COTOPAXI.

This mountain is the loftiest of those volcanoes of the Andes which, at recent epochs, have undergone eruptions.

Notwithstanding it lies near the Equator, its summits are covered with perpetual snows.

The absolute height of Cotopaxi is 18,876 feet, or three miles and a half, consequently it is 2,622 feet, or half a mile, higher than Vesuvius would be, were that mountain placed on the top of the Peak of Teneriffe!

Cotopaxi is the most mischievous of the volcanoes in the kingdom of Quito, and its explosions are the most frequent and disastrous.

The masses of scoriae, 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.

In 1738, the flames of Cotopaxi rose 3000 feet, or upwards of half a mile, above the brink of the crater.

In 1744, the roarings of this volcano were heard at the distance of six hundred miles.

On the 4th of April, 1768, the quantity of ashes ejected at the mouth of Cotopaxi was so great, that it was dark till three in the afternoon.

The explosion which took place in 1803, was preceded by the sudden melting of the snows that covered the mountain.

For twenty years before no smoke or vapour, that could be perceived, had issued from the crater; but in a single night the subterraneous fires became so active, that at sun-rise the external walls of the cone, heated to a very considerable temperature, appeared naked, and of the dark colour which is peculiar to vitrified scoriae.

"At the port of Guayaquil," observes Humboldt, "fifty-two leagues distant in a straight line from the crater, we heard, day and night, the noise of this volcano, like continued discharges of a battery; and we distinguished these tremendous sounds even on the Pacific Ocean."

The form of Cotopaxi is the most beautiful and regular of the colossal summits of the high Andes. It is a perfect cone, which, covered with a perpetual layer of snow, shines with dazzling splendour at the setting of the sun, and detaches itself in the most picturesque manner from the azure vault above.

This covering of snow conceals from the eye of the observer even the smallest inequalities of the soil; no point of rock, no stony mass, penetrating this coat of ice, or breaking the regularity of the figure of the cone.