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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These Membranes, Separated From The
Rest Of The More Aqueous Liquid, Are Elastic, Almost Like Caoutchouc;
But They Undergo, In Time, The Same Phenomena Of Putrefaction As
Gelatine.
The people call the coagulum that separates by the contact
of the air, cheese.
This coagulum grows sour in the space of five or
six days, as I observed in the small portions which I carried to Nueva
Valencia. The milk contained in a stopped phial, had deposited a
little coagulum; and, far from becoming fetid, it exhaled constantly a
balsamic odour. The fresh juice mixed with cold water was scarcely
coagulated at all; but on the contact of nitric acid the separation of
the viscous membranes took place. We sent two bottles of this milk to
M. Fourcroy at Paris: in one it was in its natural state, and in the
other, mixed with a certain quantity of carbonate of soda. The French
consul residing in the island of St. Thomas, undertook to convey them
to him.
The extraordinary tree of which we have been speaking appears to be
peculiar to the Cordillera of the coast, particularly from Barbula to
the lake of Maracaybo. Some stocks of it exist near the village of San
Mateo; and, according to M. Bredemeyer, whose travels have so much
enriched the fine conservatories of Schonbrunn and Vienna, in the
valley of Caucagua, three days journey east of Caracas. This
naturalist found, like us, that the vegetable milk of the palo de vaco
had an agreeable taste and an aromatic smell.
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