Digitale Ausgabe

[The following interesting narrative is abridged from an excerpt from the un-published Journal of this distinguished traveller, communicated to the EdinburghPhilosophical Journal.] The highest mountain-summits of both continents,—in the old continent,Dhawalagiri (White Mountain) and the Jawahir; in the new, the Sorata and theIllimani,—remain unsearched by man. The highest point of the earth’s surfaceattained, lies in South America on the south-east side of Chimborazo. Theretravellers have reached the height of nearly 18,500 Paris feet* —viz. in June1802, 3016 toises,† in December 1831, 3080 toises, above the level of the sea.Barometrical measurements have thus been made, in the chain of the Andes3720 (Paris) feet above the level of the summit of Mont Blanc. The height ofMont Blanc is in relation to that of the Cordilleras so inconsiderable, that in thelatter, there are much-frequented passes that are higher, indeed, the upper partof the great city of Potosi has an elevation only 323 toises inferior to that of thesummit of Mont Blanc. I have thought it needful to premise these numericalstatements in order to present to the imagination definite points of comparisonfor the hypsometric, as it were plastic, contemplation of the surface of the earth. On the 22nd of June 1799, I was in the crater of the Peak of Teneriffe. Threeyears afterwards, almost on the same day (the 23d June 1802), I reached a point6700 feet higher, near the summit of Chimborazo. After a long delay in the ta-ble-land of Quito, one of the most wonderful and picturesque regions of theearth, we undertook the journey towards the forests of the Peruvian bark treesof Loxa, the upper course of the river Amazons, westward of the celebratedstrait (Pongo de Manseriche), and through the sandy desert along the Peruviancoast of the South Sea towards Lima, where we were to observe the transit ofMercury on the 9th November 1802. On a plain covered with pumice-stone,—where (after the fearful earthquake of 4th February 1797) the building of thenew city Riobamba was begun,—we enjoyed for several days a splendid view ofthe bell or dome-shaped summit of Chimborazo. We had the clearest weather,favouring trigonometrical observation. By means of a large telescope, we hadthoroughly examined the snow mantle of the mountain, still 1570 toises distant,and discovered several ridges, which, projecting like sterile black streaks, con-verged towards the summit, and gave some hope that, upon them, a firm footingmight be obtained in the region of eternal snow. Riobamba Nuevo lies withinsight of the enormous and now indented mountain Capac-urcu, called by theSpaniards El Altar, which (says a tradition of the natives) was once higher thanChimborazo, and after having been many years in a state of eruption, suddenlyfell in.—Riobamba Nuevo must not be confounded with the old Riobamba of thegreat map of La Condamine and Don Pedro Maldonado. The latter city wasentirely destroyed by the great catastrophe of the 4th February 1797, which in afew 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, be-ing 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 Indianvillage Calpi, we were to pass the night. This plain is sparingly covered withCactus stems and Schinus molle, which resembles a weeping willow. Herds ofvariegated llamas, in thousands, seek here a scanty subsistence. At so great aheight, the nightly terrestrial radiation of heat, when the sky is cloudless, provesinjurious to agriculture, through cold and frost. Very near to Calpi, northwestward of Lican, there is in the barren table-land alittle isolated hill, the black mountain, Yana-Urcu, the name of which has notbeen given by the French academicians, but which, in a geognostical point ofview, deserves much attention. The hill lies S.S.E. of Chimborazo, at a dis-tance of less than three miles (15 to 1°), and separated from the same by thehigh plain of Lusia only. If in it we do not recognise a lateral eruption of Chim-borazo, the origin of the cone must certainly be ascribed to the subterraneousforces which, under that mountain, have for thousands of years vainly sought anopening. It is of later origin than the elevation of the great dome-shaped moun-tain. The Yana Urcu forms, with the northern hill Naguangachi, a connectedeminence in the form of a horse shoe; the bow, more than a semicircle, is opentowards the east. There probably lies in the centre of the horse shoe the pointout 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 theinterior of which there is a small hill, whose height does not equal that of thesurrounding margin. Yana-Urcu probably signifies the southern culminatingpoint of the old crater-margin, which, at the most, is elevated 400 feet above thelevel of Calpi. Naguangachi signifies the northern lower end.