AN ACCOUNT OF TWO ATTEMPTS TO ASCEND CHIMBORAZO.

By Alexander von Humboldt.

[The following interesting narrative is abridged from an excerpt from the unpublished Journal of this distinguished traveller, communicated to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.]

The highest mountain-summits of both continents, --in the old continent, Dhawalagiri (White Mountain) and the Jawahir; in the new, the Sorata and the Illimani,--remain unreached by man.

The highest point of the earth's surface attained, lies in South America on the south-east side of Chimborazo.

There travellers have reached the height of nearly 18,500 Paris feet--viz. in June 1802, 3016 toises, in December 1831, 3080 toises, above the level of the sea.

Barometrical measurements have thus been made, in the chain of the Andes 3720 (Paris) feet above the level of the summit of Mont Blanc.

The height of Mont Blanc is in relation to that of the Cordilleras so inconsiderable, that in the latter, there are much-frequented passes that are higher; indeed, the upper part of the great city of Potosi has an elevation only 323 toises inferior to that of the summit of Mont Blanc. I have thought it needful to premise these numerical statements, in order to present to the imagination definite points of comparison for the hypsometric, as it were plastic, contemplation of the surface of the earth.

One French foot is = 1.07892, or about 1 [Formel] English.--Tr.

A toise is = 1.94904 metres, or 6.39459 English feet.-- Tr.

On the 22nd of June 1799, I was in the crater of the Peak of Teneriffe.

Three years afterwards, almost on the same day (the 23rd June 1802), I reached a point 6700 feet higher, near the summit of Chimborazo.

After a long delay in the table-land of Quito, one of the most wonderful and picturesque regions of the earth, we undertook the journey towards the forests of the Peruvian bark trees of Loxa, the upper course of the river Amazons, westward of the celebrated strait (Pongo de Manseriche), and through the sandy desert along the Peruvian coast of the South Sea towards Lima, where we were to observe the transit of Mercury on the 9th November 1802.

On a plain covered with pumice-stone,-- where (after the fearful earthquake of 4th February 1797) the building of the new city Riobamba was begun,--we enjoyed for several days a splendid view of the bell or dome-shaped summit of Chimborazo.

We had the clearest weather, favouring trigonometrical observation.

By means of a large telescope, we had thoroughly examined the snow-mantle of the mountain, still 1570 toises distant, and discovered several ridges, which, projecting like sterile black streaks, converged towards the summit, and gave some hope that, upon them, a firm footing might be obtained in the region of eternal snow.

Riobamba Nuevo lies within sight of the enormous and now indented mountain Capac-urcu, called by the Spaniards El Altar, which (says a tradition of the natives) was once higher than Chimborazo, and after having been many years in a state of eruption, suddenly fell in.--Riobamba Nuevo must not be confounded with the old Riobamba of the great map of La Condamine and Don Pedro Maldonado.

The latter city was entirely destroyed by the great catastrophe of the 4th February 1797, which in a few minutes destroyed 45,000 human beings.--We were in the plain of Tapia, from which, on the 22nd June, we began our expedition towards Chimborazo, being already 8898 Paris feet (1483 toises) above the level of the South Sea.--We gently ascended as far as the foot of the mountain, where, in the Indian village Calpi, we were to pass the night.

This plain is sparingly covered with Cactus stems and Schinus molle, which resembles a weeping willow.

Herds of variegated llamas, in thousands, seek here a scanty subsistence.

At so great a height, the nightly terrestrial radiation of heat, when the sky is cloudless, proves injurious to agriculture, through cold and frost.

Very near to Calpi, northwestward of Lican, there is in the barren table-land a little isolated hill, the black mountain, Yana-Urcu, the name of which has not been given by the French academicians, but which, in a geognostical point of view, deserves much attention.

The hill lies S.S.E. of Chimborazo, at a distance of less than three miles (15 to 1°), and separated from the same by the high plain of Lusia only.

