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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At The Sources Of The Latter Live The
Guainares, Who Are Much Less Copper-Coloured, Or Tawny, Than The Other
Inhabitants Of Those Countries.
This is one of the tribes called by
the missionaries fair Indians (Indios blancos).
Near the mouth of the
Ocamo, travellers are shown a rock, which is the wonder of the
country. It is a granite passing into gneiss, and remarkable for the
peculiar distribution of the black mica, which forms little ramified
veins. The Spaniards call this rock Piedra Mapaya (the map-stone). The
little fragment which I procured indicated a stratified rock, rich in
white feldspar, and containing, together with spangles of mica,
grouped in streaks, and variously twisted, some crystals of
hornblende. It is not a syenite, but probably a granite of new
formation, analogous to those to which the stanniferous granites
(hyalomictes) and the pegmatites, or graphic granites, belong.
Beyond the confluence of the Macava, the Orinoco suddenly diminishes
in breadth and depth, becoming extremely sinuous, like an Alpine
torrent. Its banks are surrounded by mountains, and the number of its
tributary streams on the south augments considerably, yet the
Cordillera on the north remains the most elevated. It requires two
days to go from the mouth of the Macava, to the Rio Gehette, the
navigation being very difficult, and the boats, on account of the want
of water, being often dragged along the shore. The tributary streams
along this distance are, on the south, the Daracapo and the Amaguaca;
which skirt on the west and east the mountains of Guanaya and
Yumariquin, where the bertholletias are gathered.
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