—According tothe tradition of the natives, and according to old MSS which the Cacike or Apuof Lican (the Conchocandi) possessed, the volcanic eruption of the Yana-Urcuoccurred immediately after the death of the Inca Tupa-Yupanqui—thus proba-bly in the middle of the fifteenth century. Tradition says that a fire-ball, or in-deed a star, fell from heaven and set on fire the mountain. Such fables, connect-ing the fall of aerolites with eruptions, are also spread among the tribes of Mex-ico.—On the eastern side of the Yana-Urcu, or rather at the foot of the hill to-wards Lican, the natives conducted us to a projecting rock, an opening in whichresembled the mouth of a forsaken gallery. Here, as well as at the distance often feet, there is heard a violent subterranean noise, which is accompanied by acurrent of air, or subterranean wind. The current of air is much too weak toadmit of the noise being attributed to it. The noise certainly arises from a sub-terranean brook, which is precipitated downwards into a deep hollow, and throughits fall occasions a motion in the air. A monk, the priest at Calpi, had, with thesame idea, some time before, continued on the gallery at an open fissure to pro-cure water for his village. The hardness of the black augite rock probably in-terrupted the work. Chimborazo, notwithstanding its enormous mass of snow,sends down into the table-land such insignificant brooks of water, that it may bepresumed the greater part of its water flows through clefts to the interior. In thevillage of Calpi itself also, there was formerly heard a great noise in a housethat 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 theYana-Urea. But since the great earthquake, this brook has again disappeared. After we had passed the night at Calpi, which, according to barometrical mea-surement, lies 9720 feet (1620 toises) above the sea, we began, on the morningof the 23d, our proper expedition up Chimborazo. We attempted to ascend themountain 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 thiscourse the preference. We found Chimborazo surrounded with great plains,which rise, step like, one above the other. Proceeding first through the Llanosde Lusia, then after rather a gradual ascent of scarcely 5000 feet in length, wereached the table-land (Llano) of Sisgun. The first step (stufe) is at a height of10,200 feet, the second 11,700. These grass-grown plains thus equal in eleva-tion, respectively, the highest summit of the Pyrenees (Peak Nethou) and thesummit of the Peak of Teneriffe. The perfect horizontality of these table-lands allows us to infer the long continuance of stagnant water. The travellerimagines he sees before him the bottom of a lake. On the acclivity of the SwissAlps, there is sometimes observed this phenomenon of small step-like plains,lying one above the other, which, like the emptied basins of alpine lakes, areunited by narrow open passes. The widely extended grass lands are on Chim-borazo, as everywhere around the high summits of the Andes, so monotonousthat 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 ofnorthern Asia. The Flora of Chimborazo, in general, appeared to us less richthan that of the other snow mountains which surround the city of Quito. Buta few Calceolariæ, Compositæ, and Gentianæ, among which the beautiful Gen-tiana cernua shining forth with purple flowers,—rear themselves on the highplain of Sisgun, between the associated grasses. These belong, for the mostpart, to the genera of Northern Europe. The temperature of the air generallyprevailing in these regions of alpine grasses, elevated respectively 1600 and 2000toises, fluctuates by day between 4° and 16° C. (39°.2 and 60°.8 F.) by nightbetween 0° and 10° (32° and 50° F.) |Spaltenumbruch| My plan was to perform a trigonometrical operation in the beautiful perfectlylevel grass land of Sisgun. I had made arrangements for measuring a base linehere. The angles of altitude would have proved very considerable in such prox-imity to the summit of Chimborazo. There remained yet a perpendicularheight of less than 8400 feet (the height of the Canigou in the Pyrenees) to de-termine. Yet with the enormous masses of single mountains in the chain of theAndes, every determination of the height above the sea is compounded of a bar-ometrical and trigonometrical observation. I had taken with me the sextant andother instruments of measurement in vain. The summit of Chimborazo remaineddensely veiled in mist. From the high plain of Sisgun the ascent is tolerablysteep as far as the little alpine lake of Yana-Coche. Thus far I had remainedon 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 alake. It is a circular basin of scarcely 130 feet in diameter. The sky becamemore and more obscured; but between and over the mist-strata there still layscattered single groups of clouds. The summit of Chimborazo was