Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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It Is Only In Some Ravines, That
We Find Columnar Basalts, Somewhat Curved, And Above Them Very
Recent Breccia, Resembling Volcanic Tufa.
The breccia contain
fragments of the same basalts which they cover; and it is asserted
that marine petrifactions are observed in them.
The same phenomenon
occurs in the Vicentin, near Montechio Maggiore.
The valley of Tacoronte is the entrance into that charming country,
of which travellers of every nation have spoken with rapturous
enthusiasm. Under the torrid zone I found sites where nature is
more majestic, and richer in the display of organic forms; but
after having traversed the banks of the Orinoco, the Cordilleras of
Peru, and the most beautiful valleys of Mexico, I own that I have
never beheld a prospect more varied, more attractive, more
harmonious in the distribution of the masses of verdure and of
rocks, than the western coast of Teneriffe.
The sea-coast is lined with date and cocoa trees. Groups of the
musa, as the country rises, form a pleasing contrast with the
dragon-tree, the trunks of which have been justly compared to the
tortuous form of the serpent. The declivities are covered with
vines, which throw their branches over towering poles. Orange trees
loaded with flowers, myrtles, and cypress trees encircle the
chapels reared to devotion on the isolated hills. The divisions of
landed property are marked by hedges formed of the agave and the
cactus. An innumerable quantity of cryptogamous plants, among which
ferns are the most predominant, cover the walls, and are moistened
by small springs of limpid water.
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