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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Its Texture Becomes Granular; The Mica, Less
Frequent, Is More Unequally Spread Through The Rock.
Instead of
garnets we met with a few solitary crystals of hornblende.
It is,
however, not a syenite, but rather a granite of new formation. We
were three quarters of an hour in reaching the summit of the
pyramid. This part of the way is not dangerous, provided the
traveller carefully examines the stability of each fragment of rock
on which he places his foot. The granite superposed on the gneiss
does not present a regular separation into beds: it is divided by
clefts, which often cross one another at right angles. Prismatic
blocks, one foot wide and twelve long, stand out from the ground
obliquely, and appear on the edges of the precipice like enormous
beams suspended over the abyss.
Having arrived at the summit, we enjoyed, for a few minutes only,
the serenity of the sky. The eye ranged over a vast extent of
country: looking down to the north was the sea, and to the south,
the fertile valley of Caracas. The barometer was at 20 inches 7.6
lines; the thermometer at 13.7 degrees. We were at thirteen hundred
and fifty toises of elevation. We gazed on an extent of sea, the
radius of which was thirty-six leagues. Persons who are affected by
looking downward from a considerable height should remain at the
centre of the small flat which crowns the eastern summit of the
Silla. The mountain is not very remarkable for height:
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