Digitale Ausgabe

The highest mountain-summits of bothcontinents,—in the old continent, Dhawala- |90| giri (White Mountain) and the Jawahir; inthe new, the Sorata and the Illimani,—re-main unreached by man. The highest pointof the earth’s surface attained, lies in SouthAmerica on the south-east side of Chimbo-razo. There travellers have reached theheight of nearly 18,500 Paris feet*—viz., inJune 1802, 3,016 toises,† in December, 1831,3,080 toises, above the level of the sea. Ba-rometrical measurements have thus beenmade, in the chain of the Andes 3,720(Paris) feet above the level of the summit ofMont Blanc. The height of Mont Blanc isin relation to that of the Cordilleras so incon-siderable, that in the latter, there are muchfrequented passes that are higher; indeed,the upper part of the great city of Potosi hasan elevation only 323 toises inferior to that ofthe summit of Mont Blanc. I have thoughtit needful to premise these numerical state-ments, in order to present to the imaginationdefinite points of comparison for the hypso-metric, as it were plastic, contemplation ofthe surface of the earth. The attainment of great heights is of lessscientific interest, when the same lie farabove the snow-line, and can be visited for afew hours only. Immediate barometricalmeasurements of heights afford indeed thisadvantage, that the results are quickly ob-tained, yet the summits are, for the most part,surrounded by high plains, adapted for trigo-nometrical operations, by which all the ele-ments of the measurements can be repeatedlyproved; whilst a single determination bymeans of the barometer, is liable to consider-able errors, because of the ascending anddescending currents of air on the mountainslopes, and the variation in the decrease oftemperature thus occasioned. The nature ofthe rocks, from the permanent covering ofsnow, is almost entirely withdrawn fromgeognostic observation, since there are pre-sented only single ridges composed of muchweathered strata. Organic life ceases inthese lofty solitudes. Scarcely do the condorand winged insects stray into these attenu-ated strata of the atmosphere, the latter beingcarried up by the currents of air. If theendeavours of travelling natural philosopherswho strive to climb the higher summits ofthe earth, is scarcely rewarded by a seriousscientific interest, there is, on the other hand,an active popular participation in such endea-vours. That which seems unattainable hasa mysterious attractive power; we wish thatall should be explored,—at least attempted,though not to be obtined. Chimborazo hasbeen the wearisome object of all inquiriesaddressed to me since my first return toEurope. The thoroughly exploring of the|Spaltenumbruch|most important laws of nature, the most vividdelineations of stratified zones of plants anddifferences in climates, determining, as thelatter do, the object of agriculture, were sel-dom capable of diverting attention from thesnow clad summit which at that time (beforePentland’s journey to Bolivia) was supposedto be the culminating point of the dike-likeAndes. I shall here extract from the still unprintedportion of my journals, the simple narration ofa mountain journey. The entire detail of thetrigonometrical measurement, which I madeat New Riobaraba in the plain of Tapia, wasmade known in the introduction to the firstvolume of my Astronomical Observations, soon after my return. The geographical dis-tribution of the plants on the acclivity ofChimborazo and the neighbouring moun-tains (from the sea-coast up to a height of14,800 feet), I have attempted to representby a figure in a table of my Geographicaland Physical Atlas of South America, ac-cording to the excellent determination byKunth of the alpine vegetation of the Cordil-leras, collected by Bonpland and myself. The history of the ascent itself, which canpresent but little dramatic interest, was re-served for the fourth and last volume of myjourney towards the equatorial regions. Butsince my friend M. Boussingault, now Pro-fessor of Chemistry at Lyons, one of the mosttalented and learned travellers of moderntimes, has recently, at my request, describedin the Annals de Chimie et de Physiques,‡ this enterprise, which very closely resemblesmy own,—and since our observations aremutually confirmative of each other,—thissmall fragment of a journey, which I herelay before the public, will no doubt be fa-voured with an indulgent reception. I shallprovisionally refrain from all circumstantialgeognostic and physical discussions. On the 22nd of June, 1799, I was in thecrater of the Peak of Tenneriffe. Threeyears afterwards, almost on the same day(the 23rd of June, 1802), I reached a point6,700 feet higher, near the summit of Chim-borazo. After a long delay in the table-land of Quito, one of the most wonderful andpicturesque regions of the earth, we under-took the journey towards the forests of thePeruvian bark trees of Loxa, the upper courseof the river Amazons, westward of the cele-brated strait (Pongo de Manseriche), andthrough the sandy desert along the Peruviancoast of the South Sea towards Lima, wherewe were to observe the transit of Mercury onthe 9th of November, 1802. On a plain coveredwith pumice-stone,—where (after the fearfulearthquake of February 4, 1797) the build-ding of the new city Riobamba was begun,—

