200;
the terra incognita of South America, 178;
the lake of, alleged to be the source of the Orinoco, 181, Zabulon,
187;
a general name for water or sea, 183;
the great Mar de la, proved to be the Lake Amucu, 188.
Paropanisus, the snow-crowned summits of 155, 175.
Parras, elevation of, 208.
Paspalum, the steppes covered with, 16.
Passo del Norte, elevation of, 208.
Pastos, Province de los, its elevation, 58.
Peccary, tracts of the, 197.
Pentastoma, 213;
a division of the parasitic vermes, 251.
Peru, remains of the great road formed by the Incas, 393–397.
Periplus of Scylax, 46.
Peru, Pizarro’s invasion of, 395, 397;
historical notions of, 397; treasures taken from the temples of, by
the Spaniards, 410, 430;
ancient worship of the sun, 430, 431.
Petrifactions, wonderful phenomena presented by the study of, 373.
Phanerogamic plants, 220, 233, 276;
immense variety of, 276–278;
numerical relations of 279 _et seq._
Philippines, inhabited by the Spanish race, 191.
Phœnicians, extent of their discoveries, 110, 111.
Phosphorescence of the ocean, 212, 245.
Photocharis, luminosity of the, 247.
Phyllodia, 345.
Phyto-corals, 252, 253.
Pinduri, perpetual snow-line of the, 77.
Pine forest at Chilpanzingo, 328, 329;
of South America, 194, 231;
elevated situation of some growing in Mexico, 315;
various species of, in Europe, 318;
their geographical distribution, 321;
gigantic forms of, 323–325.
Pinnate leaves, physiognomy of, 352.
Piragua, mouth of the, 166.
Pirara River, course of the, 186.
Pirigara, singular properties of the, 348.
Piriguao, one of the noblest species of palm-trees, 161, 185.
Pizarro’s invasion of Peru, 395, 397.
Plains, desert, of Africa, 2;
vast extent of, 3;
of Asia, 4.
Plains. See Steppes, Llanos, &c.
Plantains, one of the plants by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 224, 227;
immense one in Lycia, 272.
Plants, various species of, in the great Asiatic Steppes, 4;
different characteristics of, in Africa and South America, 10;
on the cultivation of, in elevated plateaux, 62;
in the Llanos of the Caracas, 94;
the farinaceous grasses, 128;
ideas on the physiognomy of, 210–231;
illustrative notes, 232–352;
universality of their existence, 214;
causes of the absence of, over large tracts of land, 216, 217;
sixteen forms by which the aspect of Nature is principally
determined, 221–229 _et passim_;
Palms, 223;
Plantains, or Bananas, Malvaceæ and Bombaceæ, 224;
Mimosas, Heaths, 225;
Cactuses, Orchideæ, Casuarineæ, 226;
Coniferæ, Pothos, Lianes, 227;
Aloes, Grasses, 228;
Ferns, Liliaceæ, Willows, Myrtaceæ, Melastomaceæ, and Laurineæ, 229;
on the numerous species of Phanerogamia, and their extensive
geographical distribution, 276–294;
illustrative notes on the various forms of plants which principally
determine the aspect of Nature, 296–346 _et passim_;
as yet imperfectly explored in South America, 292–294;
gigantic pines and cypresses, 323, 324, 326;
beauties of the aspect of, 346, 349;
general view of the physiognomy of, 349–352;
on the similarity of vegetative forms, 351.
In addition to the plants above enumerated, the following which occur
_passim_, are referred to under their respective alphabetical
entries:—
Acaciæ, Alders, Amentaceæ, Amygdaleæ, Aristolochias, Arundaria,
Bambusaceæ, Banyans Bignonias, Carolinas, Caladiums, Cæsalpina,
Compositæ, Crescentia, Cruciferæ, Cryptogamia, Cupuliferæ,
Custaceæ, Cyaceæ, Cynometia, Cyperaceæ, Diœciæ, Dicotyledons,
Ephidiæ, Ericaceæ, Escalloneæ, Euphorbiaceæ, Fucus, Glumaceæ,
Gustavia, Hymeneæ, Juncaceæ, Labiatæ, Leguminosæ, Melastomas,
Melocactus, Monocotyledons, Oaks, Opuntiaceæ, Phyllodia, Piniferæ,
Polypodiaceæ, Portulaceæ, Rosaceæ, Rubraceæ, Saxifrage,
Synanthereæ, Terebinthaceæ, Theobroma, Tiliaceæ, Umbelliferæ,
Urticeæ, Yews, &c.
Plata, Steppes of, 6.
Plateaux, mountain, of Mexico, general elevation of, 209;
of Caxamarca, Humboldt’s journey over the, 390–420;
of Asia, 53–62;
table of elevations, 58.
Pleuronectes, a species of sea-fish, 260.
Pliny’s account of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius, 369, 370.
Podocarpus taxifolia, its geographical distribution, 322.
Poison, used by the Otomaks, 151, 152.
Polygastrica, 212.
Polypodiaceæ, family of the, 338.
Polyps, natural history of the, 253.
Pompeii buried by an eruption of Vesuvius, 369.
Pongo River, 401, 402.
Pontus. See Euxine.
Popayan, plateau of, its elevation, 58.
Popocatepetl, volcano of, 65.
Porites elongata, 260, 261.
Porlieria hygrometrica, 401.
Port Famine, situation and temperature of, 109.
Portulacas, 214.
Potato plant, the native produce of New Granada, 426, 427.
Pothos, one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 227, 329;
belongs exclusively to tropical climates, 329.
Prairies on the Missouri, 2.
Primeval Forest. See Forest.
Pumacena, the island of, 159.
Pumice, volcanic origin of, 369.
Purimarimi, perilous cataract ledge of, 166.
Quad-Dra, the river, its course through the Sahara, 92.
Quadrupeds of South America, 12, 133;
of the Mississippi, 40.
Queretaro, elevation of, 208.
Quina Bark and Tree, notices of, 423.
Quito, plateau of, its elevation, 58;
the first conquest of, by the Incas of Peru, 236;
the table-land of, one volcanic hearth, 360;
one of the capitals of the Incas, 396.
Rafflesia, immense flowers of the, 231.
Rain, general effects of, after drought in the Steppes, 16, 138.
Rattlesnake, vermes which inhabit the lungs of the, 251.
Raudal, the cataract of, 165;
dangerous navigation of, 166.
Red Sea, coral reefs in the, 255.
Reinaud, M., on the Mountains of the Moon, 115.
Remora, the sucking fish, an agent for catching turtle, 257, 258.
“Rhodian Genius,” dissertation on the mysterious painting so called,
380–385;
the principles of vital force illustrated from, by Epicharmus, 383;
illustrative note, 386–389.
Rhopala ferruginea, 401.
Rio de la Plata, its magnitude, 156.
Rivers, effects of, overflowing their banks, 17;
of South America, 156;
of the Caracas, the peculiar blackness of the water, 160;
a generic name for, usually adopted by those inhabiting their banks,
183;
the only means of traversing the continent of South America, 195;
the names of, derived from the most ancient relics of languages, 236.
Roads, remains of the great road of the Incas, 393–397.
Rocca del Palo, the highest northern margin of the crater of Vesuvius,
376.
“Rock of Patience,” at the entrance of the River Meta, 161.
Rocks of South America, images graven in, 20, 147, 148.
Rocky Mountains, estimated height of, 32;
extent of, 35;
observations on the, 205, 206.
Rome, temperature of, 108.
Rose Tree, great size and longevity of one in the Cathedral of
Hildesheim, 275, 276.
Rosaceæ, growing in the Asiatic Steppes, 4, 95;
ratio of their distribution, 321.
Rotation Stream of the Atlantic, 120–122.
Rotifera, wonderful revivification of the, 211, 240, _et seq._
Rubiaceæ, 280, 285.
Rupunuri, Lake of, 187.
Sabrina, sudden appearance of, attributed to volcanic subterranean
fire, 360.
Sacramento River in California, 207.
Sahama, elevation of the, 205.
Sahara, the great desert of, two races of men separated by the, 19,
140;
disquisition on, 89–93;
traverses Africa like a dried-up arm of the sea, 110.
St. Bernard, Mount, height of, 35.
Salamanca, in Mexico, elevation of, 208.
Salt Lake, Great, 206.
Saltillo, elevation of, 208.
Samarang, edible clay of, 146.
Samothrace, traditions of, 216, 262, 265;
aborigines of, 262;
position of, 262.
San Fernando de Atabapo, 161.
San Juan del Rio, elevation of, 208.
San Luis Potosi, elevation of, 208.
Sanariapo, on the Orinoco, 163.
Sand-martin, hybernation of the, 242.
Sand-spouts, fury of, when passing over the steppes, 14, 137, 266.
Santa Barbara de Arichuna, mission of, 198.
Santa Fé del Nueva Mexico, elevation of, 208.
Sapajous, nocturnal cry of the, 199.
Sarcoramphus Papa, the, 240.
Saussureæ, growing on the Asiatic steppes, 4.
Savannahs of South America, 98;
on the borders of the Orinoco, 162;
inhabited by the Guareke Indians, 163;
overflowed in April, 187.
Saxifrage, 233.
Schomburgk, Sir R., his antiquarian researches in South America,
147–151;
his observations on the sources of the Orinoco, 176;
his journey across the continent of South America, 177;
his account of the Lake of Amucu, 186.
Sculptured rocks, in South America, 147–151.
Sea, on the uniformity of its level, 264, 265.
Sea-coasts, length of time before vegetation appears on the, 10.
Sea-water, on the phosphorescence of, 245;
attributed to luminous mollusca, 246, 247.
Sea-weeds, phenomenon of their accumulation on the western coast of
Africa, 56;
of the ocean, 47–50.
Seeds, transferred to barren rocks, 214.
Senegal, inhabitants to the south of, 19.
Serpents, periodic torpidity of, 243.
Shátúl Pass, elevation of, 76.
Sierra Nevada of California, observations on the, 205, 206;
situation of, 207.
Sierra Parime, mountain-chain of the, 22.
Silao, elevation of, 208.
Silla, ascent to the summit of the, 232.
Silver, value of, obtained from the mines of Gualgayoc and other
Peruvian mountains, 405.
Simplon, Mount, height of, 35.
Sipapo, on the Orinoco, 163.
Sisgun, elevation of the plain of, 234.
Sitka, situation and temperature of, 104.
Siwah, oasis of, 44.
Snow, mountains eternally covered with, 9.
Snow-line of mountains, 73 _et seq._;
of the Himalaya, 236.
Solano, Don José, documents of, 181.
Spanish race, inhabitants of parts of the Andes, the Canaries, the
Antilles, and the Philippines, 192.
