Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 2 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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This Bottom, According To The Sounding, And My
Barometric Measurements, Is 40 Toises Less Than 222, Or 182 Above The
Surface Of The Ocean.
On the road from Guigue to the Llanos, by the
table-land of La Villa de Cura, I found, to the south of the dividing
ridge, and on its southern declivity, no point of level corresponding
to the 182 toises, except near San Juan.
The absolute height of this
village is 194 toises. But, I repeat that, farther towards the west,
in the country between the Cano de Cambury and the sources of the Rio
Pao, which I was not able to visit, the point of level of the bottom
of the lake is much further north.) The progressive retreat of the
waters has given birth to the beautiful and luxuriant plains of
Maracay, Cura, Mocundo, Guigue, and Santa Cruz del Escoval, planted
with tobacco, sugar-canes, coffee, indigo, and cacao; but how can it
be doubted for a moment that the lake alone spreads fertility over
this country? If deprived of the enormous mass of vapour which the
surface of the waters sends forth daily into the atmosphere, the
valleys of Aragua would become as dry and barren as the surrounding
mountains.
The mean depth of the lake is from twelve to fifteen fathoms; the
deepest parts are not, as is generally admitted, eighty, but
thirty-five or forty deep. Such is the result of soundings made with
the greatest care by Don Antonio Manzano.
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