Digitale Ausgabe
Download
| TEI-XML (Ansicht) | |
| Text (Ansicht) | |
| Text normalisiert (Ansicht) |
Ansicht
| Textgröße | |
| Originalzeilenfall ein/aus | |
| Zeichen original/normiert | |
Zitierempfehlung
Alexander von Humboldt: „Cataracts of the Orinoco“, in: ders., Sämtliche Schriften digital, herausgegeben von Oliver Lubrich und Thomas Nehrlich, Universität Bern 2021. URL: <https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1808-Ansichten_der_Natur_Wasserfaelle-13-neu> [abgerufen am 19.04.2024].
URL und Versionierung
|
Permalink: https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1808-Ansichten_der_Natur_Wasserfaelle-13-neu |
| Die Versionsgeschichte zu diesem Text finden Sie auf github. |
| Titel | Cataracts of the Orinoco | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jahr | 1850 | ||||
| Ort | Newcastle-upon-Tyne | ||||
|
Nachweis in: Newcastle Guardian 204 (5. Januar 1850), S. 6.
|
|||||
| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua; Spaltensatz; Auszeichnung: Kursivierung; Schmuck: Kapitälchen. | ||||
|
Identifikation |
|||||
Statistiken
|
|||||
|6|
—A foaming surface offour miles in length presents itself
at once to the eye:iron-black masses of rock resembling ruins
and battle-mented towers rise frowning from the waters. Rocksand islands are adorned with the luxuriant vegetationof the tropical forest; a perpetual mist hangs over thewaters, and the summits of the lofty palms pierce throughthe cloud of spray and vapour. When the rays of theglowing evening sun are refracted in these humid exha-lations a magic optical effect begins. Coloured bowsshine, vanish, and reappear; and the ethereal image isswayed to and fro by the breath of the sportive breeze.During the long rainy season the streaming waters bringdown islands of vegetable mould, and thus the nakedrocks are studded with bright flower-beds, adorned withMelastomas and Droseras, and with small-leaved mimo-sas and ferns. These spots recall to the recollection ofthe European those blocks of granite decked with flowerswhich rise solitary amidst the glaciers of Savoy, and arecalled by the dwellers in the Alps “Jardins,” or
“Cour-tills.” In the blue distance the eye
rests on the moun-tain chain of Cunavami, a long extended ridge
whichterminates abruptly in a truncated cone. We saw thelatter (Calitamini is its Indian name) glowing at sunsetas if in roseate flames. This appearance returns daily:no one has ever been near the mountain to detect theprecise cause of this brightness, which may perhapsproceed from a reflecting surface produced by the de-composition of talc or mica slate. During the five dayswhich we passed in the neighbourhood of the cataracts,it was striking to hear the thunder of the rushing tor-rents sound three times louder by night than by day. Inall European waterfalls the same phenomenon is re-marked. What can be its cause in a wilderness wherethere is nothing to interrupt the repose of nature? Per-haps the currents of heated ascending air, by causingirregular density in the elastic medium, impede the pro-pagation of sound during the day, by the disturbancethey may occasion in the waves of sound; whereasduring the
nocturnal cooling of the earth’s surface theupward
currents entirely cease.—
Humboldt’s Aspects ofNature.
Cataracts of the Orinoco.