This mountain is the loftiest of those volcanoes of theAndes which, at recent epochs, have undergone eruptions.Notwithstanding it lies near the Equator, its summits arecovered with perpetual snows. The absolute height ofCotopaxi is 18,876 feet, or three miles and a half, con-sequently it is 2,622 feet, or half a mile, higher than Vesu-vius would be, were that mountain placed on the top ofthe Peak of Teneriffe! Cotopaxi is the most mischievousof the volcanoes in the kingdom of Quito, and its explo-sions are the most frequent and disastrous. The masses ofscoriæ, and the pieces of rock, thrown out of this volcano,cover a surface of several square leagues, and would form,were they heaped together, a prodigious mountain. In1738, the flames of Cotopaxi rose 3000 feet, or upwardsof half a mile, above the brink of the crater. In 1744,the roarings of this volcano were heard at the distance of sixhundred miles. On the 4th of April, 1768, the quantityof ashes ejected at the mouth of Cotopaxi was so great, thatit was dark till three in the afternoon. The explosionwhich took place in 1803, was preceded by the suddenmelting of the snows that covered the mountain. Fortwenty years before no smoke or vapour, that could be per-ceived, had issued from the crater; but in a single nightthe subterraneous fires became so active, that at sun-rise theexternal walls of the cone, heated to a very considerabletemperature, appeared naked, and of the dark colour which is peculiar to vitrified scoriæ. “At the port ofGuayaquil,” observes Humboldt, “fifty-two leagues dis-tant in a straight line from the crater, we heard, day andnight, the noise of this volcano, like continued dischargesof a battery; and we distinguished these tremendous soundseven on the Pacific Ocean.”