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* One French foot is =1.07892, or about 1,1.15thEnglish.—Tr.† A toise is =1.94904 metres, or 6.39459 Englishfeet.—Tr.‡ See Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol.xix, for 1835, where there is a translation of Boussin-gault’s memoir.|91| we enjoyed for several days a splendid viewof the bell or dome-shaped summit of Chim-borazo. We had the clearest weather, fa-vouring trigonometrical observation. Bymeans of a large telescope, we had thoroughlyexamined the snow-mantle of the mountain,still 15,700 toises distant, and discoveredseveral ridges, which, projecting like sterileblack streaks, converged towards the summitand gave some hope that, upon them, a firmfooting might be obtained in the region ofeternal snow. Riobamba Nuevo lies withinsight of the enormous and now indentedmountain Capac-urcu, called by the Span-iards Altar, which (says a tradition of thenatives) was once higher than Chimborazo,and after having been many years in a stateof eruption suddenly fell in. This terror-spreading event is said to have taken placeshortly before the conquest of Quito by theInca Tupac-Yupanqui. Riobamba Nuevomust not be confounded with the old Rio-bamba of the great map of La Condamineand Don Pedro Maldonado. The latter citywas entirely destroyed by the great catas-trophe of the 4th of February, 1797, which in afew minutes destroyed 45,000 human beings.The new Riobamba lies, according to mychronometrical observations, 42 seconds moreto the eastward than the old Riobamba, butalmost in the same latitude (1° 41′ 46″south). We were in the plain of Tapia, fromwhich, on the 22nd of June, we began our ex-pedition towards Chimborazo, being already8,898 Paris feet* (1,483 toises) above thelevel of the South Sea. This table-land is apart of the valley-land between the Easternand Western Andes, i. e. between the chainof the active volcanoes Cotopaxi and Tungu-rahua on the one hand, and the chain of theIliniza and Chimborazo on the other. Wegently ascended as far as the foot of the lastmentioned mountain, where, in the Indianvillage Calpi, we were to pass the night.This plain is sparingly covered with Cactusstems and Schinus molle, which resembles aweeping willow. Herds of variegated llamas,in thousands, seek here a scanty subsistence.At so great a height, the nightly terrestrialradiation of heat, when the sky is cloudless,proves injurious to agriculture, through coldand frost. Before reaching Calpi, we visitedLican, now likewise a small village, butbefore the conquest of the country by theeleventh Inca,† a considerable city, and theplace of residence of the Conchocando, orPrince of Puruay. The natives believe thatthe few wild llamas found on the westernside of Chimborazo, are derived from dis-|Spaltenumbruch|persed and fugitive herds, which, after thedestruction of the old Lican, became wild. Very near to Calpi, north-westward ofLican, there is in the barren table-land alittle isolated hill, the black mountain, Yana-Urcu, the name of which has not been givenby the French academicians, but which, in ageognostical point of view, deserves muchattention. The hill lies SS.E. of Chimbo-razo, at a distance of less than three miles(15 to 1°), and separated from the same bythe high plain of Luisa only. If in it we donot recognise a lateral eruption of Chimbo-razo, the origin of the cone must certainly beascribed to the subterranean forces which,under that mountain, have for thousands ofyears vainly sought an opening. It is oflater origin than the elevation of the greatdome-shaped mountain. The Yana-Urcuforms, with the northern hill Naguangachi,a connected eminence in the form of a horse-shoe; the bow, more than a semicircle, isopen towards the east. There probably liesin the centre of the horse-shoe, the point outof which the black slags have been thrown,that now lie spread far around. We foundthere a funnel-shaped depression of about120 feet in depth, in the interior of whichthere is a small hill, whose height does notequal that of the surrounding margin.Yana-Urcu probably signifies the southernculminating point of the old crater-margin,which, at the most, is elevated 400 feet abovethe level of Calpi. Naguangachi signifiesthe northern lower end. The whole emi-nence reminds one,—through its horse-shoeform, not in regard to its rock,—of the some-what higher hill Javirac (el Panecillo deQuito), which rises isolated at the foot of thevolcano Pichincha, in the plain of Turu-bamba, and which, in