If in it we do not recognize a lateral eruption of Chimborazo, the origin of the cone must certainly be ascribed to the subterranean forces which, under that mountain, have for thousands of years vainly sought an opening.

It is of later origin than the elevation of the great dome-shaped mountain.

The Yana-Urcu forms, with the northern hill Naguangachi, a connected eminence in the form of a horse-shoe; the bow, more than a semicircle, is open towards the east.

There probably lies in the centre of the horse-shoe the point out of which the black slags have been thrown, that now lie spread far around.

We found there a funnel-shaped depression of about 120 feet in depth, in the interior of which there is a small hill, whose height does not equal that of the surrounding margin.

Yana-Urcu probably signifies the southern culminating point of the old crater-margin, which, at the most, is elevated 400 feet above the level of Calpi.

Naguangachi signifies the northern lower end.--According to the tradition of the natives, and according to old MSS. which the Cacike or Apu of Lican (the Conchocandi) possessed, the volcanic eruption of the Yana-Urcu occurred immediately after the death of the Inca Tupa-Yupanqui:--thus probably in the middle of the fifteenth century.

Tradition says that a fire-ball, or indeed a star, fell from heaven and set on fire the mountain.

Such fables, connecting the fall of aerolites with eruptions, are also spread among the tribes of Mexico.--On the eastern side of the Yana-Urcu, or rather at the foot of the hill towards Lican, the natives conducted us to a projecting rock, an opening in which resembled the mouth of a forsaken gallery.

Here, as well as at the distance of ten feet, there is heard a violent subterranean noise, which is accompanied by a current of air, or subterranean wind.

The current of air is much too weak to admit of the noise being attributed to it.

The noise certainly arises from a subterranean brook, which is precipitated downwards into a deep hollow, and through its fall occasions a motion in the air. A monk, the priest at Calpi, had, with the same idea, some time before, continued on the gallery at an open fissure to procure water for his village.

The hardness of the black augite rock probably interrupted the work.

Chimborazo, notwithstanding its enormous mass of snow, sends down into the table-land such insignificant brooks of water, that it may be presumed the greater part of its water flows through clefts to the interior.

In the village of Calpi itself also, there was formerly heard a great noise in a house that had no cellar.

Before the celebrated earthquake of the 4th February 1797, there sprang forth a brook in the south-west of the village at a deeper point.

Many Indians considered this brook as a part of the water that flows under the Yana-Urcu.

But since the great earthquake, this brook has again disappeared.

After we had passed the night at Calpi, which, according to my barometrical measurement, lies 9720 feet (1620 toises) above the sea, we began, on the morning of the 23rd, our proper expedition up Chimborazo.

We attempted to ascend the mountain on the S.S.E. side, and the Indians who were to attend us as guides, but of whom but a few had ever reached the limit of perpetual snow, gave this course the preference.

We found Chimborazo surrounded with great plains, which rise, step-like, one above the other.

Proceeding first through the Llanos de Lusia, then after rather a gradual ascent of scarcely 5000 feet in length, we reached the table-land (Llano) of Sisgun.

The first step (stufe) is at a height of 10,200 feet, the second 11,700.

These grass-grown plains thus equal in elevation, respectively, the highest summit of the Pyrenees (Peak Nethou) and the summit of the Peak of Teneriffe.

The perfect horizontality of these table-lands allows us to infer the long continuance of stagnant water.

The traveller imagines he sees before him the bottom of a lake.

On the acclivity of the Swiss Alps, there is sometimes observed this phenomenon of small steplike plains, lying one above the other, which, like the emptied basins of alpine lakes, are united by narrow open passes.

The widely extended grass lands are on Chimborazo, as every where around the high summits of the Andes, so monotonous that the family of the grasses are seldom interrupted by dicotyledonous plants.

There prevails almost the heathy scenery which I have seen in the barren part of northern Asia.

The Flora of Chimborazo, in general, appeared to us less rich than that of the other snow mountains which surround the city of Quito.

