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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The Strong Winds That Are Ingulfed In
The Valley Of Neiva Are Noted For Their Excessive Heat.
We may be at
first surprised to perceive that the calm ceases as we approach the
lofty mountains in the upper course of the river, but this
astonishment ends when we recollect that the dry and burning winds of
the Llanos de Neiva are the effect of descending currents.
The columns
of cold air rush from the top of the Nevados of Quindiu and of
Guanacas into the valley, driving before them the lower strata of the
atmosphere. Everywhere the unequal heating of the soil, and the
proximity of mountains covered with perpetual snow, cause partial
currents within the tropics, as well as in the temperate zone. The
violent winds of Neiva are not the effect of a repercussion of the
trade-winds; they rise where those winds cannot penetrate; and if the
mountains of the Upper Orinoco, the tops of which are generally
crowned with trees, were more elevated, they would produce the same
impetuous movements in the atmosphere as we observe in the Cordilleras
of Peru, of Abyssinia, and of Thibet. The intimate connection that
exists between the direction of rivers, the height and disposition of
the adjacent mountains, the movements of the atmosphere, and the
salubrity of the climate, are subjects well worthy of attention. The
study of the surface and the inequalities of the soil would indeed be
irksome and useless were it not connected with more general
considerations.
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