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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Here, In The Equinoctial Zone, It Is The
Increase Of Humidity That Recalls Them To Life; While In Georgia And
Florida, in the temperate zone, it is the augmentation of heat that
rouses these animals from a state of nervous
And muscular debility,
during which the active powers of respiration are suspended or
singularly diminished. The season of great drought, improperly called
the summer of the torrid zone, corresponds with the winter of the
temperate zone; and it is a curious physiological phenomenon to
observe the alligators of North America plunged into a winter-sleep by
excess of cold, at the same period when the crocodiles of the Llanos
begin their siesta or summer-sleep. If it were probable that these
animals of the same family had heretofore inhabited the same northern
country, we might suppose that, in advancing towards the equator, they
feel the want of repose after having exercised their muscles for seven
or eight months, and that they retain under a new sky the habits which
appear to be essentially linked with their organization.
Having passed the mouths of the channels communicating with the lake
of Capanaparo, we entered a part of the Orinoco, where the bed of the
river is narrowed by the mountains of Baraguan. It is a kind of
strait, reaching nearly to the confluence of the Rio Suapure. From
these granite mountains the natives heretofore gave the name of
Baraguan to that part of the Orinoco comprised between the mouths of
the Arauca and the Atabapo.
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