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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Of All The Productions On The Coasts Of Araya, That Which The
People Consider As The Most Extraordinary, Or We May Say The Most
Marvellous, Is 'the Stone Of The Eyes,' (Piedra De Los Ojos.) This
Calcareous Substance Is A Frequent Subject Of Conversation:
Being,
according to the natural philosophy of the natives, both a stone
and an animal.
It is found in the sand, where it is motionless; but
if placed on a polished surface, for instance on a pewter or
earthen plate, it moves when excited by lemon juice. If placed in
the eye, the supposed animal turns on itself, and expels every
other foreign substance that has been accidentally introduced. At
the new salt-works, and at the village of Maniquarez, these stones
of the eyes* were offered to us by hundreds, and the natives were
anxious to show us the experiment of the lemon juice. (* They are
found in the greatest abundance near the battery at the point of
Cape Araya.) They even wished to put sand into our eyes, in order
that we might ourselves try the efficacy of the remedy. It was easy
to see that the stones are thin and porous opercula, which have
formed part of small univalve shells. Their diameter varies from
one to four lines. One of their two surfaces is plane, and the
other convex. These calcareous opercula effervesce with lemon
juice, and put themselves in motion in proportion as the carbonic
acid is disengaged. By the effect of a similar reaction, loaves
placed in an oven move sometimes on a horizontal plane; a
phenomenon that has given occasion, in Europe, to the popular
prejudice of enchanted ovens.
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