Digitale Ausgabe

• The following interesting narrative is abridged from an excerptfrom the unpublished Journal of this distinguished traveller, com-municated to the Edinburgh Philosophical Journal.

The highest mountain-summits of both continents—in theold continent, Dhawalagiri (White Mountain) and the Jawa-hir; in the new, the Sorata and the Illimani—remain un-searched by man. The highest point of the earth’s surfaceattained lies in South America, on the south-east side ofChimborazo. There travellers have reached the height ofnearly 19,700 English feet—viz: in June 1802, 3,016 toises,* in December 1831, 3,080 toises above the level of the sea.Barometrical measurements have thus been made in the chainof the Andes 4,000 feet above the level of the summit ofMont Blanc. The height of Mont Blanc is, in relation tothat of the Cordilleras, so inconsiderable, that in the latterthere are much-frequented passes that are higher; indeed,the upper part of the great city of Potosi has an elevationonly 323 toises inferior to that of the summit of Mont Blanc.I have thought it needful to premise these numerical state-ments, in order to present to the imagination definite pointsof comparison for the hypsometric—as it were plastic, con-templation of the surface of the earth. On the 22d of June 1799, I was in the crater of the Peakof Teneriffe. Three years afterward, almost on the sameday, (the 23d June 1802,) I reached a point 6,700 feethigher, near the summit of Chimborazo. After a long delayin the table-land of Quito, one of the most wonderful and pic-turesque regions of the earth, we undertook the journeytoward the forests of the Peruvian bark trees of Loxa, theupper course of the river Amazon, westward of the celebra-ted strait Pongo de Manseriche, and through the sandy desertalong the Peruvian coast of the South Sea toward Lima,where we were to observe the transit of Mercury on the 9thNovember 1802. On a plain covered with pumice-stone—where, after the fearful earthquake of 4th February 1797, thebuilding of the new city Riobamba was begun—we enjoyedfor several days a splendid view of the bell or dome-shapedsummit of Chimborazo. We had the clearest weather, fa-voring trigonometrical observation. By means of a largetelescope, we had thoroughly examined the snow-mantle ofthe mountain, still 1,570 toises distant, and discovered severalridges, which, projecting like sterile black streaks, convergedtoward the summit, and gave hope that upon them a firmfooting might be obtained in the region of eternal snow.Riobamba Nuevo lies within sight of the enormous and nowindented mountain Capuc-urcu, called by the Spaniards ElAltar, which, says a tradition of the natives, was once higherthan Chimborazo, and after having been many years in astate of eruption, suddenly fell in. Riobamba Nuevo mustnot be confounded with the old Riobamba of the great mapof La Condamine and Don Pedro Maldonado. The lattercity was entirely destroyed by the great catastrophe of the4th February 1797, which in a few minutes destroyed 45,000human beings. We were in the plain of Tapia, from which,on the 22d June, we began our expedition toward Chimbo-razo, being already nearly 10,000 English feet above thelevel of the South Sea. We gently ascended as far as thefoot of the mountain, where, in the Indian village Calpi, wewere to pass the night. This plain is sparingly covered withCactus stems and Schinus molle, which resembles a weepingwillow. Herds of variegated llamas, in thousands, seek here|Spaltenumbruch|a scanty subsistence. At so great a height, the nightly ter-restrial radiation of heat, when the sky is cloudless, provesinjurious to agriculture, through cold and frost. Very near to Calpi, north-westward of Lican, there is inthe barren table-land a little isolated hill—the black mountain, Yana-Urcu, the name of which has not been given by theFrench academicians, but which, in a geognostical point ofview, deserves much attention. The hill lies S. S. E. of Chim-borazo, at a distance of less than three miles, and separatedfrom the same by the high plain of Lusia only. If in it wedo not recognize a lateral eruption of Chimborazo, the originof the cone must certainly be ascribed to the subterraeousforces which, under that mountain, have for thousands ofyears vainly sought an opening. It is of later origin thanthe elevation of the great dome-shaped mountain. TheYana-Urcu forms, with the northern hill Naguangachi, a con-nected eminence in the form of a horse-shoe; the bow, morethan a semi-circle, is open toward the east. There probablylies in the centre of the horse-shoe the point out of which theblack slags have been thrown, that now lie spread far around. We found there a funnel-shaped depression of about 120feet 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 pointof the old crater margin, which, at the most, is elevated 400feet above the level of Calpi. Naguangachi signifies thenorthern lower end. According to the tradition of the na-tives, and according to old MSS. which the Cacike or Apuof Lican possessed, the volcanic eruption of the Yana-Urcuoccurred immediately after the death of the Inca Tupa-Yu-panqui; thus probably in the middle of the fifteenth