Springs from the bed of the ocean, 155, 174;
which rise from different depths, dependent on internal heat,
373–379.
Stag, a native of South America, 133.
Stars, glorious spectacle of the, at the Equator, 231, 349.
Steppes and Deserts, general view of, 1–21;
in the Caracas, 1;
sterility and monotony of, 2;
the heaths of northern Europe may be regarded as such, 2;
in the interior of Africa, 3, 9;
in central Asia the largest in the world, 3;
covered with various plants and herbs, 4;
have retarded civilization, 5;
of South America, 6 _et seq._;
of Africa, causes of their sterility, 10;
towns sprung up on the rivers of, in South America, 14, 137;
fury of the whirlwinds passing over the, 14;
drought of the, and mirage, 15;
genial effects of rain after drought, 16, 138;
like a vast inland sea, 17, 139;
the view of the regions by which they are bounded in Africa and
America, 19, 140;
illustrative notes to the article on, 22–125;
tracts of, covered with naked rock, 28;
of northern Asia, 57;
extending from the mouth of the Orinoco, 83;
of Central Africa, 94, 95;
vegetation of, 95;
the different features of, in Africa and Asia, 153;
various terms for expressing in the Arabic and Persian languages,
191, 202;
of South America, may be regarded as mere local phenomena, 216.
Strachey, Lieut., his observations on the snow-line of the Himalaya,
74.
Strato, his statement respecting the primeval convulsion of the waters
of the Mediterranean and the Euxine, 163.
Strychnos, an Indian poison, 152.
Stylites, seat of the, 13, 136.
Sugar-cane, varieties of the, 24, 25, 26.
Sun, worship of, by the Peruvians, 430, 431.
Sun and Moon, representations of, on the rocks of the Orinoco, 165.
Swimming couriers of the Rio de Guancabamba, 399, 400.
Swiss scenery, 217.
Sydney, situation and temperature of, 109.
Synanthereæ, 95.
Syracuse, the painting of “The Rhodian Genius” at, 380–385.
Tacarigua, lake of, 1;
its surrounding scenery and vegetation, 22.
Tapir, traits of the, 197.
Tartar steppes, 4.
Tayé, an animal of California, 127.
Taxus baccata, peculiar properties of, 320.
Teboco, rocky falls of, 185.
Teguayo, Lake of, 207.
Temi, the river, blackness of its water, 160.
Temperatures, mean annual, of South America and Europe, tables of, 100,
101.
Teneriffe, Peak of, the volcano, 371, 379.
Tepu-mereme, carved rock of, 148.
Terebinthiaceæ, 280.
Terra del Fuego, temperature of, 108.
Terra-firma, coast of, 23.
Theobroma, delicate blossoms spring from the roots, 230, 348.
Theobroma Cacao, of South America, 26.
Thian-schan, the mountain-chain of, 63, 64, 66.
Thibet, mountain plateau of, 55;
elevation and geographical situation of, 60 plains of, 61.
Tibbos, nomadic tribes of Africa, 50.
Tiger, American, traits of the, 195, 196, 197;
its nocturnal roar, 199.
Tiliaceæ, 194.
Timpanogo, Lake of, supposed to be the Great Salt Lake, 35;
longitude of, 206.
Titicaca, Lake of, elevation of the plateau of, 58.
Tomependa, town of, on the Andes, 401, 428.
Tomo, island of, 164.
Toparo, on the Orinoco, 163;
mouth of the, 166.
Tortoises, periodic torpidity of, 243.
Trees, immense size and antiquity of, 271–276;
on the relation existing between the annular rings and their age,
274;
natural families of, 274;
heights to which they grow, 327.
Trinidad, asphaltic island of, 155;
originally torn from the mainland, 175.
Tropical winds favourable to the mariner, 154, 174.
Tropics, beauties of evening scenery, 173;
contain every variety and magnitude of vegetable forms, 217, 231.
Tuamini, the river, blackness of its water, 160.
Tuaryks, nomadic tribes of Africa, 50.
Tukiuish, an Asiatic tribe, 5.
Tula, elevation of, 208.
Tundra, the name of cryptogamic plants in the arctic regions, 95, 96.
Turtle, curious mode of catching, by means of the sucking-fish, 257,
258.
Tuyu, a bird of South America, 6.
Tzana, lake of, its elevation, 58.
Uivitari, island of, 163, 165.
Umbellaria Grœnlandica, 266.
Umbellifera, 285, 286.
Ummibida, ruins of, 44.
Uniami, mountain of, 163.
Ural chain of mountains, 63.
Uraricapara river, 183, 184.
Urns used for preserving the ashes of the dead, 171, 172.
Urticeæ, 245.
Uruana, engraving on the rocks of, 164.
Valencia, lake of, 24.
Vanilla form of the Orchideæ, 173, 226, 230;
the fragrant, 230.
Vapour, the precipitation of, 217, 266.
Vegetation, length of time before it fixes itself on the sea coast, 10;
different characters of, in Africa and South America, 10;
natural history of the vegetable covering of the earth, 214;
vegetation most exuberant in the tropics, 217, 220, 231;
entire families of, 221;
the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is principally
determined, 221–229;
their numerical relations and geographical distribution, 276 _et
seq._;
ratio of distribution, 285;
as yet imperfectly explored in South America, 292–294;
the leading vegetable forms instructive to the landscape painter,
346;
general view of, 349–352;
similarity of vegetable forms, 351.
See Plants.
Venezuela, littoral chain of, 22;
its extent and elevation, 22;
description of, 23.
Vermes, parasitical, 251.
Vesuvius, elevation of, and various measurements of the margins of the
crater, 363, 376, 377;
great eruptions of, 364–366, 368 _et seq._;
Rocca del Palo, the highest northern margin of the crater of, 376,
377;
measurement of the Punta Nasone, and of the Hermitage of Salvatore,
377;
height to which the scoriæ rise from the bottom of the crater, 378.
Vilfa, species of, 232.
Villa de Leon, elevation of, 208.
Vital force, dissertation on, 380–389;
illustrated by Epicharmus from the painting of the “Rhodian Genius,”
383;
symbols of its existence and extinction, 384;
definition of, 386;
illustrative note, 386–389.
Viverræ, a native of South America, 12, 134.
Volcanos, still active in the Californian chain of mountains, 37, 38;
of Aconcagua, 205;
of the interior of Asia and of the New World, 65;
general view of their structure and mode of action in different parts
of the earth, 353–375;
previous to the eighteenth century, all our knowledge derived from
observations of Vesuvius and Etna, 355;
sudden volcanic fissures in various parts of the earth, 356, 357;
various heights of, 358;
craters of elevation, the importance of, 359;
various groups of, with fire-emitting mouths, 359;
the table-land of Quito one immense volcanic hearth, 360;
the subterranean fire progressive from north to south, 360;
earthquakes evidence of subterranean volcanic communication, 360,
361;
elevation of Vesuvius, and various measurements of the margins of the
crater, 373, 376, 377;
great eruptions of, 364–366, 368 _et seq._;
in the chain of the Andes, penetrate above the snow-line, 367;
caused the lofty summit of Mount Carguairazo to fall in, when the
whole surrounding country was covered with mud and fishes, 367;
volcanic origin of pumice, 369;
Pompeii buried by an eruption of Vesuvius, 369;
Pliny, account of, 369, 370;
the summits of upheaved masses of trachyte and lava, 370;
Peak of Teneriffe, 371;
sudden appearance and disappearance of, 371;
what generates the heat of, 372–374;
volcanic phenomena the result of connection between the interior and
exterior of our planet, 373;
illustrative notes of, 376–378.
Waraputa, cascade of, 149.
Wada-dhára, elevation and vegetation of, 79.
Water, peculiar blackness of some of the South American rivers, 160.
West wind, phenomenon of its prevalence on the African coast, 46.
Western currents of the ocean favourable to the mariner, 154, 174.
Wha-satch mountains, 207.
Wheat, first culture of, in New Spain, 130.
Wheel animalcules, wonderful revivification of the, 211, 240, 241.
White Sea, myth of the, 185.
Willows, one of the vegetable forms by which the aspect of Nature is
principally determined, 229, 331, 342.
Words, changes in the meaning of, 191.
Worms, immense variety in the depth of the waters, 212.
Xagua, gulf of, springs of fresh water in the, 174.
Yanaguanga, paramo of, 407.
Yaruros, savage tribe of, 197.
Yew, its geographical distribution, 322;
its great longevity, 273.
Yucatan, architectural remains in, 131, 132.
Zacatecas, elevation of, 208.
Zahara, phenomenon of the west winds on the African coast attributable
to, 46.
Zambos, tribe of the, 197.
Zoophytes, the calcareous, 251.
LONDON: PRINTED BY HARRISON AND SON, ST. MARTIN’S LANE.
-----
Footnote A:
To instance a few, see pp. 241, 245, 255, 259, 304, 320, 325, 326,
386, 422, 424.
Footnote B:
These lines are from Schiller’s _Bride of Messina_, as translated by
A. Lodge, Esq. See Schiller’s works (Bohn’s ed.) vol. iii. p. 509.
Footnote C:
It is not intended in every instance to trouble the reader with
duplicate measurements; but they will be introduced occasionally.
Wherever only one measurement is given, it must be understood as
English.—ED.
Footnote D:
The Huns, on being driven from their ancient pastures by the Chinese,
traversed Asia, (1300 leagues,) and, swelled by the numerous hordes
they conquered _en route_, entered Europe, and gave the first impulse
to the great migration of nations. Deguires traces their progress with
geographical minuteness, and Gibbon tells their story with his usual
eloquence in Chap. XXVI.—ED.
Footnote E:
This effect is well represented in Grindlay’s _Scenery of the Western
Side of India_, plate 18.—ED.
Footnote F:
Modern naturalists affirm that _all_ bats are insectivorous.—ED.
Footnote G:
Ipsa suæ meminit stirpis, seseque Deisque
Mens fruitur felix, et novit in astra reverti.
_Barclaii Argenis_, lib. v.—ED.
Footnote H:
_Examen critique de l’Hist. de la Géographie_, t. iii., pp. 104–108.
Footnote I:
See my _Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie comparée_, t. ii., pp.
179–181.
Footnote J:
_Relation Hist._, t. ii., p. 279.
Footnote K:
See my _Essai Politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne_. 2me édit., t. i.,
pp. 82 and 109.
Footnote L:
See _Long’s Expeditions_, vol. ii., pp. 36, 362, 382. Ap. p. xxxvii.
Footnote M:
_Critical Researches on Philology and Geography_, 1824, p. 144.
Footnote N:
_Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky Mountains in the year
1842, and to Oregon and North California, in the years 1843–1844_, p.
78.
