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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In The Southern Part Of Bavaria
(Oberbaiern), I Saw The Alpine Limestone, Containing These Same
Strata Of Schistous Clay And
Marl, which, though thinner, whiter,
and especially more frequent, characterize the limestone of Jura.
Respecting the slates of Blattenberg, in
The canton of Glaris which
some mineralogists, because of their numerous impressions of fish,
have long mistaken for the cupreous slates of Mansfeld, they
belong, according to M. von Buch, to a real transition formation.
All these geological data tend to prove that strata of marl, more
or less mixed with carbon, are to be found in the limestone of
Jura, in the alpine limestone, and in the transition schists. The
mixture of carbon, sulphuretted iron, and copper, appears to me to
augment with the relative antiquity of the formations.) The strata
of marl effervesce with acids, though silex and alumina predominate
in them: they are strongly impregnated with carbon, and sometimes
blacken the hands, like a real vitriolic schistus. The supposed
gold mine of Cuchivano, which was the object of our examination, is
nothing but an excavation cut into one of those black strata of
marl, which contain pyrites in abundance. The excavation is on the
right bank of the river Juagua, and must be approached with
caution, because the torrent there is more than eight feet deep.
The sulphurous pyrites are found, some massive, and others
crystallized and disseminated in the rock; their colour, of a very
clear golden yellow, does not indicate that they contain copper.
They are mixed with fibrous sulphuret of iron,* (* Haarkies.) and
nodules of swinestone, or fetid carbonate of lime.
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