century.Tradition says that a fire-ball, or indeed a star, fell fromheaven and set on fire the mountain. Such fables, connect-ing the fall of aerolites with eruptions, are also spread amongthe tribes of Mexico. On the eastern side of the Yana-Urcu,or rather at the foot of the hill toward Lican, the natives con-ducted us to a projecting rock, an opening in which resem-bled the mouth of a forsaken gallery. Here, as well as atthe distance of ten feet, there is heard a violent subterraneannoise, which is accompanied by a current of air, or subterra-nean wind. The current of air is much too weak to admitof the noise being attributed to it. The noise certainly arisesfrom a subterranean brook, which is precipitated downwardinto a deep hollow, and through its fall occasions a motionin the air. A monk, the priest at Calpi, had, with the sameidea, some time before, continued on the gallery at an openfissure to procure water for his village. The hardness ofthe black augite rock probably interrupted the work. Chim-borazo, notwithstanding its enormous mass of snow, sendsdown into the table-land such insignificant brooks of water,that it may be presumed the greater part of its water flowsthrough clefts to the interior. In the village of Calpi itself,also, there was formerly heard a great noise in a house thathad no cellar. Before the celebrated earthquake of the 4thFebruary 1797, there sprang forth a brook in the south-westof the village at a deeper point. Many Indians consideredthis brook as a part of the water that flows under the Yana-Urcu. But since the great earthquake, this brook has againdisappeared. After we had passed the night at Calpi, which, accordingto a barometrical measurement, lies 10,500 English feet abovethe sea, we began, on the morning of the 23d, our proper ex-pedition up Chimborazo. We attempted to ascend the moun-tain on the S.S.E. side, and the Indians who were to attendus as guides, but of whom but a few had ever reached thelimit of perpetual snow, gave this course the preference. Wefound Chimborazo surrounded with great plains, which rise,step-like, one above the other. Proceeding first through theLlanos de Lusia, then, after rather a gradual ascent of scarcely5,600 feet in length, we reached the table-land (Llano) ofSisgun. The first step (stufe) is at a height of 11,000 feet,the second 12,500. These grass-grown plains thus equal inelevation, 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 in-fer the long continuance of stagnant water. The travellerimagines he sees before him the bottom of a lake. On theacclivity of the Swiss Alps, there is sometimes observed thisphenomenon of small step-like plains, lying one above theother, which, like the emptied basins of Alpine lakes, areunited by narrow open passes. The widely extended grasslands are on Chimborazo, as every where around the highsummits of the Andes, so monotonous that the family of thegrasses are seldom interrupted by dicotyledonous plants.There prevails almost the heathy scenery which I have seenin the barren part of northern Asia. The Flora of Chimbora-zo, in general, appeared to us less rich than that of the othersnow mountains which surround the city of Quito. But afew Calceolariæ, Compositæ, and Gentianæ—among whichthe beautiful Gentianæ cernua, shining forth with purpleflowers—rear themselves on the high plain of Sisgun, be-tween the associated grasses. These belong, for the mostpart, to the genera of Northern Europe. The temperatureof the air generally prevailing in these regions of Alpinegrasses, elevated respectively 10,000 and 13,000 feet, fluctu-ates by day between 39° 2′ and 60° 8′ Fahrenheit, by nightbetween 32° and 50° Fahrenheit. My plan was to perform a trigonometrical operation in the|Spaltenumbruch|beautiful and perfectly level grass-land of Sisgun. I hadmade arrangements for measuring a base line here. The an-gles of altitude would have proved very considerable in suchproximity to the summit of Chimborazo. There remainedyet a perpendicular height of less than 9,000 feet (the heightof the Canigou in the Pyrenees) to determine. Yet with theenormous masses of single mountains in the chain of the An-des, every determination of the height above the sea is com-pounded of a barometrical and trigonometrical observation.I had taken with me the sextant and other instruments ofmeasurement in vain. The summit of Chimborazo remaineddensely veiled in mist. From the high plain of Sisgun theascent is tolerably steep as far as the little Alpine lake ofYana-Coche. Thus far I had remained on the mule, havingfrom time to time alighted with my travelling companion, M.Bonpland, merely to collect plants. Yana-Coche does notdeserve the name of a lake. It is a circular basin of scarcely130 feet in diameter. The sky became more and more ob-scured; but between and over the mist-strata there still layscattered single groups of clouds. The summit of Chimbo-razo was visible for a few moments at a time. Much snowhaving fallen during the preceding night, I left the mulewhere we found the lower border of this newly-fallen snow,a border which must not be confounded with the limit of per-petual snow. The barometer showed that we had only nowattained the