Footnote O:
Chappe d’Auteroche, _Voyage en Sibérie, fait en 1761_. 4 vols., 4to.,
Paris, 1768.
Footnote P:
Frémont, _Report of the Exploring Expedition_, pp. 154, and 273–276.
Footnote Q:
Humboldt, _Atlas Mexicain_, pl. ch. 2; _Essai politique sur la Nouv.
Esp._, t. i. p. 231; t. ii. pp. 243, 313, and 420. Frémont, _Upper
California_, 1848, p. 9. See also Duflot de Mofras, _Exploration de
l’Orégon_, 1844, t. ii. p. 140.
Footnote R:
In the _Archæologia Americana_, vol. ii. p. 140.
Footnote S:
Frémont’s _Report_, pp. 3, 60, 70, 100, and 129.
Footnote T:
Compare Erman’s _Reise um die Erde_, Abth. i. Bd. 3, s. 8, Abth. ii.
Bd. 1. s. 386, with his _Archiv für Wissenschaftliche Kunde von
Russland_, Bd. vi. s. 671.
Footnote U:
See my _Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Espagne_, t. ii. p. 314.
Footnote V:
Frémont, _Geographical Memoir upon Upper California_, 1848, p. 6.
Footnote W:
_Report_, p. 274 (or _Narrative_, p. 300).
Footnote X:
Compare Frémont’s _Report_, pp. 164, 184, 187, 193, and 299, with
Nicollet’s _Illustration of the Hydrographical Basin of the Upper
Mississippi River_, 1843, pp. 39–41.
Footnote Y:
Compare my _Relation Historique_, t. iii. p. 234, and Nicollet,
_Report to the Senate of the United States_, 1843, pp. 7, 57.
Footnote Z:
Nicollet, op. cit. pp. 99, 125, 128.
Footnote AA:
Maximilian, Prinz zu Wied, _Reise in das innere Nord-Amerika_, bd. i.,
1839, s. 443.
Footnote AB:
See _Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 674 (Bohn’s edition).
Footnote AC:
_Historia general de las Indias_, cap. 214.
Footnote AD:
_Archæologia Americana_, vol. ii., 1836, p. 139.
Footnote AE:
Darwin, _Journal of Researches into the Geology and Natural History of
the Countries visited 1832–1836 by the Ships Adventure and Beagle_, p.
266.
Footnote AF:
Humboldt, _Essai politique_, t. ii. p. 173.
Footnote AG:
Cailliaud, _Voyage à Syouah_, p. 14; Ideler, _Fundgruben des Orients_,
bd. iv. s. 399–411.
Footnote AH:
Strabo, lib. ii. p. 130, lib. xvii. p. 813, Cas.; Herod, lib. iii.
cap. 26. p. 207, Wessel.
Footnote AI:
See Ritter’s _Afrika_, 1822, s. 885, 988, 993, and 1003.
Footnote AJ:
Humboldt, _Relat. hist._, t. ii. p. 142, and Long’s _Expedition to the
Rocky Mountains_, v. ii. pp. 91 and 405.
Footnote AK:
Compare _Scyl. Caryand. Peripl._, in Hudson, vol. ii. p. 53, with
Aristot. _de Mirab. Auscult._ in _Op. omnia_, ex rec. Bekkeri, p. 884,
§ 136.
Footnote AL:
See also Edrisi, _Geogr. Nub._, 1619, p. 157.
Footnote AM:
_Ora Maritima_, v. 109, 122, 388, and 408.
Footnote AN:
Aristot. _Meteorol._, ii. 1, 14.
Footnote AO:
Acosta, _Historia natural y moral de las Indias_, lib. iii. cap. 4.
Footnote AP:
Compare Humboldt, _Relation historique_, t. i. p. 202, and _Examen
Critique_, t. iii. pp. 68–69, with Rennell’s _Investigation of the
Currents of the Atlantic Ocean_, 1832, p. 184.
Footnote AQ:
See _Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 631, and note; Bohn’s edition.
Footnote AR:
See my _Examen Critique_, t. iii. pp. 64–99; and _Cosmos_, vol. ii. p.
655. Bohn’s edition.
Footnote AS:
_Exploration scientifique de l’Algérie_, t. ii. p. 343.
Footnote AT:
Chardin, _Voyages_, nouv. éd. par Langlès, 1811, t. iii. p. 376.
Footnote AU:
_Asien_, Bd. viii., Abth. 1, 1847, s. 610, 758.
Footnote AV:
_Historia Regionum Occidentalium, quæ Si-yu vocantur, visu et auditu
cognitarum._
Footnote AW:
_Règne animal_, t. i. p. 257.
Footnote AX:
Ritter, _Asian_, Bd. viii. s. 670, 672, and 746.
Footnote AY:
Humboldt, _Cosmos_, Bohn’s ed., vol. i. p. 281.
Footnote AZ:
_Singapore Journal of the Indian Archipelago_, 1847, p. 286.
Footnote BA:
Sartorius von Waltershausen, _Physisch-geographische Skizze von
Island_, 1847, s. 41.
Footnote BB:
Humboldt, _Premier Mémoire sur les Montagnes de l’Inde, in the Annales
de Chimie et de Physique_, t. iii. 1816, p. 303; _Second Mémoire_, t.
xiv. 1820, pp. 5–55.
Footnote BC:
_De Aëre et Aquis_, § xcvi. p. 74.
Footnote BD:
Strabo, lib. ii. p. 102; and lib. xiii. p. 598, Casaub.
Footnote BE:
Compare Strabo, lib. ii. pp. 71, 128; lib. iii. p. 137; lib. iv. pp.
199, 202; lib. v. p. 211, Casaub.
Footnote BF:
Humboldt, _Asie centrale_, t. ii. p. 141; Klaproth, _Asie polyglotta_,
p. 232.
Footnote BG:
Compare my _Asie centrale_, t. iii. p. 310, with the _Journal of the
Asiatic Soc. of Bengal_, vol. x. 1841, p. 114.
Footnote BH:
See his _Kashmir_, Bd. ii. s. 196.
Footnote BI:
Vigne, _Travels in Kashmir_, 1842, vol. i. pp. 237–293.
Footnote BJ:
Humboldt, _Asie centrale_, t. iii. pp. 281–325.
Footnote BK:
_Il Milione di Marco Polo_, pubbl. dal Conte Baldelli, t. i. pp. 32
and 87.
Footnote BL:
500 toises in the German, accurately 3197 feet. TR.
Footnote BM:
_Asie centrale_, t. ii. pp. 48–52 and 429.
Footnote BN:
In the learned Analysis of his _Karte von Inner Asien_, 1841, s. 99.
Footnote BO:
Ed. Schweighaüser, t. v. p. 204.
Footnote BP:
_Asie centrale_, t. i. p. 247.
Footnote BQ:
_Asie centrale_, t. ii. p. 138.
Footnote BR:
Jacob Grimm, _Gesch. der deutschen Sprache_, 1848, Th. i. s. 227.
Footnote BS:
_Asie centrale_, t. ii. pp. 18–20.
Footnote BT:
Klaproth, _Tableau hist. de l’Asie_, p. 108.
Footnote BU:
_Annales des Mines_, t. v. 1820, p. 137.
Footnote BV:
_Asie centrale_, t. ii. pp. 16–55, 69–77, 341, 356.
Footnote BW:
Baron von Meyendorff in the _Bulletin de la Société Géologique de
France_, t. ix. 1837–1838, p. 230.
Footnote BX:
_Asie centrale_, t. i. pp. xxiii et 118–159; t. ii. pp. 431–434, 465.
Footnote BY:
Strabo, lib. ii. p. 68; lib. xi. pp. 490, 511; lib. xv. p. 689.
Footnote BZ:
Montfaucon, _Collectio nova Patrum_, t. ii. p. 137.
Footnote CA:
Compare _Asie centrale_, t. i. pp. xxiii et 122–138; t. ii. pp.
430–434, with _Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 543, Bohn’s ed.
Footnote CB:
_Travels_, p. 97.
Footnote CC:
_Asie centrale_, t. ii. pp. 427, 483.
Footnote CD:
From a letter of Dr. Joseph Hooker, the learned botanist to the last
Antarctic expedition, dated Darjeeling, 25th of July, 1848.
Footnote CE:
_Asie centrale_, t. i. pp. 138, 154, 198; t. ii. p. 367.
Footnote CF:
Compare Turner in the _Asiatic Researches_, vol. xii. p. 234, with
Elphinstone, _Account of the Kingdom of Caubul_, 1815, p. 95, and
Francis Hamilton, _Account of Nepal_, 1819, p. 92.
Footnote CG:
_Recueil d’Observations astronomiques_, t. i. p. 73.
Footnote CH:
_Annuaire du Bureau des Longitudes pour 1830_, pp. 320, 323.
Footnote CI:
See Illustration (5), p. 44.
Footnote CJ:
See Lloyd and Gerard, _Tour in the Himalaya_, 1840, vol. i., pp. 143,
312, and _Asie centrale_, t. iii., p. 324.
Footnote CK:
Colebrooke, in the _Transactions of the Geological Society_, vol. vi.
p. 411.
Footnote CL:
Compare my investigation regarding the snow-limit on both declivities
of the Himalaya in my _Asie centrale_, t. ii., pp. 435–437; t. iii.,
pp. 281–326; and in _Cosmos_, vol. i., p. 337, Bohn’s ed.
Footnote CM:
_Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal._ New Series. No. xxviii. p.
287.
Footnote CN:
_Hist. gén. des Huns, des Turcs, etc._, 1756, t. i. P. 1, p. 217, P.
2, pp. 111, 125, 223, 447.
Footnote CO:
See Klaproth, _Asia Polyglotta_, pp. 183, 211; _Tableaux Historiques
de l’Asie_, pp. 102, 109.
Footnote CP:
See Kalm’s _Reise_, Th. iii. p. 416.
Footnote CQ:
_Archæologia, or Miscellaneous Tracts published by the Society of
Antiquarians of London_, vol. viii. 1787, p. 304.
Footnote CR:
_Relat. hist._ t. iii. p. 155.
Footnote CS:
_Chronica del Peru_, P. 1, cap. 87. (Losa con letras en los edificios
de Vinaque.)
Footnote CT:
_Origen de los Indios_, 1607, lib. iii. cap. 5, p. 258.
Footnote CU:
Navarrete, _Viages de los Españoles_, t. i. p. 67.
Footnote CV:
Humboldt et Bonpland, _Plantæ æquinoctiales_, fasc. ii.
Footnote CW:
See Humboldt’s geognostic view of South America, in his _Relation
historique_, t. iii. pp. 188–244.
Footnote CX:
Garcilaso de la Vega, _Commentarios Reales_, P. i., p. 184.