But a few Calceolariae, Compositae, and Gentianae, among which the beautiful Gentiana cernua shining forth with purple flowers,--rear themselves on the high plain of Sisgun, between the associated grasses.

These belong, for the most part, to the genera of Northern Europe.

The temperature of the air generally prevailing in these regions of alpine grasses, elevated respectively 1600 and 2000 toises, fluctuates by day between 4° and 16° C. (39°.2 and 60°.8 F.) by night between 0° and 10° (32° and 50° F.)

My plan was to perform a trigonometrical operation in the beautiful perfectly level grass land of Sisgun. I had made arrangements for measuring a base line here.

The angles of altitude would have proved very considerable in such proximity to the summit of Chimborazo.

There remained yet a perpendicular height of less than 8400 feet (the height of the Canigou in the Pyrenees) to determine.

Yet with the enormous masses of single mountains in the chain of the Andes, every determination of the height above the sea is compounded of a barometrical and trigonometrical observation.

I had taken with me the sextant and other instruments of measurement in vain.

The summit of Chimborazo remained densely veiled in mist.

From the high plain of Sisgun the ascent is tolerably steep as far as the little alpine lake of Yana-Coche.

Thus far I had remained on the mule, having from time to time alighted with my travelling companion M. Bonpland merely to collect plants.

Yana-Coche does not deserve the name of a lake.

It is a circular basin of scarcely 130 feet in diameter.

The sky became more and more obscured; but between and over the mist-strata there still lay scattered single groups of clouds.

The summit of Chimborazo was visible for a few moments only at a time.

Much snow having fallen during the preceding night, I left the mule where we found the lower border of this newly-fallen snow, a border which must not be confounded with the limit of perpetual snow.

The barometer showed that we had only now attained the height of 13,500 feet.

On other mountains, likewise near to the equator, I have seen snow fall at the height of 11,200 feet, but not lower.

My companion rode as far as the line of perpetual snow, i. e. to the height of Mont Blanc; which mountain, as is known, would not in this latitude (1° 27' south) always be covered with snow.

The horses and mules remained there to await our return.

A hundred and fifty toises above the little basin of Yana-Coche, we saw at length naked rock.

Hitherto the grass-land had withdrawn the ground from any geognostical examination.

Great walls of rock, extending from the N.E. towards the S.W., in part cleft into misshapen columns, reared themselves out of the eternal snow,--a brownish-black augite rock shining like pitch-stone porphyry.

The columns were very thin, perhaps from fifty to sixty feet in height, almost like the trachyte columns of Tabla- Umca on the volcano Pichincha.

One group stood alone, and reminded one of masts and stems of trees.

The steep walls led us through the snow region to a narrow ridge of rock extending towards the summit, by which alone it was possible for us to advance any farther; for the snow was then so soft that one scarcely dared to tread upon its surface.

The ridge consisted of very weathered crumbling rock.

It was often vesicular like a basaltic-amygdaloid.

The path became more and more narrow and steep.

The natives forsook us all but one at the height of 15,600 feet.

All entreaties and threats were unavailing.

The Indians maintained that they suffered more than we did from breathlessness.

We remained alone, Bonpland,--our amiable friend the younger son of the Marquis of Selvalegre, Carlos Montufar, who in the subsequent struggle for freedom, was shot (at the command of General Morillo), --a Mestize from the neighbouring village of San Juan,--and myself.

We attained, with great exertion and endurance, a greater height than we had dared hope to reach, as we were almost entirely wrapped in mist.

The ridge (very significantly called, in Spanish, Cuchilla, as it were the knife-back) was in many places only eight to ten inches broad.

On the left the precipice was concealed by snow, the surface of the latter seemed glazed with frost.

The thin icy mirror-like surface had an inclination of about 30°.

On the right our view sank shuddering 800 or 1000 feet into an abyss out of which projected, perpendicularly, snowless masses of rock.

