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 Sailed Along The Coasts Of Lancerota, Of The Island Of Lobos,
And Of Forteventura.
The second of these islands seems to have
anciently formed part of the two others.
This geological hypothesis
was started in the seventeenth century by the Franciscan, Juan
Galindo. That writer supposed that king Juba had named six Canary
Islands only, because, in his time, three among them were
contiguous. Without admitting the probability of this hypothesis,
some learned geographers have imagined they recognized, in the two
islands Nivaria and Ombrios, the Canaria and Capraria of the
ancients.
The haziness of the horizon prevented us, during the whole of our
passage from Lancerota to Teneriffe, from discovering the summit of
the peak of Teyde. If the height of this volcano is 1905 toises, as
the last trigonometrical measure of Borda indicates, its summit
ought to be visible at a distance of 43 leagues, supposing the eye
on a level with the ocean, and a refraction equal to 0.079 of
distance. It has been doubted whether the peak has ever been seen
from the channel which separates Lancerota from Forteventura, and
which is distant from the volcano, according to the chart of
Varela, 2 degrees 29 minutes, or nearly 50 leagues. This phenomenon
appears nevertheless to have been verified by several officers of
the Spanish navy. I had in my hand, on board the Pizarro, a
journal, in which it was noted, that the peak of Teneriffe had been
seen at 135 miles distance, near the southern cape of Lancerota,
called Pichiguera.
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