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 Fire Shows Itself When The
Ground, Strongly Heated By The Sun, Receives The First Rains; Or When,
After Violent Showers, The Earth Begins To Dry.
The first cause of
these igneous phenomena lies at immense depths below the secondary
rocks, in the primitive formations:
The rains and the decomposition of
atmospheric water act only a secondary part. The hottest springs of
the globe issue immediately from granite. Petroleum gushes from
mica-schist; and frightful detonations are heard at Encaramada,
between the rivers Arauca and Cuchivero, in the midst of the granitic
soil of the Orinoco and the Sierra Parima. Here, as everywhere else on
the globe, the focus of volcanoes is in the most ancient soils; and it
appears that an intimate connection exists between the great phenomena
that heave up and liquify the crust of our planet, and those igneous
meteors which are seen from time to time on its surface, and which
from their littleness we are tempted to attribute solely to the
influence of the atmosphere.
Duida, though lower than the height assigned to it by popular belief,
is however the most prominent point of the whole group of mountains
that separate the basin of the Lower Orinoco from that of the Amazon.
These mountains lower still more rapidly on the north-east, toward the
Purunama, than on the east, toward the Padamo and the Rio Ocamo. In
the former direction the most elevated summits next to Duida are
Cuneva, at the sources of the Rio Paru (one of the tributary streams
of the Ventuari), Sipapo, Calitamini, which forms one group with
Cunavami and the peak of Umiana.
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