height of 15,000 feet. On other mountains,likewise near to the equator, I have seen snow fall at theheight of 12,000 feet, but not lower. My companion rode asfar as the line of perpetual snow, i. e. to the height of MontBlanc; which mountain, as is known, would not in this lati-tude (1° 27′ south) be covered with snow. The horses andmules 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 exam-ination. Great walls of rock, extending from the N. E.toward the S. W. in part cleft into misshapen columns, rearedthemselves out of the eternal snow—a brownish-black augiterock, shining like pitch-stone porphyry. The columns werevery thin, perhaps from fifty to sixty feet in height, almostlike the trachyte columns of Tabla-Uma on the volcano Pi-chincha. One group stood alone, and reminded one of mastsand stems of trees. The steep walls led us through the snowregion to a narrow ridge of rock extending toward the sum-mit, by which alone it was possible for us to advance anyfurther, for the snow was then so soft that one scarcely daredto tread upon it surface. The ridge consisted of very weath-ered crumbling rock. It was often vesicular like a basalticamygdaloid. The path became more and more narrow and steep. Thenatives forsook us all but one at the height of 16,600 feet.All entreaties and threats were unavailing. The Indiansmaintained that they suffered more than we did from breath-lessness. We remained alone, Bonpland, our amiable friendthe younger son of the Marquis of Selvalegro, Carlos Montu-far, who in the subsequent struggle for freedom was shot (atthe command of General Morillo,) a Mestize from the neigh-boring village of San Juan, and myself. We attained, withgreat exertion and endurance, a greater height than we haddared hope to reach, as we were almost entirely wrapped inmist. The ridge, (very significantly called, in Spanish, Cu-chilla, as it were the knife-back,) was in many places onlyeight or ten inches broad. On the left the precipice was con-cealed by snow, the surface of the latter seemed glazed withfrost. The thin, icy mirror-like surface had an inclination ofabout 30°. On the right our view sank shuddering 800 or1,000 feet into an abyss out of which projected, perpendicu-larly, snowless masses of rock. We held the body continu-ally inclined towards this side, for the precipice upon the leftseemed still more threatening, because there no chance pre-sented itself of grasping the toothed rock, and because, fur-ther, the thin ice-crust offered no security against sinking inthe loose snow. Only extremely light porous bits of doleritecould we roll down this crust of ice; and the inclined planeof snow was so extended that we lost sight of the stonesthus rolled down before they came to rest. The absence ofsnow, as well upon the ridge along which we ascended, asupon the rocks on our right hand towards the east, cannot beascribed so much to the steepness of the masses, and to thegales of wind, as to open clefts, which breathe out warm airfrom deeper situated beds. We soon found our further as-cent more difficult, from the increase of the crumbling natureof the rock. At single and very steep echelons it was ne-cessary to apply at the same time the hands and feet, as is sousual in all alpine journeys. As the rock was very keenly an-gular, we were painfully hurt, especially in the hands. Leo-pold Von Buch and I suffered very much in this mannner nearthe crater of the Peak of Teneriffe, which abounds in obsi-dian. The little adhesion of the rocks of the now ren-dered greater caution necessary, as many masses which wesupposed firm, lay loose and covered with and. We pro-ceeded one after the other, and so much the more slowly, asit was needful to try the places which seemed uncertain.—Happily the attempt to reach the summit of Chimborazo wasthe last of our mountain journeys in South America; henceprevious experience guided us, and gave us more confidencein our powers. It is a peculiar character of all excursionsin the Andes, that above the snow line white people find them-

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* A toise is 1.94904 metres, or 6.39459 English feet|692|selves, in the most perilous situations, always without guides,indeed without any knowledge of localities. We could see the summit no longer, even for a momentonly at a time, and were hence doubly curious to know, howmuch higher it remained for us to ascend. We examinedthe barometer at a point where the breadth of the ridge per-mitted of two persons standing conveniently together. Wewere now at an elevation of 18,500 feet; thus scarcely twohundred feet higher than we had been two months beforewhen climbing a similar ridge of the Antisana. It is withthe determining of heights in climbing mountains, as withthe determining of temperature in the heat of summer. Onefinds with vexation the thermometer not so high, the barome-ter not so low, as one expected. As the air, notwithstandingthe height, was quite saturated with moisture, we now foundthe loose rock and the sand that filled its interstices extreme-ly wet. The air was still 37° 04′ Fahr. Shortly before, wehad, in a dry place, been able to bury the thermometer inches deep in the sand. It