Footnote CY:
Frémont’s _Exploring Expedition_, 1845, p. 42.
Footnote CZ:
Clavigero, _Storia antica del Messico_, 1780, t. i. p. 73.
Footnote DA:
Buffon, t. xv., p. 155.
Footnote DB:
Azara, _Sur les Quadrupèdes du Paraguay_, t. i. p. 315.
Footnote DC:
On the dogs of America, see Smith Barton’s _Fragments of the Natural
History of Pennsylvania_, p. i., p. 34.
Footnote DD:
J. J. von Tschudi, _Untersuchungen über die Fauna Peruana_, s.
247–251.
Footnote DE:
Garcilaso, P. i. 1723, p. 326.
Footnote DF:
Humboldt, _Essai polit._, t. ii. p. 448, and _Relation hist._, t. ii.
p. 625.
Footnote DG:
_Geogr._, lib. iii. cap 1.
Footnote DH:
Humboldt, _Asie centrale_, t. i. pp. 247, 252.
Footnote DI:
_Exploration scientifique de l’Algérie, de 1840 à 1842, publiée par
ordre du Gouvernement; Sciences hist. et géogr._, t. viii., 1846, pp.
364, 373.
Footnote DJ:
_Exploration scientif. de l’Algérie, Hist. et géogr._, t. ii. p. 332.
Footnote DK:
Ibid. t. ii. pp. 126–129, and t. vii. pp. 94, 97.
Footnote DL:
Fournel, _Sur les Gisemens de Muriate de Soude en Algérie_, p. 6, in
the _Annales des Mines_, 4me serie, t. ix. 1846, p. 546.
Footnote DM:
_Asie centrale_, t. ii. p. 320.
Footnote DN:
_Comptes rendus de l’Académie des Sciences_, t. xx. 1845, pp. 170,
882, 1305.
Footnote DO:
See Shaw, _Voyages dans plusieurs parties de la Berbérie_, t. i. p.
169, and Rennel, _Africa_, Append. p. lxxxv.
Footnote DP:
Fournel, _Sur les Gisemens de Muriate de Soude en Algérie_, pp. 28–41;
and Karsten, _Ueber das Vorkommen des Kochsalzes auf der Oberfläche
der Erde_, 1846, s. 497, 648, 741.
Footnote DQ:
_Memoria sull’ abbassamento di temperatura durante le notti placide e
serene_, 1847, p. 55.
Footnote DR:
Consult, also, on African Meteorology, Aimé, in the _Explor. de
l’Algérie, Phys. Gêner._ t. ii., 1846, p. 147.
Footnote DS:
_Explor. de l’Alg., Hist. et Géogr._ t. viii, pp. 65–78.
Footnote DT:
_Relation de l’Expedition de la Malouine._
Footnote DU:
Göbel, _Reise in die Steppe des südlichen Russlands_, 1838, th. ii. s.
244, 301.
Footnote DV:
Humboldt, _Mémoire sur les Lignes Isothermes_, 1817, p. 54. _Asie
centrale_, t. iii. Mahlmann, Table IV.
Footnote DW:
_Asie centrale_, t. iii. p. 176.
Footnote DX:
_Meteor. Essays_, 1827, pp. 230, 278.
Footnote DY:
_Sull’ Abbassamento di Temperatura durante le Notti placide e serene_,
1847, pp. 47, 53.
Footnote DZ:
_Asie centrale_, t. iii. pp. 195–205.
Footnote EA:
_Temperatur-tafeln nebst Bemerkungen über die Verbreitung der Wärme
auf der Oberfläche der Erde_, 1848, s. 95.
Footnote EB:
See the admirable treatise by Samuel Forry, on _The Climate of the
United States_, 1842, pp. 37, 39, 102.
Footnote EC:
Forry, _Op. Cit._, pp. 97, 101, 107.
Footnote ED:
_Message from the President of the United States to Congress_, 1844,
p. 160, and Forry, _Op. Cit._, pp. 49, 67, 73.
Footnote EE:
_Fragments of the Nat. Hist. of Pennsylvania_, P. I., p. 4.
Footnote EF:
See _Neue Berlinische Monatschrift_, Bd. xv., 1806, § 190.
Footnote EG:
On the vegetable remains found in the lignite formations of the north
of America and of Europe, compare Adolph Brongniart, _Prodrome d’une
Hist. des Végétaux Fossiles_, p. 179, and Charles Lyell’s _Travels in
North America_, vol. ii., p. 20.
Footnote EH:
_Relacion del Viage al Estrecho de Magallanes_ (Apendice, 1793), p.
76.
Footnote EI:
See Robert Brown, _Appendix to Flinders’ Voyage_, pp. 575, 584; and
Humboldt, _De Distribution Geographica Plantarum_, pp. 81–85.
Footnote EJ:
Jos. Hooker, _Flora Antarct._, 1844, p. 107.
Footnote EK:
Compare Darwin in the _Journal of Researches_, 1845, p. 244, with King
in vol. i. of the _Narr. of the Voyages of the Adventure and the
Beagle_, p. 577.
Footnote EL:
_Od._, i. 52.
Footnote EM:
_Il._, iv. 561.
Footnote EN:
_Theog._, v. 517.
Footnote EO:
_Op. et Dies_, v. 167.
Footnote EP:
_De Originibus Americanorum_, p. 195.
Footnote EQ:
On the connexion of purely mythical ideas and geographical traditions,
and on the manner in which the Titan Atlas gave occasion to the image
of a mountain beyond the Pillars of Hercules supporting the heavens,
see Letronne, _Essai sur les Idées cosmographiques qui se rattachent
au nom d’Atlas_, in Férussac’s _Bulletin universel des Sciences_, Mars
1831, p. 10.
Footnote ER:
_Asie centrale_, t. i., p. 179.
Footnote ES:
Lib. iii., 53, 55.
Footnote ET:
Maximus Tyrius, viii., 7, ed. Markland.
Footnote EU:
Lib. iv., cap. 9.
Footnote EV:
_Cosmos_, vol. ii., p. 559. Bohn’s ed.
Footnote EW:
Edition de 1810, pp. 7, 353.
Footnote EX:
See _Journal of the Royal Geographical Society of London_, vol. xvii.,
1847, pp. 74–76.
Footnote EY:
_Viaggio nella Ethiopia_ (Ramusio, vol. i., p. 249).
Footnote EZ:
Compare Ayrton, in the _Journal of the Royal Geog. Soc._, vol. xviii.,
1848, pp. 53, 55, 59–63, with Ferd. Werne’s instructive _Exped. zur
Entd. der Nil-Quellen_, 1848, s. 534–536.
Footnote FA:
Lib. iv., cap. 9.
Footnote FB:
See Rüppell, _Reise in Abyssinien_, bd. i., s. 414; bd. ii., s. 443.
Footnote FC:
Humboldt, _Asie centrale_, t. iii., p. 272.
Footnote FD:
_Op. cit._, t. iii., p. 235.
Footnote FE:
Hakluyt, _Voyages_, vol. iii. p. 14.
Footnote FF:
Rennell, _Investigation of the Currents of the Atlantic Ocean_, 1832,
pp. 96, 136.
Footnote FG:
_Account of the Islands of Orkney_ (1700), p. 60.
Footnote FH:
Bembo, _Historiæ Venetæ_, ed. 1718, lib. vii. p. 257.
Footnote FI:
Ed. Van. Staveren, cur. Bardili, t. ii. 1820, p. 356.
Footnote FJ:
Lib. iii, cap. 5, § 8.
Footnote FK:
_Hist. Nat._ ii. 67.
Footnote FL:
_Historia Gen. de las Indias._ Saragossa, 1553, fol. vii.
Footnote FM:
See _Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 604 (Bohn’s ed.) and _Examen critique de
l’Hist. de la Géographie_, t. ii. pp. 247–278.
Footnote FN:
Sartorius von Waltershausen, _Physisch-geographische Skizze von
Island_, 1847, s. 22–35.
Footnote FO:
Prescott, _Conquest of Mexico_, vol. iii. p. 416.
Footnote FP:
_Chronica del Peru_, Sevilla, 1553, cap. 110, p. 264.
Footnote FQ:
See Gay, _Zoologia de Chili, Mamiferos_, 1847, p. 154.
Footnote FR:
See the Inca Garcilaso, _Commentarios Reales_, P. 1, lib. v. cap. 2,
p. 133; and Prescott, _Hist. of the Conquest of Peru_, 1847, vol. i.
p. 136.
Footnote FS:
_Fragments of the Nat. Hist. of Pennsylvania_, P. 1, p. 4.
Footnote FT:
Tschudi, _Fauna Peruana_, s. 256.
Footnote FU:
_Reise um die Erde_, th. iii. s. 64.
Footnote FV:
Tschudi, s. 228. 237.
Footnote FW:
See the pleasing descriptions in Darwin’s _Journal_, 1845, p. 66.
Footnote FX:
See a rare work printed at Mexico, in 1792, and entitled _Cronica
seráfica y Apostólica del Colegio de Propaganda Fide de la Santa Cruz
de Querétaro_, por Fray Juan Domingo Arricivita.
Footnote FY:
Jacob Grimm, _Gesch. der Deutschen Sprache_, 1848, th. i. s. 62.
Footnote FZ:
lib. v. pp. 199, 232. Wessel.
Footnote GA:
Strabo, xv. 1017.
Footnote GB:
_Geogr. Armen._, ed. Whiston, 1736, p. 360.
Footnote GC:
Ramusio, vol. ii. p. 10.
Footnote GD:
_Abhandl. der Berl. Akad. 1816_, s. 123.
Footnote GE:
_Essai sur la Géographie des Plantes_, 1805, p. 28.
Footnote GF:
Carl Koch, _Beiträge zur Flora des Orients_. Heft. 1, s. 139, 142.
Footnote GG:
Jacob Grimm, _Gesch. der deutschen Sprache_, th. i. s. 69.
Footnote GH:
_Vues des Cordillères et Monuments des peuples indigènes de
l’Amérique_, 2 tomes.
Footnote GI:
Compare the work of D. Antonio del Rio, entitled _Description of the
Ruins of an Ancient City discovered near Palenque_, 1822, translated
from the orig. manuscr. report by Cabrera, p. 9, tab. 12–14 (Rio’s
researches were made in the year 1787); with Stephens, _Incidents of
Travel in Yucatan_, 1843, vol. i. pp. 391, 429–434, and vol. ii. pp.
21, 54, 56, 317, 323; with the magnificent work of Catherwood, _Views
of Ancient Monuments in Central America, Chiapas, and Yucatan_, 1844;
and lastly with Prescott, _The Conquest of Mexico_, vol. iii. Append.
p. 360.
Footnote GJ:
Stephens, _Incid. of Travel in Yucatan_, vol. i. p. 439, and vol. ii.
p. 278.