La Condamine’s, orrather Morainville’s map, is drawn errone-ously as a perfect cone. According to thetradition of the natives, and according to oldMSS. which the Cacike or Apu of Lican (theConchocandi) possessed, the volcanic erup-tion of the Yana-Urcu occurred immediatelyafter the death of the Inca Tupa-Yupanqui:—thus probably in the middle of the 15thcentury. Tradition says that a fire-ball, orindeed a star, fell from heaven and set on firethe mountain. Such fables, connecting thefall of aërolites with eruptions are also spreadamong the tribes of Mexico. The rock ofthe Yana-Urcu is a porous, dark clove-co-loured, often entirely black slaggy mass,which may be easily confounded with porousbasalt. Olivin is entirely wanting in it, thewhite, sparingly distributed crystals it con-tains, are throughout small and probablyLabrador. Here and there, I saw a sprink-ling of iron-pyrites. The whole belongs pro-bably to the black augite-porphyry, as wellas the whole formation of Chimborazo, towhich I am not disposed to give the name

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* Thus 2.890 metres. Boussingault calculatedthis elevation to be 2,870 metres, and estimated themean temperature of the high plain of Tabia at16°,4 C. (61°52 F.)† The same Tupac-Yupanqui, whose well preservedremains, Garcillasso de la Vega, so lately as in 1559,had seen in the family-vault at Cuzco.|92| trachyte, since it contains no felspar, (withsome albite), such as is contained in ourtrachyte of the Siebengebirge near Bonn.The slaggy masses of the Yana-Urcu alteredby a very active fire, are indeed extremelylight, but proper pumice-stone has not beenthrown out there. The eruption has takenplace through a grey, irregularly stratifiedmass of dolerite, which here forms the table-land, and resembles the rock of Penipe (atthe foot of the volcano of Tungurahua) wheresyenite and mica-slate containing garnets,have been broken through. On the easternside of the Yana-Urcu, or rather at the footof the hill towards Lican, the natives con-ducted us to a projecting rock, an opening inwhich resembled the mouth of a forsakengallery. Here, as well as at the distance often feet, there is heard a violent subterraneannoise, which is accompanied by a current ofair, or subterranean wind. The current ofair is much too weak to admit of the noisebeing attributed to it. The noise certainlyarises from a subterranean brook, which isprecipitated downwards into a deep hollow,and through its fall occasions a motion inthe air. A monk, the priest at Calpi, had,with the same idea, some time before, conti-nued on the gallery at an open fissure to pro-cure water for his village. The hardness ofthe black augite rock probably interruptedthe work. Chimborazo, notwithstanding itsenormous mass of snow, sends down into thetable-land such insignificant brooks of water,that it may be presumed the greater part ofits water flows through clefts to the interior.In the village of Calpi itself also, there wasformerly heard a great noise in a house that hadno cellar. Before the celebrated earthquakeof the 4th of February, 1797, there sprangforth a brook in the south-west of the village,at a deeper point. Many Indians consideredthis brook as a part of the water that flowsunder the Yana-Urcu. But since the greatearthquake, this brook has again disappeared. (To be continued.)

(Continued from. page 92.) After we had passed the night at Calpi,which, according to my barometrical mea-surement, lies 9,720 feet (1,620 toises) abovethe sea, we began, on the morning of the23rd, our proper expedition up Chimborazo.We attempted to ascend the mountain on theSS.E. side, and the Indians who were toattend us as guides, but of whom but a fewhad ever reached the limit of perpetual snow,gave this course the preference. We foundChimborazo surrounded with great plains,which rise, step-like, one above the other.Proceeding first through the Llanos de Luisa,then after rather a gradual ascent of scarcely5,000 feet in length, we reached the tableland (Llano) of Sisgun. The first step(stufe) is at a height of 10,200 feet, thesecond 11,700. These grass grown plainsthus equal in elevation, respectively, thehighest summit of the Pyrenees (Peak Ne-thou) and the summit of the peak of Tene-riffe. The perfect horizontality of thesetahle-lands allows us to infer the long conti-nuance of stagnant water. The travellerimagines he sees before him the bottom of alake. On the acclivity of the Swiss Alps,there is sometimes observed this phenomenonof small step-like plains, lying one above theother, which, like the emptied basins ofalpine lakes, are united by narrow openpasses. The widely extended grass lands(los Pajonales) are on Chimborazo, as every |135| there around the high summits of theAndes, so monotonous that the family of thegrasses (species of Paspalum, Andropogon,Bromus, Dejeuxia, Stipa) are seldom inter-rupted by dicotyledonous