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 Fibres Of The Full-Grown
Leaves Furnish Cords Of Extraordinary Strength.* (* At The Clock Of
The Cathedral Of Caracas,
A cord of maguey, half an inch in
diameter, sustained for fifteen years a weight of 350 pounds.)
Leaving the
Mountains of the Higuerote and Los Teques, we entered a
highly cultivated country, covered with hamlets and villages;
several of which would in Europe be called towns. From east to
west, on a line of twelve leagues in extent, we passed La Victoria,
San Mateo, Turmero, and Maracay, containing together more than 28,
000 inhabitants. The plains of the Tuy may be considered as the
eastern extremity of the valleys of Aragua, extending from Guigne,
on the borders of the lake of Valencia, as far as the foot of Las
Cocuyzas. A barometrical measurement gave me 295 toises for the
absolute height of the Valle del Tuy, near the farm of Manterola,
and 222 toises for that of the surface of the lake. The Rio Tuy,
flowing from the mountains of Las Cocuyzas, runs first towards the
west, then turning to the south and to the east, it takes its
course along the high savannahs of Ocumare, receives the waters of
the valley of Caracas, and reaches the sea near cape Codera. It is
the small portion of its basin in the westward direction which,
geologically speaking, would seem to belong to the valley of
Aragua, if the hills of calcareous tufa, breaking the continuity of
these valleys between Consejo and La Victoria, did not deserve some
consideration.
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