Footnote GK:
Klaproth, _Tableaux historiques de l’Asie_, 1824, p. 79; _Nouveau
Journal asiatique_, t. x. 1832, p. 335; and Humboldt, _Examen
critique_, t. ii. pp. 62–67.
Footnote GL:
_Rélat. hist._ t. iii. pp. 155–160.
Footnote GM:
Gomara, _Hist. general de las Indias_, p. 117.
Footnote GN:
Compare my _Relation historique_, t. i. p. 492, t. ii. pp. 653, 703,
with Richard Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch Guiana_, th. i. 1847, s.
2, 120, 173, 194.
Footnote GO:
_Historiæ Venetæ_, 1551, p. 88.
Footnote GP:
See text of Riccardi in my _Examen crit._ t. iv. p. 496.
Footnote GQ:
Raleigh, _Discovery of Guiana_, 1596, p. 90.
Footnote GR:
_Brevis et admiranda Descriptio regni Guianæ_ (Norib. 1599), tab. 4.
Footnote GS:
Gumilla, _Historia natural, civil y geografica de las Naciones
situadas en las riveras del Rio Orinoco_, nueva impr., 1791, pp. 143,
145, 163.
Footnote GT:
See _Journal of the Royal Geogr. Society_, vol. xii. 1842, p. 175, and
_Description of the Murichi, or Ita Palm, read in the meeting of the
British Association held at Cambridge, June 1845_ (_published in
Simond’s Colonial Magazine_).
Footnote GU:
See also Sir Robert Schomburgk’s new edition of _Raleigh’s Discovery
of Guiana_ (1848), p. 50.
Footnote GV:
Bernau, _Missionary Labours in British Guiana_, 1847, pp. 34, 44.
Footnote GW:
Humboldt, Bonpland, et Kunth, _Nova genera et species Plantarum_, t.
i. p. 310.
Footnote GX:
Mosheim, _Institut. Hist. Eccles._, 1755, p. 215.
Footnote GY:
See my _Rélat. hist._, t. i. pp. 296, 625; t. ii. p. 161.
Footnote GZ:
Lib. iii. p. 184, Rhod., p. 219, Wessel.
Footnote HA:
Humboldt, Bonpland, et Kunth, _Synopsis Plantarum æquinoct. Orbis
Novi_, t. iii. p. 370.
Footnote HB:
Compare Arago in my _Rélation hist._, t. i. p. 623.
Footnote HC:
See my _Rélat. histor._, t. ii. pp. 196, 626.
Footnote HD:
_Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie comparée_, t. i. pp. 83–87,
and _Rélat. hist._, t. ii. pp. 173–190.
Footnote HE:
_Untersuchungen über thierische Electricität_, von Emil du
Bois-Raymond, 1848, bd. i. s. xv.
Footnote HF:
_Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko_, s. 212.
Footnote HG:
See my _Rélat. hist._ t. ii. pp. 299–304.
Footnote HH:
See my anatomical treatise in _Recueil d’Observations de Zoologie_,
vol. i. p. 18.
Footnote HI:
On the Ethiopian Boa, see Diodor. Sicul., lib. iii. p. 204, ed.
Wesseling.
Footnote HJ:
_Rélat. hist._, t. ii. pp. 618–620.
Footnote HK:
_Historia del Rio Orinoco_, nueva impr., 1791, t. i. p. 179.
Footnote HL:
This was also observed by Gilj, _Saggio di Storia Americana_, t. ii.
p. 311.
Footnote HM:
Thibault de Chanvalon, _Voyage à la Martinique_, p. 85.
Footnote HN:
_Voyage à la Recherche de La Pérouse_, t. ii. p. 322.
Footnote HO:
_Bericht über die Verhandl. der Akad. d. Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem J.
1848_, s. 222–225.
Footnote HP:
_Voy. à la Rech. de La Pérouse_, t. ii. p. 205.
Footnote HQ:
See Ehrenberg, _Ueber das unsichtbar wirkende organiche Leben_, 1842,
s. 41.
Footnote HR:
_Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko_ übersetzt von Otto Schomburgk, 1841,
s. 500.
Footnote HS:
Compare _Rélation historique_, t. ii. p. 589, with Martius, _Ueber die
Physiognomie des Pflanzenreichs in Brasilien_, 1824, s. 14.
Footnote HT:
Richard Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch Guiana_, th. i. s. 320.
Footnote HU:
_Archæologia Britannica_, vol. v. 1779, pp. 318–324; and vol. vi.
1782, p. 107.
Footnote HV:
See my _Rélat. historique_, t. ii. pp. 547–556.
Footnote HW:
_Reisen in Britisch Guiana_, th. i. s. 441–461.
Footnote HX:
Compare also the older chemical analysis of Boussingault, in the
_Annales de Chimie et Physique_, t. xxxix. 1828, pp. 24–37.
Footnote HY:
Humboldt, in this and other pages of his lecture, addressed, it should
be remembered, to the citizens of Berlin, in 1806, evidently alludes
to the troubles of the times.—ED.
Footnote HZ:
_Hist._, lib. vi., initio.
Footnote IA:
This subject is elaborately discussed in Heeren’s various works.—ED.
Footnote IB:
_Blumenbach, Collectiones suæ Craniorum diversarum gentium_, &c., 4to,
Götting., 1798–1828.—ED.
Footnote IC:
Gilbert’s _Annalen der Physik_, bd. xvi. 1804, s. 394–449.
Footnote ID:
Navarrete, _Viages y Descubrimientos que hiciéron por mar los
Españoles_, t. i. pp. 253, 260; t. iii. pp. 539, 587.
Footnote IE:
Diodor. Sicul., lib. xvii. p. 553 (Rhodom.).
Footnote IF:
_Reisen in Guiana_, 1841, s. 448.
Footnote IG:
See the Memoir which I drew up at the request of the Portuguese
Government, in 1817, “_Sur la fixation des limites des Guyanes
Française et Portuguaise_.” Schoell, _Archives historiques et
politiques, ou Recueil de Pièces officielles, Mémoires, &c._ t. i.
1818, pp. 48–58.
Footnote IH:
_Relation historique_, t. ii. pp. 474–496, 558–562.
Footnote II:
_Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko_, 451.
Footnote IJ:
_Nouvelles Annales des Voyages_, 1836, Sept. p. 316.
Footnote IK:
Humboldt, _Relation historique_, t. ii. p. 158.
Footnote IL:
See my _Relation historique_, t. ii. pp. 223, 239, 406–413.
Footnote IM:
_Recueil d’Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie comparée_, t. i. pp.
306–311, tab. xxviii.
Footnote IN:
_Op. cit._, t. ii. p. 340.
Footnote IO:
Vol. v. (1835), p. 77.
Footnote IP:
Hertha, _Zeitschrift für Erd und Völkerkunde_, von Berghaus, bd. xiii.
1829, s. 3–29.
Footnote IQ:
_Annales des Sciences Naturelles_, t. iv. 1825, pp. 225–253.
Footnote IR:
Berghaus, _Zeitschrift für Erdkunde_, band. ix. s. 322–326.
Footnote IS:
Fitzroy, _Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, 1839, vol. ii. p. 481;
Darwin, _Journal of Researches_, 1845, pp. 253 and 291.
Footnote IT:
Mary Somerville, _Physical Geogr._, 1849, vol. ii. 425.
Footnote IU:
_Geographical Memoir upon Upper California, an illustration of his Map
of Oregon and California_, 1848.
Footnote IV:
_Memoir of a Tour in Northern Mexico, connected with Col. Doniphan’s
Expedition_, 1848.
Footnote IW:
_Expedition on the Upper Arkansas, 1845_, and _Examination of New
Mexico in 1846 and 1847_.
Footnote IX:
Humboldt, _Essai polit. sur la Nouvelle Espagne_, t. i. pp. 127–136.
Footnote IY:
Frémont, _Geogr. Mem. of Upper California_, 1848, pp. 8 and 67; see
also Humboldt, _Essai politique_, t. ii. p. 261.
Footnote IZ:
Compare Abert’s _Examination of New Mexico_, in the _Documents of
Congress_, No. 41, pp. 489 and 581–605, with my _Essai pol._, t. ii.
pp. 241–244.
Footnote JA:
Fossil remains of this gigantic antediluvian tortoise are now in the
British Museum.—ED.
Footnote JB:
The weight of the lower branches bends them to the ground, so that a
single tree forms a hemispherical mass of verdure sometimes 150 feet
in diameter.—ED.
Footnote JC:
_Actes de la Société Helvétique_, 1843, p. 324.
Footnote JD:
Claudio Gay, _Historia fisica y politica de Chile, Zoologia_, 1844, p.
91.
Footnote JE:
Compare my _Asie centrale_, t. iii. p. 262, with Hooker, _Journal of
Botany_, vol. i. 1834, p. 327, and the _Edinburgh New Philosophical
Journal_, vol. xvii. 1834, p. 380.
Footnote JF:
_Recueil d’Observ. astron._, t. i. Intr. p. lxxii.
Footnote JG:
_Voyage à l’Equateur_, 1751, p. 184.
Footnote JH:
_Vocabulario de la Lengua general de todo el Peru llamada Lengua
Quichua ó del Inca_, Lima, 1608.
Footnote JI:
See the word in Juan de Figueredo’s vocabulary of Chinchaysuyo words
appended to Diego de Torres Rubio, _Arte, y Vocabulario de la Lengua
Quichua_, reimpr. en Lima, 1751, fol. 222, b.
Footnote JJ:
Velasco, _Historia de Quito_, t. i. p. 185.
Footnote JK:
_Hist. of the Conquest of Peru_, vol. i. p. 125.
Footnote JL:
See my _Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des peuples indigènes de
l’Amérique_, t. i. p. 116; and the Memoir entitled _Ueber zwei
Versuche den Chimborazo zu besteigen, 1802 and 1831_, in Schumacher’s
_Jahrbuch für 1837_, S. 176.
Footnote JM:
_Critical Researches on Philology and Geography_, 1824, p. 144.
Footnote JN:
See my _Recueil d’Observations de Zoologie et d’Anatomie comparée_,
vol. i. p. 26–45.
Footnote JO:
_Fauna Peruana, Ornithol._ p. 12.
Footnote JP:
_Voyage de l’Amérique méridionale_, t. ii. p. 2. 1752; _Observations
astronomiques et physiques_, p. 110.
Footnote JQ:
Claudio Gay, _Historia fisica y politica de Chile_, publicada bajo los
auspicios del Supremo Gobierno; Zoologia, pp. 194–198.
Footnote JR:
On the action of water, see my _Versuche über die gereizte Muskel-und
Nervenfaser_, Bd. ii. S. 250.