plants. There pre-vails almost the heathy scenery which I haveseen in the barren part of Northern Asia.The flora of Chimborazo, in general, appearedto us less rich than that of the other snowmountains which surround the city of Quito.But a few Calceolariæ, Compositæ, (Bidens,Eupatorium, Dumerilia paniculata, Werne-ria nubigena) and Gentianæ, among whichthe beautiful Gentiana cernua shining forthwith purple flowers,—rear themselves on thehigh plain of Sisgun, between the associatedgrasses. These belong, for the most part, tothe genera of Northern Europe. The tem-ture of the air generally prevailing inthese regions of alpine grasses, elevated res-pectively 1,600 and 2,000 toises, fluctuatesby day between 4° and 16° C. (39°.2 and60°.8 F.) by night between 0° and 10° (32°and 50° F.). The mean temperature of thewhole year, according to my collective obser-vations in the neighbourhood of the Equator,appears to be about 9°* (48°.2 F.). In theflat lands of the Temperate Zone, this is themean temperature of the north of Germany,for example, of Luneburg (Lat. 53° 15′); buthere the distribution of heat among the dif-ferent months (the most important elementin determining the character of the vegeta-tion of a country) is so unequal, that inFebruary, the mean heat is—1°.8 (+28°.76F.), in July + 18° (+64°.4 F.) My plan was to perform a trigonometricaloperation in the beautiful perfectly level grassland of Sisgun. I had made arrangementsfor measuring a base line here. The anglesof altitude would have proved very conside-rable in such proximity to the summit ofChimborazo. There remained yet a perpen-dicular height of less than 8,400 feet (theheight of the Canigou in the Pyrenees) todetermine. Yet with the enormous massesof single mountains in the chain of theAndes, every determination of the heightabove the sea is compounded of a barometricaland trigonometrical observation. I had takenwith me the sextant and other instruments ofmeasurement in vain. The summit of Chim-borazo remained densely veiled in mist.From the high plain of Sisgun the ascent istolerably steep as far as the little alpine lakeof Yana-Coche. Thus far I had remainedon the mule, having from time to timealighted 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|Spaltenumbruch|diameter. The sky became more and moreobscured; but between and over the mist-strata there still lay scattered single groupsof clouds. The summit of Chimborazo wasvisible for a few moments only at a time.Much snow having fallen during the prece-ding night, I left the mule where we foundthe lower border of this newly-fallen snow, aborder which must not be confounded withthe limit of perpetual snow. The barometershowed that we had only now attained theheight of 13,500 feet. On other mountains,likewise near to the equator, I have seen snowfall at the height of 11,200 feet, but notlower. My companion rode as far as theline of perpetual snow, i.e. to the height ofMont Blanc; which mountain, as is known,would not in this latitude (1° 27′ south)always be covered with snow. The horsesand mules remained there to await ourreturn. A hundred and fifty toises above the littlebasin of Yana-Coche, we saw at lengthnaked rock. Hitherto the grass-land hadwithdrawn the ground from any geognosticalexamination. Great walls of rocks, extend-ing from the N.E. towards the S.W., in partcleft into misshapen columns, reared them-selves out of the eternal snow,—a brownish-black augite rock shining like pitch-stoneporphyry. The columns were very thin,perhaps fifty to sixty feet in height, almostlike the trachyte columns of Table-Umca onthe volcano Pichincha. One group stoodalone, and reminded one of masts and stemsof trees. The steep walls led us through thesnow region to a narrow ridge of rock ex-tending towards the summit by which aloneit was possible for us to advance any farther;for the snow was then so soft that onescarcely dared to tread upon its surface. Theridge consisted of very weathered crumblingrock. It was often vesicular like a basaltic-amygdaloid. The path became more and more narrowand steep. The natives forsook us all butone at the height of 15,600 feet. All entrea-ties and threats were unavailing. The In-dians maintained that they suffered morethan we did from breathlessness. We re-mained alone, Bonpland,—our amiable friendthe younger son of the Marquis of Selvalegre,Carlos Montufar, who, in the subsequentstruggle for freedom, was shot, (at the com-mand of General Morillo),—a Mestize fromthe neighbouring village of San Juan,—andmyself. We attained with great exertionand endurance, a greater height than we haddared hope to reach, as we were almost en-tirely wrapped in mist. The ridge (very sig-nificantly called, in Spanish, Cuchilla, as itwere the knife-back) was in many placesonly eight to ten inches broad. On the leftthe precipice was concealed by snow, the sur-face of the latter seeming glazed with frost.