We held the body continually inclined towards this side, for the precipice upon the left seemed still more threatening, because there no chance presented itself of grasping the toothed rock, and because, further, the thin ice-crust offered no security against sinking in the loose snow.

Only extremely light porous bits of dolerite could we roll down this crust of ice; and the inclined plane of snow was so extended that we lost sight of the stones thus rolled down before they came to rest.

The absence of snow, as well upon the ridge along which we ascended, as upon the rocks on our right hand towards the east, cannot be ascribed so much to the steepness of the masses, and to the gales of wind, as to open clefts, which breathe out warm air from deeper situated beds.

We soon found our further ascent more difficult, from the increase of the crumbling nature of the rock.

At single and very steep echelons it was necessary to apply at the same time the hands and feet, as is so usual in all alpine journeys.

As the rock was very keenly angular, we were painfully hurt, especially in the hands.

Leopold Von Buch and I suffered very much in this manner near the crater of the Peak of Teneriffe, which abounds in obsidian.--The little adhesion of the rocks upon the ridge now rendered greater caution necessary, as many masses which we supposed firm lay loose and covered with sand.

We proceeded one after the other, and so much the more slowly, as it was needful to try the places which seemed uncertain.

Happily the attempt to reach the summit of Chimborazo was the last of our mountain journeys in South America; hence previous experience guided us, and gave us more confidence in our powers.

It is a peculiar character of all excursions in the Andes, that above the snow line white people find themselves, in the most perilous situations, always without guides, indeed without any knowledge of localities.

We could see the summit no longer, even for a moment only at a time, and were hence doubly curious to know, how much higher it remained for us to ascend.

We examined the barometer at a point where the breadth of the ridge permitted of two persons standing conveniently together.

We were now at an elevation of 17,300 feet; thus scarcely two hundred feet higher than we had been two months before, when climbing a similar ridge on the Antisana. It is with the determining of heights in climbing mountains, as with the determining of temperature in the heat of summer.

One finds with vexation the thermometer not so high, the barometer not so low, as one expected.

As the air, notwithstanding the height, was quite saturated with moisture, we now found the loose rock and the sand that filled its interstices extremely wet.

The air was still 2° 8' (37° 04' Fahr.)

Shortly before, we had in a dry place been able to bury the thermometer three inches deep in the sand.

It indicated +5° 8' (+42° 44' Fahr.)

The result of this observation, which was made at the height of about 2860 toises, is very remarkable, for 400 toises lower down, at the limit of perpetual snow, the mean heat of the atmosphere is according to many observations, carefully collected by Boussingault and myself, only +1° 6' (34° 88' Fahr.)

The temperature of earth (sand) at +5° 8' (42° 44' Fahr.) must therefore be ascribed to the subterranean heat of the dolerite mountain; I do not say to the whole mass, but to the current of air ascending from the interior.

After an hour of cautious climbing, the ridge of rock became less steep; but alas! the mist remained as thick as ever.

We now began gradually to suffer from great nausea.

The tendency to vomiting was combined with some giddiness; and much more troublesome than the difficulty of breathing.

A coloured man (a Mestize of San Juan), not from selfish motives, but merely out of good-nature, had been unwilling to forsake us.

He was a poor vigorous peasant, and suffered more than we did.

We had haemorrhage from the gums and lips.

The conjunctiva of the eyes likewise, was, in all, gorged with blood.

These symptoms of extravasation in the eyes, and of oozing from the lips and gums, did not in the least disquiet us, as we had repeatedly experienced them before.

In Europe, M. Zumstein began to experience haemorrhage at a much lower elevation on Monte Rosa.

The Spanish warriors during the conquest of the equinoctial region of America (during the Conquista), did not ascend above the snow line, thus but little above the elevation of Mont Blanc, and yet Acosta, in his 'Historia Natural de las Indias,'--a kind of physical geography, which may be called a masterpiece of the sixteenth century,--speaks circumstantially of "nausea and spasm of the stomach," as painful symptoms of the mountain-sickness, which in these respects is analogous to sea-sickness.