indicated 42° 44′ Fahr. Theresult of this observation is very remarkable, for lower down,at the limit of perpetual snow, the mean heat of the atmos-phere is according to many observations, collected by Bous-singault and myself, only 34° 88′ Fahr. The temperature ofearth (sand) at 42° 44′ Fahr. must therefore be ascribed tothe subterranean heat of the dolerite mountain; I do notsay to the whole mass but to the current of air ascendingfrom the interior. After an hour of cautious climbing the ridge of rock be-came less steep; but alas! the mist remained as thick as ev-er. We now began gradually to suffer from great nausea.The tendency to vomiting was combined with some giddi-ness; and much more troublesome than the difficulty ofbreathing. A colored man (a Mestize of San Juan) not fromselfish motives, but merely out of good nature, had been un-willing to forsake us. He was a poor vigorous peasant andsuffered more than we did. We had hæmorrhage from thegums and lips. The conjunctiva of the eyes likewise, was,in all, gorged in blood. These symptoms of extravasation inthe eyes, and of oozing from the lips and gums, did not inthe least disquiet us, as we had repeatedly experienced thembefore. In Europe, M. Zumstein began to experience hæ-morrhage at a much lower elevation on Monte Rosa. TheSpanish warriors during the conquest of the equinoctial re-gion of America (during the Conquista) did not ascendabove the snow line, thus but little above the elevation ofMont Blanc, and yet Acosta, in his ‘Historia Natural de lasIndias’—a kind of physical geography, which may be called amasterpiece of the sixteenth century—speaks circumstantial-ly of “nausea and spasm of the stomach,” as painful symp-toms of the mountain sickness, which in these respects isanalogous to sea-sickness. On the volcano of Pichincha Ionce felt, without experiencing hæmorrhage. so violent an af-fection of the stomach, accompanied by giddiness, that I wasfound senseless on the ground, just as I left my companionson a wall of rock above the defile of Verde-Cucha, in orderto perform some electrical experiments on a perfectly openspace. The height was inconsiderable, below 4,800 feet.—But on the Antisana, at the considerable elevation of 8,500feet, our young travelling companion. D Carlos Montufar,bled freely from the lips. All of these phenomena vary ac-cording to age, constitution, the tenderness of the skin, andthe preceding exertions of the muscular powers; yet for sin-gle individuals they are a kind of measure of the atmosphe-ric tenuity, and of the absolute elevation reached. Accord-ing to my observations in the Cordilleras, these symptomsmanifest themselves in white people, with a mercurial columnbetween 14 inches and 15 inches 10 lin. The layers of mist that prevented our seeing distant objects,appeared suddenly, notwithstanding the total stillness of theair, perhaps though electrical processes, to be broken up.—We recognized once more, and indeed immediately before us,the dome-shaped summit of Chimborazo. It was an earnedmonotonous gaze. The hope to reach this summit animatesour powers anew. The ridge of rock, only here and therecovered with thin flakes of snow, became somewhat broader.We hastened onwards, with certain steps, when all at oncea ravine of 400 feet in depth, and 50 broad, set an insur-mountable barrier to our undertaking. We saw distinctly be-yond the abyss, our ridge of rock continued forward in thesame direction; yet I doubt this 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 nightto proceed for a considerable length through the snow. Wedurst not venture the attempt, because of the looseness of themass, and the form of the precipice rendered climbing downimpossible. It was one o’clock in the afternoon. We set upwith much care the barometer. It indicated 13 inches 11lines. The temperature of the air was now 29° 12′ Fahr.;but after several years’ stay in the hottest regions of the tro-pics, this small degree of cold benumbed us. Besides, ourboots were thoroughly soaked with snow-water, for the sandthat covered here and there the ridge, was mixed with oldsnow, According to La Place’s barometrical formula, webad reached a height of 19,200 English feet. If La Conda-mine’s estimate of the height of Chimborazo, as noted on thestone table of the Jesuit’s College at Quito, be correct, therefailed us yet to the summit of the mountain 1,300 feet, orthrice the height of St. Peter’s Church at Rome. |Spaltenumbruch|We remained a short time in this mournful solitude, beingsoon again entirely veiled in mist. The humid air was notthereby set in motion. No fixed direction was to be observedin single groups of the denser particles of vapor; I thereforecannot say whether at this elevation the west wind blows,opposing the tropical monsoon. We saw no longer the summit of Chimborazo, none of the neighboring snow-mountains,still less the table lands of Quito. We were as though isolatedin a ball of air. Some stone lichens only had followed usabove the line of perpetual snow. The last cryptogamicplants which I collected were Lecidea atrovirens (Lichengeographicus, Web.), and a Gyrophora of Acharius, a newspecies (Gyrophora rugosa), at about the height of 