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Zitierempfehlung
Alexander von Humboldt: „Cotopaxi“, in: ders., Sämtliche Schriften digital, herausgegeben von Oliver Lubrich und Thomas Nehrlich, Universität Bern 2021. URL: <https://humboldt.unibe.ch/text/1810-Pittoreske_Ansichten_in-15-neu> [abgerufen am 26.04.2024].
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| Titel | Cotopaxi | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jahr | 1822 | ||||
| Ort | Hartford, Connecticut | ||||
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Nachweis in: Cabinet of Curiosities, Natural, Artificial, and Historical, selected from the most authentic records, ancient and modern 1 (1822), S. 78–79.
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua. | ||||
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Statistiken
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|78|
This mountain is the loftiest of those volcanoes of the An-des which, at recent epochs, have undergone eruptions. Not-withstanding it lies near the Equator, its summits are coveredwith perpetual snows. The absolute height of Cotopaxi, is18,876 feet, or three miles and a half, consequently it is 2,622feet, or half a mile, higher than Vesuvius would be, were thatmountain placed on the top of the Peak of Teneriffe! Coto-paxi is the most mischievous of the volcanoes in the kingdom ofQuito, and its explosions are the most frequent and disastrous.The masses of scoriæ, and the pieces of rock, thrown out ofthis volcano, cover a surface of several square leagues, andwould form, were they heaped together, a prodigious moun-tain. In 1738, the flames of Cotopaxi rose 3000 feet, or up-wards of 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 quantity ofashes ejected at the mouth of Cotopaxi was so great, that itwas dark till three in the afternoon. The explosion whichtook place in 1803, was preceded by the sudden melting of thesnows which covered the mountain. For twenty years before,no smoke or vapour, that could be perceived, had issued fromthe crater; but in a single night, the subterraneous fires becameso active, that at sun-rise, the external walls of the cone, heat-ed to a very considerable temperature, appeared naked, andof the dark colour which is peculiar to vitrified scoriæ. “At
|79| the port of Guayquil,” observes Humboldt, “fifty-two leaguesdistant, in a straight line from the crater, we heard, day andnight, the noise of this volcano, like continued discharges of abattery; and we distinguished these tremendous sounds evenon the Pacific Ocean.”
The form of Cotopaxi is the most beautiful and regular ofthe colossal summits of the high Andes. It is a perfect cone,which, covered with a perpetual layer of snow, shines withdazzling splendour at the setting of the sun, and detaches it-self in the most picturesque manner from the azure vault above.This covering of snow conceals from the eye of the observereven the smallest inequalities of the soil; no point of rock, nostony mass, penetrating this coat of ice, or breaking the regu-larity of the figure of the cone.
cotopaxi.