visible fora few moments 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 bor-der which must not be confounded with the limit of perpetual snow. The barome-ter showed that we had only now attained the height of 13,500 feet. On othermountains, likewise near to the equator, I have seen snow fall at the height of11,200 feet, but not lower. My companion rode as far as the line of perpetualsnow, i. e. to the height of Mont Blanc; which mountain, as is known, wouldnot in this latitude (1° 27′ south) be covered with snow. The horses and mulesremained there to await our return. A hundred and fifty toises above the little basin of Yana-Coche, we saw atlength naked rock. Hitherto the grass-land had withdrawn the ground from anygeognostical examination. Great walls of rock, extending from the N.E. to-wards the S.W., in part cleft into misshapen columns, reared themselves out ofthe 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, almostlike the trachyte columns of Tabla-Uma on the volcano Pichincha. One groupstood alone, and reminded one of masts and stems of trees. The steep wallsled us through the snow region to a narrow ridge of rock extending towards thesummit, by which alone it was possible for us to advance any farther, for thesnow was then so soft that one scarcely dared to tread upon its surface. Theridge consisted of very weathered crumbling rock. It was often vesicular like abasaltic-amygdaloid. The path became more and more narrow and steep. The natives forsook usall but one at the height of 15,600 feet. All entreaties and threats were unavail-ing. The Indians maintained that they suffered more than we did from breath-lessness. We remained alone, Bonpland,—our amiable friend the younger sonof the Marquess of Selvalegre, Carlos Montufar, who in the subsequent strugglefor freedom, was shot (at the command of General Morillo),—a Mestize fromthe neighbouring village of San Juan,—and myself. We attained, with greatexertion and endurance, a greater height than we had dared hope to reach, as wewere almost entirely wrapped in mist. The ridge (very significantly called, inSpanish, Cuchilla, as it were the knife-back) was in many places only eight or teninches broad. On the left the precipice was concealed by snow, the surface ofthe latter seemed glazed with frost. The thin icy mirror-like surface had an in-clination of about 30°. On the right our view sank shuddering 800 or 1000 feetinto an abyss out of which projected, perpendicularly, snowless masses of rock.We held the body continually inclined towards this side, for the precipice uponthe left seemed still more threatening, because there no chance presented itselfof grasping the toothed rock, and because, further, the thin ice-crust offered nosecurity against sinking in the loose snow. Only extremely light porous bits ofdolerite could we roll down this crust of ice, and the inclined plane of snow wasso extended that we lost sight of the stones thus rolled down before they came torest. 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 muchto the steepness of the masses, and to the gales of wind, as to open clefts, whichbreathe out warm air from deeper situated beds. We soon found our furtherascent more difficult, from the increase of the crumbling nature of the rock.At single and very steep échélons it was necessary to apply at the same time thehands and feet, as is so usual in all alpine journeys. As the rock was very keenlyangular, we were painfully hurt, especially in the hands. Leopold Von Buch andI 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 nowrendered greater caution necessary, as many masses which we supposed firm, layloose and covered with sand. We proceeded one after the other, and so muchthe 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 ourmountain journeys in South America; hence previous experience guided us, andgave us more confidence in our powers. It is a peculiar character of all excur-sions in the Andes, that above the snow line white people find themselves, in themost perilous situations, always without guides, indeed without any knowledge oflocalities. We could see the summit no longer, even for a moment only at a time, andwere hence doubly curious to know, how much higher it remained for us to as-cend. We examined the barometer at a point where the breadth of the ridgepermitted of two persons standing conveniently together. We were now at anelevation of 17,300 feet, thus scarcely two hundred feet higher than we hadbeen two months before when climbing a similar ridge on the Antisana. It iswith the determining of heights in climbing mountains, as with the determiningof temperature in the heat of summer. One finds with vexation the thermome-ter not so high, the barometer not so low, as one expected. As the air, notwith-standing the height, was quite saturated with