Footnote JS:
See his _Mémoire sur les Tardigrades et sur leur propriété de revenir
à la vie_ (1842).
Footnote JT:
Doyère, _Op. cit._ p. 119.
Footnote JU:
Doyère, _Op. cit._ pp. 130–133.
Footnote JV:
Doyère, _Op. cit._ pp. 117 and 129.
Footnote JW:
_Règne animal_, 1829, t. i. p. 396.
Footnote JX:
Lavoisier, _Mémoires de Chimie_, t. i. p. 119.
Footnote JY:
Milne Edwards, _Eléments de Zoologie_, 1834, p. 543.
Footnote JZ:
_Relat. hist._, t. ii. pp. 192, 626.
Footnote KA:
_Grundriss der Kräuterkunde_, 4te Aufl. Berl. 1805. s. 405–412.
Footnote KB:
Auguste de St. Hilaire, _Leçons de Botanique_, 1840, pp. 565–571.
Footnote KC:
Adrien de Jussieu, _Cours élémentaire de Botanique_, 1840, p. 463.
Footnote KD:
Joh. Reinh. Forster, _Bemerkungen auf seiner Reise um die Welt_, 1783,
s. 57; Le Gentil, _Voyage dans les Mers de l’Inde_, 1772, t. i. pp.
685–698.
Footnote KE:
Forskaal, _Fauna ægyptiaco-arabica, s. Descriptiones animalium quæ in
itinere orientali observavit_, 1775, p. 109.
Footnote KF:
Bory de St.-Vincent, _Voyage dans les Iles des Mers d’Afrique_, 1804
t. i. p. 107, pl. vi.
Footnote KG:
Michaelis, _Ueber das Leuchten der Ostsee bei Kiel_, 1830, s. 17.
Footnote KH:
_Abhandlungen der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem J. 1833_, s. 307,
1834, s. 537–575, 1838, s. 45, 258.
Footnote KI:
Ehrenberg, _Ueber das Leuchten des Meeres, 1836_, s. 110, 158, 160,
163.
Footnote KJ:
_Versuche über die gereizte Muskel- und Nervenfaser_, bd. i. s.
438–441; see also _Obs. de Zoologie et d’Anatomie comparée_, vol. i.
p. 84.
Footnote KK:
_Philosophical Transactions for the year 1834_, part ii. pp. 545–547.
Footnote KL:
See my letter to the editor of the _Annalen der Physik und Chemie_,
bd. xxxvii. 1836, s. 212–214.
Footnote KM:
Humboldt, _Relat. hist._, t. i. pp. 79, 533. Respecting the wonderful
development of mass and power of increase in the Infusorial
animalcules, see Ehrenberg, _Infus._, s. xiii. 291 and 512. “The
galaxy of the smallest organisms,” he says, “passes through the genera
Monas (where they are often only ¹⁄₃₀₀₀ of a line), Vibrio, and
Bacterium,” (s. xix. 244.)
Footnote KN:
Rudolphi, _Entozoorum Synopsis_, pp. 124, 434.
Footnote KO:
See Gözen’s _Eingeweidewürmer_, tab. iv. fig. 10.
Footnote KP:
Müller, _Zoologia danica_, Fasc. ii. tab. lxxx. a-e.
Footnote KQ:
Humboldt et Provençal, _Sur la respiration des Poissons_, in _Rec.
d’Obs. de Zoologie_, vol. ii. pp. 194–216.
Footnote KR:
_Mémoires de Physique et de Chimie de la Société d’Arcueil_, t. i.
1807, pp. 252–281.
Footnote KS:
_Abhandlungen der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem J. 1832_, s.
393–432.
Footnote KT:
Ehrenberg, _Op. cit._, s. 419.
Footnote KU:
_Asie centrale_, t. i. p. 218.
Footnote KV:
Darwin, _Structure of Coral Reefs_, pp. 39, 111, and 183.
Footnote KW:
Ehrenberg’s _Manuscript Notes_.
Footnote KX:
_Annales des Sciences naturelles_, t. vi., 1825, p. 277.
Footnote KY:
Darwin, _Coral Reefs_, p. 63–65.
Footnote KZ:
Chamisso, in _Kotzebue’s Entdeckungsreise_, bd. iiiv s. 108.
Footnote LA:
See my _Essai Politique sur l’Ile de Cuba_, t. ii. p. 137.
Footnote LB:
Petr. Martyr, _Oceanica_, 1532, Dec. 1, p. 9; Gomara, _Hist. de las
Indias_, 1553, fol. xiv.
Footnote LC:
Lacépède, _Hist. nat. des Poissons_, t. i. p. 55.
Footnote LD:
_Transactions of the Geological Soc._, 2nd Ser. vol. v. P. 1, 1837, p.
103.
Footnote LE:
_Annales des Sciences naturelles_, t. vi., 1825, p. 273.
Footnote LF:
See _Darwin’s Journal_, 1845, p. 467, also his _Structure of Coral
Reefs_, pp. 84–87; and Sir Robert Schomburgk, _Hist. of Barbadoes_,
1848, p. 636.
Footnote LG:
_Report on Ægean Invertebrata in the Report of the Thirteenth Meeting
of the British Association, held at Cork in 1843_, pp. 151, 161.
Footnote LH:
See Ross, _Voyage of Discovery in the Southern and Antarctic Regions_,
vol. i. pp. 334, 337.
Footnote LI:
Ehrenberg, in the _Abhandl. der Berl. Akad. aus dem J. 1832_, s. 430.
Footnote LJ:
Forbes and Spratt, _Travels in Lycia, 1847_, vol. ii. p. 124.
Footnote LK:
See my _Asie centrale_, t. ii. p. 517.
Footnote LL:
Compare James Dana (geologist in the United States’ Exploring
Expedition under the command of Captain Wilkes), _On the Structure and
Classification of Zoophytes_, 1846, pp. 124–131.
Footnote LM:
_Report of the Sixteenth Meeting of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, held in 1846_, p. 91.
Footnote LN:
Otfr. Müller, _Geschichten Hellenischer Stämme und Städte_, bd. i. s.
65, 119.
Footnote LO:
Diodor. Sicul. lib. v. cap. 47, p. 369. Wesseling.
Footnote LP:
_Geschichte der natürlichen Veränderungen der Erdoberfläche_, Th. i.
1822, s. 105–162, and Creuzer’s _Symbolik_, 2te Aufl. th. ii. s. 285,
318, 361.
Footnote LQ:
Lib. i. p. 49, 50. Casaub.
Footnote LR:
Lib. xvii. p. 809. Casaub.
Footnote LS:
Strabo, lib. i. p. 51–56, lib. ii. p. 104. Casaub.
Footnote LT:
Diod. iii. 53–55.
Footnote LU:
Maximus Tyrius, viii. 7.
Footnote LV:
Compare my _Examen critique de l’hist. de la Géographie_, t. i. p.
179, t. iii. p. 136.
Footnote LW:
_Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 481. (Bohn’s edition).
Footnote LX:
See my work, _Versuche über die chemische Zersetzung des Luftkreises,
1799_, p. 177; and Moll’s _Jahrbücher der Berg- und Hüttenkunde_,
1797, p. 234.
Footnote LY:
_Nova Acta Acad. Leop. Carol. Naturæ Curiosorum_, t. xiii. 1827, p.
781.
Footnote LZ:
Humboldt, _Rélat. hist._, t. i. pp. 118, 639.
Footnote MA:
_Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des peuples indigènes de
l’Amérique_, pl. lxix.
Footnote MB:
_Rélat. hist._, t. i., p. 282.
Footnote MC:
_Grundzüge der Botanik_, 1843, § 1003.
Footnote MD:
_Asia Portuguesa_, t. i., cap. 2., pp. 14, 18.
Footnote ME:
Compare also Barros, _Asia_, dec. i. liv. ii., cap. 2, t. i. (Lisboa,
1778,) p. 148.
Footnote MF:
Navarrete, t. v, pp. 8, 247, 401.
Footnote MG:
_Examen critique de l’Hist. de la Géographie_, t. v. pp. 129–132.
Footnote MH:
Ramusio, vol. i. p. 109.
Footnote MI:
_Flore de Sénégambie_ p. 76.
Footnote MJ:
This tree was formerly called “the Ethiopian sour gourd;” Julius
Scaliger, who gave it the name of Guanabanus, instances one, which
seventeen men with outstretched arms could not encompass. The wood is
very perishable, and the negroes place in the hollow of these trees
the corpses of their conjurors, or of such persons who they suppose
would enchant or desecrate the ground, if buried in the usual way.—ED.
Footnote MK:
_Familles des Plantes d’Adanson_, 1763, P. I. pp. ccxv-ccxviii. The
fourteenth century is here stated, but this is no doubt an error.
Footnote ML:
Adrien de Jussieu, _Cours de Botanique_, p. 62.
Footnote MM:
_Voyage au Sénégal_, 1757, p. 66.
Footnote MN:
_Fragmens d’un voyage en Afrique_, t. ii. p. 92.
Footnote MO:
_Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 662. (Bohn’s Edition.)
Footnote MP:
Decandolle, _de la Longévité des Arbres_, p. 65. Fine engravings of
the venerable yew at Fortingal, Fountains Abbey, Ankerwyke, &c., will
be found in Strutt’s magnificent work on forest trees. A very full
account of the Yew-tree, with engravings, will also be found in
Loudon’s _Arboretum Britannicum_.—ED.
Footnote MQ:
Endlicher, _Grundzüge der Botanik_, s. 399.
Footnote MR:
Gould, _Birds of Australia_, vol. i. Introd. p. xv.
Footnote MS:
Adrien de Jussieu, _Cours élémentaire de Botanique_, 1840, p. 61.
Footnote MT:
Kunth, _Lehrbuch der Botanik_, th. i. 1847, s. 146, 164; Lindley,
_Introduction to Botany_, 2nd ed. p. 75.
Footnote MU:
Mühlenpfordt, _Versuch einer getreuen Schilderung der Republik
Mexico_, bd. i. s. 153.
Footnote MV:
Lassen, _Indische Alterthumskunde_, bd. i. s. 260. See an interesting
account of the Banyan tree in Forbes’ _Oriental Memoirs_, vol. i. pp.
25–28. The tree there described (the famous _Cubbeer-Burr_) comprises
350 large trunks and more than 3000 small ones, and extends over an
area of several thousand feet. Milton alludes to the Banyan tree in
his _Paradise Lost_, book ix. line 1100, &c.—ED.
Footnote MW:
_Historiæ Venetæ_, 1551, fol. 83.
Footnote MX:
_Annales de la Société d’Agriculture de la Rochelle, 1843_, p. 380.
Footnote MY:
Darwin, _Journal of Researches into Nat. Hist._, 1845, p. 239.
