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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-40-neu> [abgerufen am 13.10.2024].
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| Titel | Cotopaxi | ||||
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| Jahr | 1856 | ||||
| Ort | Hartford, Connecticut | ||||
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Nachweis in: John Loraine Abbott, The wonders of the world: A complete museum, descriptive and pictorial, of the wonderful phenomena and results of nature, science and art, Hartford: Case, Tiffany and Company 1856, S. 13–14.
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Postumer Nachdruck Hernandez de Alba, Guillermo, Archivo Epistolar del Sabio Naturalista josé Celestino Mutis, Bogotá 1947, Band 2, S. 71–72.
Perez Arbelaez, Enrique, José Celestino Mutis y la Real Expedición Botánica del Nuevo reyno de Granada, 2a ed., Bogotá 1983, S. 152–153. Alexander von Humboldt, Briefe aus Amerika 1799–1804, herausgegeben von Ulrike Moheit, Berlin: Akademie 1993, S. 155–156. |
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| Sprache | Englisch | ||||
| Typografischer Befund | Antiqua. | ||||
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|13|
This mountain is the loftiest of those volcanoes of the Andes which, atrecent epochs, have undergone eruptions. Notwithstanding it lies nearthe equator, its summits are covered with perpetual snows. The absolutehight of Cotopaxi is eighteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-sixfeet, or three miles and a half; consequently it is two thousand, sixhundred and twenty-two feet, or half a mile, higher than Vesuviuswould be, were that mountain placed on the top of the peak of Teneriffe!Cotopaxi is the most mischievous of the volcanoes in the vicinity of Quito,and its explosions are the most frequent and disastrous. The masses ofscoriæ, and the pieces of rock, thrown out of this volcano, cover a surfaceof several square leagues, and would form, were they heaped together, aprodigious mountain. In 1738, the flames of Cotopaxi rose three thousandfeet, or upward of half a mile, above the brink of the crater. In 1744,the roarings of this volcano were heard at the distance of six hundredmiles. On the fourth of April, 1768, the quantity of ashes ejected at themouth 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 melt-ing of the snows which covered the mountain. For twenty years before nosmoke or vapor, that could be perceived, had issued from the crater; but ina single night the subterraneous fires became so active, that at sunrise theexternal walls of the cone, heated to a very considerable temperature,appeared naked, and of the dark color which is peculiar to vitrified scoriæ.“At the port of Guyaquil,” observes Humboldt, “fifty-two leagues distantin a straight line from the crater, we heard, day and night, the noise of thisvolcano, like continued discharges of a battery; and we distinguished thesetremendous sounds even on the Pacific ocean.”
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The form of Cotopaxi is the most beautiful and regular of the colossalsummits of the high Andes. It is a perfect cone, which, covered with aperpetual layer of snow, shines with dazzling splendor at the setting of thesun, and detaches itself in the most picturesque manner from the azurevault above. This covering of snow conceals from the eye of the observereven 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 thecone.
COTOPAXI.