moisture, we now found the looserock 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 thethermometer 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 about2860 toises, is very remarkable, for 400 toises lower down, at the limit of perpe-tual snow, the mean heat of the atmosphere is according to many observations,collected by Boussingault and myself, only +1° 6′ (34° 88′ Fahr) The tempe-rature of earth (sand) at +5° 8′ (42° 44′ Fahr) must therefore be ascribed tothe 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, butalas! the mist remained as thick as ever. We now began gradually to sufferfrom great nausea. The tendency to vomiting was combined with some giddi-ness, and much more troublesome than the difficulty of breathing. A colouredman (a Mestize of San Juan), not from selfish motives, but merely out of goodnature, had been unwilling to forsake us. He was a poor vigorous peasant, andsuffered more than we did. We had hæmorrhage from the gums and lips. Theconjunctiva of the eyes likewise, was, in all, gorged with blood. These symp-toms of extravasation in the eyes, and of oozing from the lips and gums, did notin the least disquiet us, as we had repeatedly experienced them before. In Eu-rope, M. Zumstein began to experience hæmorrhage at a much lower elevationon Monte Rosa. The Spanish warriors during the conquest of the equinoctialregion 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 ‘Histo-ria Natural de las Indias,’—a kind of physical geography, which may be called amasterpiece of the sixteenth century—speaks circumstantially of “nausea andspasm of the stomach,” as painful symptoms of the mountain sickness, which inthese respects is analogous to sea-sickness. On the volcano of Pichincha I oncefelt, without experiencing hæmorrhage, so violent an affection of the stomach, ac-companied by giddiness, that I was found senseless on the ground, just as I leftmy companions on a wall of rock above the defile of Verde-Cucha, in order toperform some electrical experiments on a perfectly open space. The height wasinconsiderable, below 13,800 feet. But on the Antisana, at the considerable ele-vation of 17,220 feet, our young travelling companion, Don Carlos Montufar, bledfreely from the lips. All of these phenomena vary according to age, constitution,the tenderness of the skin, the preceding exertions of the muscular powers, yetfor single individuals they are a kind of measure of the atmospheric tenuity, andof the absolute elevation reached. According to my observations in the Cordil-leras, these symptoms manifest themselves in white people, with a mercurial co-lumn between 14 inches—and 15 inches 10 lines. The layers of mist that prevented our seeing distant objects, appeared sudden-ly, notwithstanding the total stillness of the air, perhaps through electrical pro-cesses, to be broken up. We recognized once more, and indeed immediately be-fore us, the dome-shaped summit of Chimborazo. It was an earnest, momentousgaze. The hope to reach this summit animated our powers anew. The ridge ofrock, only here and there covered with thin flakes of snow, became somewhatbroader. We hastened onwards, with certain steps, when all at once a ravine ofsome 400 feet in depth, and 50 broad, set an insurmountable barrier to our un-dertaking. We saw distinctly beyond the abyss, our ridge of rock continued for-ward in the same direction; yet I doubt its leading to the summit itself. Thechasm was not to be gone round. On the Antisana, M. Bonpland indeed hadfound it possible, after a very cold night, to proceed for a considerable lengththrough the snow. We durst not venture the attempt, because of the loosenessof 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\( \left( \frac{2}{10} \right) \) lines. The temperature of the air was now—1° 6′ (+29° 12′ Fahr.), but after several years’ stay in the hottest regions of theTropics, this small degree of cold benumbed us. Besides, our boots were tho-roughly soaked with snow-water, for the sand that covered here and there theridge 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. IfLa Condamine’s estimate of the height of Chimborazo, as noted on the stone-table of the Jesuit’s College in Quito, be correct, there failed us yet of the sum-