On the volcano of Pichincha I once felt, without experiencing haemorrhage, so violent an affection of the stomach, accompanied by giddiness, that I was found senseless on the ground, just as I left my companions on a wall of rock above the defile of Verde-Cucha, in order to perform some electrical experiments on a perfectly open space.

The height was inconsiderable, below 13,800 feet.

But on the Antisana, at the considerable elevation of 17,220 feet, our young travelling companion, Don Carlos Montufar, bled freely from the lips.

All of these phenomena vary according to age, constitution, the tenderness of the skin, the preceding exertions of the muscular powers; yet for single individuals they are a kind of measure of the atmospheric tenuity, and of the absolute elevation reached.

According to my observations in the Cordilleras, these symptoms manifest themselves in white people, with a mercurial column between 14 inches,--and 15 inches 10 lines.

The layers of mist that prevented our seeing distant objects, appeared suddenly, notwithstanding the total stillness of the air, perhaps through electrical processes, to be broken up.

We recognized once more, and indeed immediately before us, the domeshaped summit of Chimborazo.

It was an earnest, momentous gaze.

The hope to reach this summit animated our powers anew.

The ridge of rock, only here and there covered with thin flakes of snow, became somewhat broader.

We hastened onwards, with certain steps, when all at once a ravine of some 400 feet in depth, and 50 broad, set an insurmountable barrier to our undertaking.

We saw distinctly beyond the abyss, our ridge of rock continued forward in the same direction; yet I doubt its leading to the summit itself.

The chasm was not to be gone round.

On the Antisana, M. Bonpland indeed had found it possible, after a very cold night, to proceed for a considerable length through the snow.

We durst not venture the attempt, because of the looseness of the mass, and the form of the precipice rendered climbing down impossible.

It was one o'clock in the afternoon.

We set up with much care the barometer.

It indicated 13 inches 11 [Formel] lines.

The temperature of the air was now --1° 6' (+29° 12' Fahr.), but after several years' stay in the hottest regions of the Tropics, this small degree of cold benumbed us.

Besides, our boots were thoroughly soaked with snow-water, for the sand that covered here and there the ridge was mixed with old snow.

According to La Place's barometrical formula, we had reached a height of 3016 toises, or more precisely 18,097 Paris feet.

If La Condamine's estimate of the height of Chimborazo, as noted on the stonetable of the Jesuit's College in Quito, be correct, there failed us yet of the summit of the mountain 1224 feet, or thrice the height of St. Peter's church at Rome.

We remained but a short time in this mournful solitude, being soon again entirely veiled in mist.

The humid air was not thereby set in motion.

No fixed direction was to be observed in single groups of the denser particles of vapour; I therefore cannot say whether at this elevation the west wind blows, opposing the Tropical monsoon.

We saw no longer the summit of Chimborazo, none of the neighbouring snow-mountains, still less the table lands of Quito.

We were as though isolated in a ball of air.

Some stone lichens only had followed us above the line of perpetual snow.

The last cryptogamic plants which I collected were Leeidea atrovirens (Lichen geographicus, Web.), and a Gyrophora of Acharius, a new species (Gyrophora rugosa), at about the height of 2820 toises.

The last moss, Grimmia longirostris, grew 400 toises lower down.

A butterfly (sphinx) was caught by M.

Bonpland at the height of 15,000 feet; we saw a fly 1600 feet higher.

I must remark, that we met with no condor on Chimborazo, that powerful vulture, which is so frequent on Antisana and Pichincha, and which shows great confidence from its ignorance of man.

The condor loves pure air, in order the easier from on high to recognize its prey or its food, for it gives dead animals the preference.

As the weather became more and more cloudy, we hastened down upon the same ledge of rock, that had favoured our ascent.

Caution, however, on account of the uncertainty of the steps, was more necessary than in climbing up.

We tarried only just to collect fragments of rock.