Footnote MZ:
_Voyages of the Adventure and Beagle_, vol. ii. p. 363.
Footnote NA:
_Flora Antarctica_, p. vii, 1 and 178; and Camille Montague,
_Botanique cryptogame du Voyage de la Bonite_, 1846, p. 36.
Footnote NB:
_General Remarks on the Botany of Terra Australis_, p. 4.
Footnote NC:
Humboldt, _de distributione geographica Plantarum_, p. 23.
Footnote ND:
_Essai élémentaire de Géographie botanique_, p. 62.
Footnote NE:
Formerly librarian to Sir Joseph Banks, now President of the Linnæan
Society.—ED.
Footnote NF:
Robert Brown, _General remarks on the botany of Terra Australis_, in
_Flinders’ Voyage_, vol. ii. p. 338.
Footnote NG:
Compare my essay, _De distributione geographica Plantarum secundum
cœli temperiem et altitudinem montium_, 1817, pp. 24–44; and see the
farther development of numerical relations as given by me in the
_Dictionnaire des Sciences naturelles_, t. xviii. 1820, pp. 422–436;
and in the _Annales de Chimie et de Physique_, t. xvi. 1821, pp.
267–292.
Footnote NH:
Humboldt et Bonpland, _Plantes équinoxiales_, t. i. p. 33, tab. 10.
Footnote NI:
See his work, _Regni Vegetabilis Systema naturale_, t. i. pp. 128,
396, 439, 464, 510.
Footnote NJ:
_Biologie_, bd. ii. s. 47, 63, 83, 129.
Footnote NK:
Decandolle, _Théorie élémentaire de la Botanique_, p. 190; Humboldt,
_Nova genera et species Plantarum_, t. i. pp. xvii. 1.
Footnote NL:
_Jahrbücher der Gewächskunde_, bd. i. Berlin, 1818, s. 18, 21, 30.
Footnote NM:
Playfair, in the _Transactions of the Royal Soc. of Edinb._, vol. v.
1805, p. 202; Humboldt, on the sum total of the thermometric degrees
required for the cycle of vegetation of the Cereals, in _Mém. sur des
lignes isothermes_, p. 96; Boussingault, _Economie rurale_, t. ii. p.
659, 663, 667; and Alphonse Decandolle, _Sur les causes qui limitent
les espèces végétales_, 1847, p. 8.
Footnote NN:
_Introduction to Botany_, 2nd ed. p. 504.
Footnote NO:
Manuscript notice communicated to the “Gartenbau-Verein” in Dec. 1846.
Footnote NP:
Kunth, _Enumeratio Plantarum_.
Footnote NQ:
Ernest Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, 1843, vol. i. p. 419.
Footnote NR:
Joseph Hooker, _Flora Antarctica_, pp. 73–75.
Footnote NS:
Sir John Herschel, _Results of Astron. Observ. at the Cape of Good
Hope_, 1847, p. 381.
Footnote NT:
_Abhandl. der Akad. der Wiss. zu Berlin aus dem J. 1846_, s. 322.
Footnote NU:
See my work, _Ueber die gereizte Muskel-und Nervenfaser_, bd. ii. s.
142–145.
Footnote NV:
Humboldt, _De distributione geographica Plantarum_, pp. 225–233.
Footnote NW:
_Semanario de Santa Fé de Bogotá_, 1809, No. 21, p. 163.
Footnote NX:
Wallich, _Plantæ asiaticæ_, vol. iii. tab. 211.
Footnote NY:
_General remarks on the Botany of Terra Australis_, p. 45.
Footnote NZ:
_Voyage au Brésil_, p. 60.
Footnote OA:
Compare also Darwin, _Journal_, Ed. of 1845, pp. 244, 256.
Footnote OB:
Schomburgk, _Reisen in Britisch Guiana_, Th. i. S. 50.
Footnote OC:
_Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 376. (Bohn’s Edition.)
Footnote OD:
Aug. de Saint-Hilaire, _Morphologie végétale_, 1840, p. 176.
Footnote OE:
“In the Palm groves at Pihiguao, single trees annually bear as 400
fruit of an apple shape; and it is well known among the Brothers of
San Francisco, who live on the banks of the Orinoco and Guania, that
the Indians become very fat at the time that the Palms put forth their
unctuous fruit.”—Humboldt, _de distrib. geogr. Plant._, p. 240.
Footnote OF:
Compare my _Essai sur la Géographie des Plantes_, p. 29, and my
_Rélat. hist._ t. i. pp. 104, 587, t. ii. pp. 355, 367.
Footnote OG:
_Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 524 (Bohn’s Edition).
Footnote OH:
Compare Lassen, _Indische Alterthumskunde_, bd. i. s. 262, with my
_Essai politique sur la Nouvelle Espagne_, t. ii. p. 382, and _Rélat.
hist._, t. i. p. 491.
Footnote OI:
Humboldt et Bonpland, _Plantes équinoxiales_, t. i. p. 82, pi. 24;
_Essai polit. sur la Nouv. Esp._ t. i. p. 98.
Footnote OJ:
See our _Plantes équin._ t. ii. p. 113, pl. 116.
Footnote OK:
See his _Tableau des Provinces situées sur la côte occidentale de la
Mer Caspienne, entre les fleuves Terek et Kour_, 1798, pp. 58, 120.
Footnote OL:
See Molina’s _Storia naturale del Chili_, 1782, p. 174.
Footnote OM:
Klotzsch, _Ueber die geographische Verbreitung der Erica-Arten mit
bleibender Blumenkrone. Manuscr._
Footnote ON:
_Flora Sibirica_, t. iv., p. 129.
Footnote OO:
_Flora Rossica_, t. i., pars 2, p. 53.
Footnote OP:
_Botany of the Antarctic Voyage of the Erebus and Terror_, 1844, p.
210.
Footnote OQ:
_Philos. Transact._, vol. lxxix. p. 86.
Footnote OR:
_Handbuch der Botanik_, s. 609.
Footnote OS:
Claudio Gay, _Flora Chilensis_, 1848, p. 30.
Footnote OT:
Wislizenus, _Tour to Northern Mexico_, 1848, p. 97.
Footnote OU:
See p. 15.
Footnote OV:
Hooker, _Flora antarctica_, p. 69.
Footnote OW:
Compare the section _Orchideæ_ in my work, _De distrib. geogr.
Plant._, pp. 241–247.
Footnote OX:
See Darwin, _Journal of Researches_, p. 449.
Footnote OY:
See his _Abhandl. der Wiss. zu München_, bd. iii. 1837–1843, S. 752.
Footnote OZ:
_Synopsis Coniferarum_, 1847.
Footnote PA:
See _Cosmos_, vol. i. pp. 282–287 (Bohn’s edition).
Footnote PB:
See my _Examen crit._, t. ii. pp. 246–259.
Footnote PC:
_Flora Antarctica_, p. 229.
Footnote PD:
See _Linnæa_, bd. xv. 1841, s. 529, and Endlicher’s _Synopsis
Coniferarum_, p. 96.
Footnote PE:
See Hoffmeister’s _Briefe aus Indien wührend der Expedition des
Prinzen Waldemar von Preussen_, 1847, s. 351.
Footnote PF:
_Dec._ iii. lib. x. p. 68.
Footnote PG:
Thunberg, _Flora Japonica_, p. 275. The allusion is somewhat amusing;
we annex a translation of Thunberg’s note:—“This fruit resembles
acorns, and is of an astringent nature. For this reason the Japanese
interpreters, when constrained to remain in the royal presence longer
than usual, chew it, as an antidiuretic. It is brought to table at the
second course with Acrodrya, and is said to be very wholesome, and to
relax the bowels although it constricts the mouth. The expressed oil
is in request for the kitchen, especially among the Chinese monks who
live at Nagasacca.”—ED.
Footnote PH:
Gay, _Flora Chilensis_, p. 340.
Footnote PI:
See my _Examen crit._ t. iii. p. 24.
Footnote PJ:
See Ratzeburg, _Forstreisen_, 1844, s. 287.
Footnote PK:
Torrey and Frémont, _Report of the Exploring Expedition to the Rocky
Mountains in 1844_, p. 319.
Footnote PL:
Endlicher, _Coniferæ fossiles_, p. 301.
Footnote PM:
See _Journal of the Royal Institution_, 1826, p. 325.
Footnote PN:
See description in Lewis and Clarke’s _Travels to the Source of the
Missouri River and across the American Continent to the Pacific Ocean
(1804–6)_, 1814, p. 456.
Footnote PO:
Dwight, _Travels_, vol. i. p. 36, and Emerson, _Report on the Trees
and Shrubs growing naturally in the Forests of Massachusetts_, 1846,
p. 60–66.
Footnote PP:
Auguste de St. Hilaire, _Morphologie végétale_, 1840, p. 98.
Footnote PQ:
_Linnæa_, bd. xv. 1841, s. 489.
Footnote PR:
Emerson, _Report on the Forests_, pp. 49, 101.
Footnote PS:
_Morphologie végétale_, p. 91.
Footnote PT:
Göppert, _Beobachtungen über das sogenannte Umwallen der
Tannenstöcke_, 1842, s. 12.
Footnote PU:
_Hist. Plant._, lib. iii. cap. 7, pp. 59, 60. Schneider.
Footnote PV:
Th. i. s. 143, 166.
Footnote PW:
Compare Unger, _Ueber den Einfluss des Bodens auf die Vertheilung der
Gewächse_, s. 200; Lindblom, _Adnot. in geographicam plantarum intra
Sueciam distributionem_, p. 89; Martius, in the _Annales des Sciences
naturelles_, t. xviii. 1842, p. 195.
Footnote PX:
Link, _Urwelt_, Th. i. 1834, s. 201–211.
Footnote PY:
Palisot de Beauvois, _Flore d’Oware et de Benin_, t. i. 1804, p. 4,
pl. III.
Footnote PZ:
_Comptes rendus de l’Institut_, t. viii. 1839, p. 454, t. ix. pp.
614–781.
Footnote QA:
Robert Schomburgk, _Reisen in Guiana und am Orinoko_, 1841, s. 233.
Footnote QB:
Pöppig, _Reise in Chile, Peru, und auf dem Amazonenstrome_. Bd. ii.
1836, s. 432.
Footnote QC:
Ernest Dieffenbach, _Travels in New Zealand_, 1843, vol. i. p. 426.
Footnote QD:
See the very correct delineations in Adrien de Jussieu, _Cours de
Botanique_, pp. 77–79, figs. 105–108.
Footnote QE:
Patterson, _Reisen in das Land der Hottentotten und der Kaffern_,
1790, s. 55.
Footnote QF:
See his _Reisen im südlichen Afrika_, th. i. s. 370.
