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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We Passed Cape St. Vincent, Which Is Of Basaltic Formation, At The
Distance Of More Than Eighty Leagues.
It is not distinctly seen at
a greater distance than 15 leagues, but the granitic mountain
called the Foya de Monchique, situated near the Cape, is
perceptible, as pilots allege, at the distance of 26 leagues.
If
this assertion be exact, the Foya is 700 toises (1363 metres), and
consequently 116 toises (225 metres) higher than Vesuvius.
From Corunna to the 36th degree of latitude we had scarcely seen
any organic being, excepting sea-swallows and a few dolphins. We
looked in vain for sea-weeds (fuci) and mollusca, when on the 11th
of June we were struck with a curious sight which afterwards was
frequently renewed in the southern ocean. We entered on a zone
where the whole sea was covered with a prodigious quantity of
medusas. The vessel was almost becalmed, but the mollusca were
borne towards the south-east, with a rapidity four times greater
than the current. Their passage lasted near three quarters of an
hour. We then perceived but a few scattered individuals, following
the crowd at a distance as if tired with their journey. Do these
animals come from the bottom of the sea, which is perhaps in these
latitudes some thousand fathoms deep? or do they make distant
voyages in shoals? We know that the mollusca haunt banks; and if
the eight rocks, near the surface, which captain Vobonne mentions
having seen in 1732, to the north of Porto Santo, really exist, we
may suppose that this innumerable quantity of medusas had been
thence detached; for we were but 28 leagues from the reef.
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