18,000feet. The last moss, Grimmia longirostris, grew 2500 feetlower down. A butterfly (sphinx) was caught by M. Bonp-land at the height of 16,000 feet; we saw a fly 1700 feethigher. I must remark, that we met with no condor on Chim-borazo, that powerful vulture, which is so frequent on Anti-sana and Pichincha, and which shows great confidence fromits ignorance of man. The condor loves pure air, in orderthe easier from on high to recognize its prey or its food, forit gives dead animals the preference. As the weather became more and more cloudy, we hasten-ed down upon the same ledge of rock, that had favored ourascent. Caution, however, on account of the uncertainty ofthe steps, was more necessary than climbing up. Weforesaw that in Europe ‘a little bit of Chimborazo’ would beasked for. At that time no mountain rock in any part of SouthAmerica had been named: the rocks of all the high summitsof the Andes were called granite. As we were at the heightof about 18,400 feet, it began to hail violently. The hailstoneswere opaque, and milk-white, with concentric layers; someappeared considerably flattened by rotation; twenty minutesbefore we reached the lower limit of perpetual snow, the hailwas replaced by snow. The flakes were so dense, that thesnow soon covered the ridge of rock many inches deep; weshould have been brought into great danger, had the snowsurprised as at the height of 17,000 feet. At a few minutesafter two o’clock, we reached the point where our mules werestanding. The natives that remained behind, had been veryapprehensive for our safety. That part of our expedition which lay above the snow-line,had lasted only three and a half hours, during which, not-withstanding the tenuity of the air, we had not found it need-ful to take rest by sitting down. On account of the snow newlyfallen, we found in our descent from Chimborazo, the lowerlimit of perpetual snow, in accidental and temporary conjunc-tion with the deeper spordial spots of snow on the nakedlichen covered rocks, and on the grass plain (Pajonal); yet itwas always easy to recognize the proper limit of perpetualsnow, (then at the height of 15,700 feet) by the thickness ofthe bed and by its peculiar state. We took a somewhat more northern way back to the vil-lage of Calpi than the Llanos de Sisgun, through the Paramode Pungupala, a district rich in plants. By five o’clock in theevening we were again with the friendly clergyman of Calpi.As usual, the misty day of the expedition was succeeded bythe clearest weather. On the 25th of June, at RiobambaNuevo, Chimborazo presented itself in its splendor,—Imay say, in the calm greatness and supremacy which is thenatural character of the tropical landscape. A second attemptupon a ridge interrupted by a chasm, would certainly haveturned out as fruitless as the first, and I was already engagedwith the trigonometrical measurement of the volcano of Tun-gurahu.

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Boussingault, on the 16th of December 1831, with his En-glish friend Colonel Hall,—who was soon afterwards assas-sinated in Quito,—made a new attempt to reach the summitof Chimborazo, first from Moeha and Chillapulla, then fromArenal, thus by a different way from that trodden by Bonp-land, Don Carlos Montufar, and myself. He was obliged togive up the ascent, when his barometer indicated thirteeninches eight and a half lines, with an atmospheric tempera-ture of 8° .8 (46° .04 F.) He thus saw the uncorrectedcolumn of mercury almost three lines lower, and reached apoint 400 feet higher than I did, viz. 3080 toises. Let us havethe words of this well-known traveller of the Andes, who wasthe first to carry a chemical apparatus to, and into, the cra-ters of volcanoes. ‘The way, says Boussingault, which weopened for ourselves through the snow, in the latter part ofour expedition, permitted of our advancing but very slowly.On the right we were enabled to grasp hold of a rock, on theleft, the abyss was fearful. We were already sensible of theeffect of the attenuated air, and were obliged, every two orthree steps to sit down. As soon, however, as we were seated,we again stood up, for our sufferings lasted only while wemoved. The snow we were obliged to tread was soft, andlay three or four inches deep, on a very smooth and hard co-vering of ice. We were obliged to hew our steps. A negrowent before, to perform this work, by which his powers weresoon exhausted. As I was endeavoring to pass him, for thepurpose of relieving him, I slipped, and happily was heldback 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 favorable, and at threeo’clock we stood upon the long-looked-for ridge of rock, whichwas only a few feet broad, and surrounded by immeasurabledepth. Here we became convinced that to advance farther|Spaltenumbruch|was impossible. We found ourselves at the foot of a prismof rock, whose upper surface covered with a cap of snow,forms the proper summit of Chimborazo. To have a truefigure of the topography of the whole mountain, one must imagine an enormous snow-covered mass of rock, which fromall sides appears as if supported by buttresses. The latterare the ridges, which, adherent, project through the realsnow.’