We foresaw that in Europe "a little bit of Chimborazo" would be asked for.

At that time, no mountain rock in any part of South America had been named; the rocks of all the high summits of the Andes were called granite.

As we were at the height of about 17,400 feet, it began to hail violently.

The hailstones were opaque, and milk-white, with concentric layers; some appeared considerably flattened by rotation; twenty minutes before we reached the lower limit of perpetual snow, the hail was replaced by snow.

The flakes were so dense, that the snow soon covered the ridge of rock many inches deep; we should have been brought into great danger, had the snow surprised us at the height of 18,000 feet.

At a few minutes after two o'clock, we reached the point where our mules were standing.

The natives that remained behind, had been very apprehensive for our safety.

That part of our expedition which lay above the snow-line, had lasted only 31/2 hours, during which, notwithstanding the tenuity of the air, we had not found it needful to take rest by sitting down. On account of the snow newly fallen, we found in our descent from Chimborazo, the lower limit of perpetual snow, in accidental and temporary conjunction with the deeper sporadial spots of snow on the naked lichen-covered rocks, and on the grass plain (Pajonal); yet it was always easy to recognize the proper limit of perpetual snow (then at the height of 2470 toises) by the thickness of the bed and by its peculiar state.

We took a somewhat more northern way back to the village of Calpi than the Llanos de Sisgun, through the Paramo de Pungupala, a district rich in plants.

By five o'clock in the evening we were again with the friendly clergyman of Calpi.

As usual, the misty day of the expedition was succeeded by the clearest weather.

On the 25th of June, at Riobamba Nuevo, Chimborazo presented itself in all its splendour,--I may say, in the calm greatness and supremacy which is the natural character of the tropical landscape.

A second attempt upon a ridge interrupted by a chasm, would certainly have turned out as fruitless as the first, and I was already engaged with the trigonometrical measurement of the volcano of Tungurahua.

Boussingault, on the 16th of December 1831, with his English friend Colonel Hall,--who was soon afterwards assassinated in Quito,--made a new attempt to reach the summit of Chimborazo, first from Mocha and Chillapullu, then from Arenal, thus by a different way from that trodden by Bonpland, Don Carlos Montufar, and myself.

He was obliged to give up the ascent, when his barometer indicated 13 inches 81/2 lines, with an atmospheric temperature of +7°.8 (+46°.04 F.).

He thus saw the uncorrected column of mercury almost three lines lower, and reached a point 64 toises higher than I did, viz.

3080 toises.

Let us have the words of this wellknown traveller of the Andes, who was the first to carry a chemical apparatus to, and into, the craters of volcanoes.

"The way," says Boussingault, "which we opened for ourselves through the snow, in the latter part of our expedition, permitted of our advancing but very slowly.

On the right we were enabled to grasp hold of a rock, on the left, the abyss was fearful.

We were already sensible of the effect of the attenuated air, and were obliged, every two or three steps to sit down.

As soon, however, as we were seated, we again stood up, for our sufferings lasted only while we moved.

The snow we were obliged to tread was soft, and lay three or four inches deep, on a very smooth and hard covering of ice.

We were obliged to hew our steps.

A Negro went before, to perform this work, by which his powers were soon exhausted.

As I was endeavouring to pass him, for the purpose of relieving him, I slipped, and happily was held back by Colonel Hall and my Negro.

We were (adds M. Boussingault) for a moment all three in the greatest danger.

Further on, the snow became more favourable, and at three quarters past three o'clock we stood upon the long-looked-for ridge of rock, which was only a few feet broad, and surrounded by immeasurable depths.

Here we became convinced that to advance farther was impossible.

We found ourselves at the foot of a prism of rock, whose upper surface covered with a cap of snow, forms the proper summit of Chimborazo.

To have a true figure of the topography of the whole mountain, one must imagine an enormous snowcovered mass of rock, which from all sides appears as if supported by buttresses.

The latter are the ridges, which, adherent, project through the eternal snow."