Personal Narrative of Travels to the Equinoctial Regions of America, During the Years 1799-1804, 1. köide

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H.G. Bohn, 1852 - 505 pages

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Page 135 - The pleasure felt on discovering the southern cross was warmly shared by such of the crew as had lived in the colonies. In the solitude of the seas, we hail a star as a friend from whom we have been long separated.
Page 135 - It is a timepiece that advances very regularly near four minutes a day; and no other group of stars exhibits, to the naked eye, an observation of time so easily made. How often have we heard our guides exclaim, in the savannahs of the Venezuela, or in the desert extending from Lima to Truxillo, ' Midnight is past, the Cross begins to bend...
Page 364 - During this day I was particularly struck with a remark of Humboldt's, who often alludes to " the thin vapour which, without changing the transparency of the air, renders its tints more harmonious, and softens its effects.
Page 452 - The walls of the houses that were not thrown down, as those of the street San Juan, near the Capuchin Hospital, were cracked in such a manner, that it was impossible to run the risk of inhabiting them. The effects of the earthquake were somewhat less violent in the western and southern parts of the city, between the principal square and the ravin of Caraguata.
Page 20 - Havannah ; while forty or fifty days might be sufficient to carry it from the straits of Florida to the bank of Newfoundland. It would be difficult to fix the rapidity of the retrograde current from this bank to the coasts of Africa : estimating the mean velocity of the waters at seven or eight miles in twenty-four hours, we find ten or eleven months for this last distance.
Page 370 - ... to lie upon a smooth bed of verdure. Between the tropics, the strength and luxury of vegetation give such a development to plants, that the smallest of the dicotyledonous family become shrubs.* It would seem as if the liliaceous plants, mingled with the gramina, assumed the place of the flowers of our meadows.
Page 452 - ... ear. Implements for digging, and clearing away the ruins were entirely wanting; and the people were obliged to use their bare hands, to disinter the living. The wounded, as well as the sick who had escaped from the hospitals, were laid on the banks of the small river Guayra.
Page xxi - America, who have been the objects of so many systematic reveries, and on whom M. Volney has lately published some accurate and intelligent observations inspire less interest since celebrated navigators have made known to us the inhabitants of the South Sea islands, in whose character we find a striking mixture of perversity and meekness. The state of half-civilization existing among those islanders gives a peculiar charm to the description of their manners. A king, followed by a numerous suite,...
Page 106 - Naples till 1805, is a fragment of lava enclrsing a real granite, which is composed of reddish feldspar with a pearly lustre like adularia, quartz, mica, hornblende, and, what is very remarkable, lazulite. But in general the masses of known primitive rocks, (I mean those which perfectly resemble our granites, our gneiss, and our mica-slates) are very rare in lavas ; the substances we commonly denote by the name of granite, thrown out by Vesuvius, are mixtures of nepheline, mica, and pyroxene.
Page 261 - We were obliged to yield to the pusillanimity of our guides, and trace back our steps. The appearance of the cavern was indeed very uniform. We find, that a bishop of St Thomas of Guiana had gone farther than ourselves.

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