Footnote QG:
Buchanan, _Journey through Mysore_, vol. ii. p. 341; and Stirling, in
the _Asiat. Res._ vol. xv. p. 205.
Footnote QH:
See Bojer, _Hortus Mauritianus_, 1837, p. 201.
Footnote QI:
_Relat. hist._ t. i. pp. 605–606.
Footnote QJ:
_Flora antarctica_, p. 97.
Footnote QK:
Hooker, _Icon. plant._ vol. ii. tab. 150.
Footnote QL:
Compare Hooker, _Flora antarctica_, pp. vii. 74, 215, with Sir James
Ross, _Voyage in the Southern and Antarctic Regions, 1839–1843_, vol.
ii. pp. 335–342.
Footnote QM:
Humboldt, _de distrib. geogr. Plant._, pp. 178, 213.
Footnote QN:
_Historia de las Indias_, 1535, fol. xc.
Footnote QO:
Humboldt, _Relat. hist._, t. i. p. 437.
Footnote QP:
Robert Brown, _In Expedition to Congo_, Append. p. 423.
Footnote QQ:
Abu Zacaria Ebn el Awam, _Libro de Agricultura_, traducido por J. A.
Banqueri, t. ii. Madr. 1802, p. 736.
Footnote QR:
See a valuable Treatise by d’Urville, _Distribution géographique des
fougères sur la surface du Globe_, in the _Annales des Sciences nat._,
t. vi. 1825, pp. 51, 66, 73.
Footnote QS:
Count Suminski, _Zur Entwickelungs-Geschichte der Farrnkräuter 1848_,
S. 10–14.
Footnote QT:
_Monatl. Berichte der Akad. zu Berlin_, Januar, 1848, S. 20.
Footnote QU:
Humboldt et Kunth, _Nova Gen. Plant._, t. ii. p. 22, Tab. 99.
Footnote QV:
Lindley, _Introd. to the Natural System of Botany_, p. 99.
Footnote QW:
See the additions to _Franklin’s Narrative of a Journey to the shores
of the Polar Sea_, 1823, p. 765.
Footnote QX:
_Morphologie végétale_, 1840, p. 52.
Footnote QY:
Adrien de Jussieu, _Cours de Botanique_, pp. 106, 120, and 700;
Darwin, _Journal of Researches_, 1846, p. 433.
Footnote QZ:
_Flora antartica_, p. 12.
Footnote RA:
_Cosmos_, vol. ii. p. 453 (Bohn’s edition.)
Footnote RB:
Aristot. _De Generat. Animal._ v. i. p. 778, and _De Somno et Vigil._
cap. i. p. 455, Bekker.
Footnote RC:
Kunth, _Lehrbuch der Botanik_, 1847. Th. i. s. 511; Schleiden, _Die
Pflanze und ihr Leben_, 1848, s. 100.
Footnote RD:
_Probl._ 20, 7.
Footnote RE:
_Theoria Generationis_, § 5–9.
Footnote RF:
See Kunth, _Synopsis Plantarum quas in itinere collegerunt_, Al. de
Humboldt et Am. Bonpland, t. iii. pp. 87, 360.
Footnote RG:
_Geognostical Essay on the superposition of Rocks in both
Hemispheres._ 8vo. Lond. 1803.
Footnote RH:
See _Abhandl. der Königl. Akademie der Wissenschaften zu Berlin_. Jahr
1822 und 1823, s. 3–20.
Footnote RI:
_Acta S. Patricii_, p. 555, ed. Ruinart; _Cosmos_, vol. i. p. 220,
(Bohn’s edition).
Footnote RJ:
A Portico in Athens containing a picture gallery painted chiefly by
Polygnotus, with the assistance of Micon and Panænus. Zeno taught his
doctrines there, and was in consequence called the Stoic, from stoa, a
portico, and his school the Stoic-school—ED.
Footnote RK:
The very same idea is expressed in Schiller’s _Walk under the Linden
Trees_.—ED.
Footnote RL:
See _Aphorismi ex doctrina Physiologiæ chemicæ Plantarum_, in
Humboldt, _Flora Fribergensis subterranea_, 1793, pp. 133–136.
_Translation_;—“If you attentively consider the whole nature of
things, you will discover a great and permanent difference amongst
elements, some of which obeying the laws of affinity, others
independent, appear in various combinations. This difference is by no
means inherent in the elements themselves and in their nature, but
seems to be derived solely from their particular distribution. We call
that matter inert, brute, and inanimate, the particles of which are
combined according to the laws of chemical affinity. On the other
hand, we call those bodies animate and organic, which, although
constantly manifesting a tendency to assume new forms, are restrained
by some internal force from relinquishing that originally assigned
them. That internal force, which dissolves the bonds of chemical
affinity, and prevents the elements of bodies from freely uniting, we
call vital. Accordingly, the most certain criterion of death is
putrescence, by which the first parts, or stamina of things, resume
their pristine state, and obey the laws of affinity. In inanimate
bodies there can be no putrescence.”
Footnote RM:
Henle, _Allgemeine Anatomie_, 1841, pp. 216–219.
Footnote RN:
Pulteney Alison, in the _Transact. of the Royal Soc. of Edinburgh_,
vol. xvi. p. 305.
Footnote RO:
_Cosmos_, vol. i. p. 58. (Bohn’s Edition.)
Footnote RP:
Vol. i. p. 349. (Bohn’s Edition.)
Footnote RQ:
Compare also the critique on the acceptation of special vital forces
in Schleiden’s _Botanik als inductive Wissenschaft_, part i. pp. 60,
and the lately published and admirable treatise of Emil du
Bois-Reymond, _Untersuchungen über thierische Elektricität_, vol. i.
pp. xxxiv–1.
Footnote RR:
_Translation._—“From the Province Anti the Montañas of the Antis
received their name. Antisuyu signified the eastern direction, and for
that reason the name Anti was given to all that part of the great
Cordillera of Sierra Nevada which runs along the east of Peru, to
denote that it was situated in the east.” (_Commentarios Reales_, pt.
i. pp. 47, 122.)—ED.
Footnote RS:
See my _Treatise on the Quina Woods_, inserted in the _Magazin der
Gesellschaft naturforschender Freunde zu Berlin, Jahrg._ i. 1807, s.
59.
Footnote RT:
_Histoire de l’Acad. des Sciences, année 1738._ Paris, 1740, p. 233.
Footnote RU:
I have given a drawing of it in the _Vues des Cordillères_, pl. xvii.;
see also Cieça, cap. 44, P. i. p. 120.
Footnote RV:
_Translation._—“The road of the Sierras is wonderful to behold; for
truly, throughout all Christendom, there are not to be seen such
beautiful roads on such rugged ground, and, for the most part they are
paved.”
Footnote RW:
See _Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des peuples indigènes de
l’Amérique_, ed. in 8vo. t. ii. pp. 220–267.
Footnote RX:
Joaquin Acosta, _Compendio historico del Descubrimiento de la Nueva
Granada_, 1848, pp. 188, 196, 206, and 208; _Bulletin de la Société de
Géographie de Paris_, 1847, p. 114.
Footnote RY:
_Journal of a Residence in Columbia_, 1825, vol. ii. p. 390.
Footnote RZ:
_Historical Researches on the Conquest of Peru_, 1827, p. 397.
Footnote SA:
Prescott’s _Conquest of Peru_, vol. i. p. 332.
Footnote SB:
See Garcilaso, lib. viii. cap. 2; also Joaquin Acosta, p. 189.
Footnote SC:
See Humboldt, _Recueil des Observ. Astron._ vol. ii. pp. 309–359.
Footnote SD:
_Journal du Voyage fait à l’Equateur_, 1751, p. 186.
Footnote SE:
Pingré, _Cométographie_, t. i. p. 496; and Galle’s _Verzeichniss aller
bisher berechneten Cometenbahnen_, in Olbers’ _Easiest method of
calculating the course of a Comet_, 1847, p. 206.
Footnote SF:
Mädler’s _Astronomie_, 1846, p. 307; also Schnurrer’s _Chronik der
Seuchen in Verbindung mit gleichzeitigen Erscheinungen, 1825,_ part
ii. p. 82.
Footnote SG:
_Commentaries reales de las Incas_, parte ii. 1722, pp. 27, 51.
Footnote SH:
_Historia de las Indias_, 1533, p. 67. See my _Essai Politique sur la
Nouvelle Espagne_, ed. 2, t. iii. p. 424.
Footnote SI:
See the _Essai politique_, t. iii. p. 371, 377; and also Joaquin
Acosta’s _Descubrimiento de la Nueva Granada_, 1848, p. 14.
Footnote SJ:
Prescott’s _Conquest of Peru_, vol. i. pp. 464–477.
Footnote SK:
Relation hist., t. iii. pp. 703, 705, 713.
Footnote SL:
Raleigh, _The Discovery of the large, rich, and beautiful Empire of
Guiana, performed in 1595_. Edition published by Sir Robert
Schomburgk, 1848, pp. 119 and 137.
Footnote SM:
_Examen critique de l’histoire de la Géographie du Nouveau Continent
et des progrès de l’Astronomie nautique aux 15me et 16me siècles_, t.
i. p. 349.
Footnote SN:
Peter Martyr’s _Epist._ dxl. p. 296.
Footnote SO:
Joaquin Acosta, _Compendio hist. del Descubrimiento de la Nueva
Granada_, p. 49.
Footnote SP:
_Vida del Almirante por Don Fernando Colon_, cap. 90.
Footnote SQ:
See my _Atlas géographique et physique de la Nouv. Espagne_, pi. iv.
and _Atlas de la Relation historique_, pl. xxii. xxiii.; also my
_Voyage aux regiones équinoxiales du Nouveau Continent_, t. iii. pp.
117–154, and _Essai politique sur la royaume de la Nouvelle Espagne_,
t. i. 2nd ed. 1825, pp. 202–248.
Footnote SR:
_Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Soc. of London for the year
1830_, pp. 59–68.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES
1. P. 54, changed “_Plateau de la Tartaric_” to “_Plateau de la
Tartarie_”.
2. P. 134, changed “Compare my _Relation historique_, t. i. p. 492, t.
ii. pp. 653, 703, 6ith Richard Schomburgk” to “Compare my
_Relation historique_, t. i. p. 492, t. ii. pp. 653, 703, with
Richard Schomburgk”.
3. Pp. 380 and 432, added missing footnote anchors.
4. Silently corrected obvious typographical errors and variations in
spelling.
5. Retained archaic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as printed.
6. Re-indexed symbol designated footnotes using letters and collected
together at the end of the last chapter.
7. Numbered footnotes were re-indexed and left in place.
8. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.
9. Enclosed bold font in =equals=.
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