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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30th of April, 1811. Eruption of the volcano in St. Vincent; and
the same day subterranean noises at Caracas, and on the banks of
the Apure.)
The volcanic islands form one-fifth of that great arc extending
from the coast of Paria to the peninsula of Florida. Running from
south to north, they close the Caribbean Sea on the eastern side,
while the greater West India Islands appear like the remains of a
group of primitive mountains, the summit of which seems to have
been between Cape Abacou, Point Morant, and the Copper Mountains,
in that part where the islands of St. Domingo, Cuba, and Jamaica,
are nearest to each other. Considering the basin of the Atlantic as
an immense valley* which separates the two continents, and where,
from 20 degrees south to 30 degrees north, the salient angles
(Brazil and Senegambia) correspond to the receding angles (the gulf
of Guinea and the Caribbean Sea), we are led to think that the
latter sea owes its formation to the action of currents, which,
like the current of rotation now existing, have flowed from east to
west; and have given the southern coast of Porto Rico, St. Domingo,
and the island of Cuba their uniform configuration. (* The valley
is narrowest (300 leagues) between Cape St. Roque and Sierra Leone.
Proceeding toward the north along the Coasts of the New Continent,
from its pyramidal extremity, or the Straits of Magellan, we
imagine we recognise the effects of a repulsion directed first
toward the north-east, then toward the north-west, and finally
again to the north-east.) This supposition of an oceanic irruption
has been the source of two other hypotheses on the origin of the
smaller West India Islands.
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