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* One French foot is = 1.07892, or about 1\( \left( \frac{1}{13} \right) \) English.—Tr.† A toise is = 1.94904 metres, or 6.39459 English feet.—Tr.|13| mit of the mountain 1224 feet, or thrice the height of St. Peter’s church atRome. We remained but a short time in this mournful solitude, being soon again en-tirely veiled in mist. The humid air was not thereby set in motion. No fixeddirection 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, opposingthe Tropical monsoon. We saw no longer the summit of Chimborazo, none ofthe neighboring snow-mountains, still less the table lands of Quito. We were asthough isolated in a ball of air. Some stone lichens only had followed us abovethe line of perpetual snow. The last cryptogamic plants which I collected wereLecidea atrovirens (Lichen geographicus, Web.), and a Gyrophora of Acharius, anew species (Gyrophora rugosa), at about the height of 2820 toises. The lastmoss, 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 feethigher. I must remark, that we met with no condor on Chimborazo, that power-ful vulture, which is so frequent on Antisana and Pichincha, and which showsgreat confidence from its ignorance of man. The condor loves pure air, in orderthe easier from on high to recognize its prey or its food, for it gives dead animalsthe preference. As the weather became more and more cloudy, we hastened down upon thesame ledge of rock, that had favoured our ascent. Caution, however, on ac-count 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 rockin any part of South America had been named; the rocks of all the high summitsof the Andes were called granite. As we were at the height of about 18,400feet, it began to hail violently. The hailstones were opaque, and milk-white,with concentric layers; some appeared considerably flattened by rotation; twentyminutes before we reached the lower limit of perpetual snow, the hail was re-placed by snow. The flakes were so dense, that the snow soon covered theridge 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 aftertwo o’clock, we reached the point where our mules were standing. The nativesthat remained behind, had been very apprehensive for our safety. That part of our expedition which lay above the snow-line, had lasted only 3\( \left( \frac{1}{2} \right) \)hours, during which, notwithstanding the tenuity of the air, we had not found itneedful to take rest by sitting down. On account of the snow newly fallen, wefound in our descent from Chimborazo, the lower limit of perpetual snow, inaccidental and temporary conjunction with the deeper sporadial spots of snow onthe naked lichen covered rocks, and on the grass plain (Pajonal); yet it was al-ways easy to recognize the proper limit of perpetual snow, (then at the height of2470 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 theLlanos 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 ofCalpi. As usual, the misty day of the expedition was succeeded by the clearestweather. On the 25th of June, at Riobamba Nuevo, Chimborazo presenteditself in all its splendour,—I may say, in the calm greatness and supremacy whichis the natural character of the tropical landscape. A second attempt upon aridge interrupted by a chasm, would certainly have turned out as fruitless as thefirst, and I was already engaged with the trigonometrical measurement of thevolcano of Tungurahua. Boussingault, on the 16th of December 1831, with his English friend ColonelHall,—who was soon afterwards assassinated in Quito,—made a new attempt toreach the summit of Chimborazo, first from Mocha and Chillapulla, then fromArenal, thus by a different way from that trodden by Bonpland, Don Carlos Mon-tufar, and myself. He was obliged to give up the ascent, when his barometerindicated 13 inches 8\( \left( \frac{1}{2} \right) \)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 94 toises higher than I did, viz. 3080 toises. Let us havethe words of this well-known traveller of the Andes, who was the first to carrya chemical apparatus to, and into, the craters of volcanoes. “The way,” saysBoussingault, “which we opened for ourselves through the snow, in the latterpart of our expedition, permitted of our advancing but very slowly. On theright 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, weagain stood up, for our sufferings lasted only while we moved. The snow wewere obliged to tread was soft, and lay three or four inches deep, on a verysmooth and hard covering of ice. We were obliged to hew our steps. A Ne-gro went before, to perform this work, by which his powers were soon exhaust-ed. As I was endeavouring to pass him, for the purpose of relieving him, I slip-ped, and happily was held back by Colonel Hall and my Negro. We were (addsM. Boussingault) for a moment all three in the greatest danger. Further on, thesnow became more favourable, and at three quarters past three o’clock we stoodupon the long-looked-for ridge of rock, which was only a few feet broad, and sur-rounded by immeasurable depths. Here we became convinced that to advancefarther 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 ofChimborazo. To have a true figure of the topography of the whole mountain,one must imagine an enormous snow-covered mass of rock, which from all sidesappears as if supported by buttresses. The latter are the ridges, which, adhe-rent, project through the eternal snow.”