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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Some
Rivers, The Rhone For Instance, Near Geneva, Have A Decidedly Blue
Colour.
It is said, that the snow-waters of the Alps are sometimes of
a dark emerald green.
Several lakes of Savoy and of Peru have a brown
colour approaching black. Most of these phenomena of coloration are
observed in waters that are believed to be the purest; and it is
rather from reasonings founded on analogy, than from any direct
analysis, that we may throw any light on so uncertain a matter. In the
vast system of rivers near the mouth of the Rio Zama, a fact which
appears to me remarkable is, that the black waters are principally
restricted to the equatorial regions. They begin about five degrees of
north latitude; and abound thence to beyond the equator as far as
about two degrees of south latitude. The mouth of the Rio Negro is
indeed in the latitude of 3 degrees 9 minutes; but in this interval
the black and white waters are so singularly mingled in the forests
and the savannahs, that we know not to what cause the coloration must
be attributed. The waters of the Cassiquiare, which fall into the Rio
Negro, are as white as those of the Orinoco, from which it issues. Of
two tributary streams of the Cassiquiare very near each other, the
Siapa and the Pacimony, one is white, the other black.
When the Indians are interrogated respecting the causes of these
strange colorations, they answer, as questions in natural philosophy
or physiology are sometimes answered in Europe, by repeating the fact
in other terms.
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