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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The carbonic acid had not been formed by the absorption
of the atmospheric oxygen.
That which is evolved from the berries
of the coffee-tree slightly moistened, and placed in a phial with a
glass stopple filled with air, contains alcohol in suspension; like
the foul air which is formed in our cellars during the fermentation
of must. On agitating the gas in contact with water, the latter
acquires a decidedly alcoholic flavour. How many substances are
perhaps contained in a state of suspension in those mixtures of
carbonic acid and hydrogen, which are called deleterious miasmata,
and which rise everywhere within the tropics, in marshy grounds, on
the sea-shore, and in forests where the soil is strewed with dead
leaves, rotten fruits, and putrefying insects.)
If the troubles of St. Domingo, the temporary rise in the price of
colonial produce, and the emigration of French planters, were the
first causes of the establishment of coffee plantations on the
continent of America, in the island of Cuba, and in Jamaica; their
produce has far more than compensated the deficiency of the
exportation from the French West India Islands. This produce has
augmented in proportion to the population, the change of customs,
and the increasing luxury of the nations of Europe. The island of
St. Domingo exported, in 1700, at the time of Necker's
administration, nearly seventy-six million pounds of coffee.* (*
French pounds, containing 9216 grains. 112 English pounds = 105
French pounds; and 160 Spanish pounds = 93 French pounds.
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