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* All temperatures mentioned in this paper areexpressed in degrees of the centigrade thermometer.(The equivalent degree of Fahrenheit has been sinceadded.—Tr.)|136| The thin icy mirror-like surface had an incli-nation of about 30°. On the right our viewsank shuddering 800 or 1,000 feet into anabyss out of which projected, perpendicularly,snowless masses of rock. We held the bodycontinually inclined towards this side, for theprecipice upon the left seemed still morethreatening, because there no chance pre-sented itself of grasping the toothed rock,and because, further, the thin ice-crust offeredno security against sinking in the loose snow.Only extremely light porous bits of doleritecould we roll down this crust of ice; and theinclined plane of snow was so extended thatwe lost sight of the stones thus rolled downbefore they came to rest. The absence ofsnow, as well upon the ridge along which weascended, as upon the rocks on our righthand towards the east, cannot be ascribed somuch to the steepness of the masses, and tothe gales of wind, as to open clefts, whichbreathe out warm air from deeper situatedbeds. We soon found our further ascentmore difficult from the increase of the crum-bling nature of the rock. At single and verysteep échélons it was necessary to apply atthe same time the hands and feet, as is sousual in all alpine journeys. As the rockwas very keenly angular, we were painfullyhurt, especially in the hands. Leopold VonBuch and I suffered very much in this man-ner near the crater of the Peak of Teneriffe,which abounds in obsidian. I had hadbesides (if it be permitted a traveller to men-tion such unimportant particulars) for severalweeks a sore in the foot, occasioned by theaccumulations of Niguas* (Pulex pene-trans), and much increased by fine dust ofpumice-stone during measurements in Llanode Tapia. The little adhesion of the rocksupon the ridge now rendered greater cautionnecessary, as many masses which we sup-posed firm lay loose and covered with sand,We proceeded one after the other, and somuch the more slowly, as it was needful totry the places which seemed uncertain.Happily the attempt to reach the summit ofChimborazo was the last of our mountainjourneys in South America; hence previousexperience guided us, and gave us more con-fidence in our powers. It is a peculiar cha-racter of all excursions in the Andes, thatabove the snow-line white people find them-selves in the most perilous situations, alwayswithout guides, indeed without any know-ledge of localities. We could see the summit no longer, evenfor a moment only at a time, and were hencedoubly curious to know, how much higher itremained for us to ascend. We examinedthe barometer at a point where the breadth|Spaltenumbruch|of the ridge permitted of two persons stand-ing conveniently together. We were now atan elevation of 17,300 feet; thus scarcelytwo hundred feet higher than we had beentwo months before, when climbing a similarridge on the Antisana. It is with the deter-mining of heights in climbing mountains, aswith the determining of temperature in theheat of summer. One finds with vexationthe thermometer not so high, the barometernot so low, as one expected. As the air, not-withstanding the height, was quite saturatedwith moisture, we now found the loose rockand the sand that filled its interstices ex-tremely wet. The air was still 2° 8′ (37° 04′Fahr.) Shortly before, we had in a dry placebeen able to bury the thermometer threeinches deep in the sand. It indicated+ 5° 8′ (+42° 44′ Fahr.) The result ofthis observation, which was made at theheight of about 2,860 toises, is very remark-able, for 400 toises lower down, at the limitof perpetual snow, the mean heat of the at-mosphere is, according to many observations,carefully collected by Boussingault and my-self, only + 1°6′ (34° 88′ Fahr.) The tem-perature of earth (sand) at +5° 8′ (42° 44′Fahr.) must therefore be ascribed to the sub-terranean heat of the dolerite mountain; Ido not say to the whole mass, but to the cur-rent of air ascending from the interior. (To be continued.)

(Continued from page 136.) After an hour of cautious climbing, theridge of rock became less steep; but, alas!the mist remained as thick as ever. Wenow began gradually to suffer from greatnausea. The tendency to vomiting was com-bined with some giddiness; and much moretroublesome than the difficulty of breathing.A coloured man (a mestize of San Juan), notfrom selfish motives, but merely out of goodnature, had been unwilling to forsake us.He was a poor, vigorous peasant, and sufferedmore than we did. We had hæmorrhagefrom the gums and lips. The conjunctiva ofthe eyes, likewise, was, in all, gorged withblood. These symptoms of extravasation inthe eyes, and of oozing from the lips andgums, did not in the least disquiet us, as wehad repeatedly experienced them before. InEurope, M. Zumstein began to experiencehæmorrhage at a much lower elevation onMont Rosa. The Spanish warriors duringthe conquest of the equinoctial region ofAmerica (during the Conquista), did notascend above the snow line, thus but littleabove the elevation of Mont Blanc, and yetAcosta, in his Historia Natural de las In-dias,—a kind of physical geography, whichmay be called a master-piece of the 16thcentury,—speaks circumstantially of “Nau-sea and Spasm of the Stomach,” as painfulsymptoms of the mountain-sickness, whichin these respects is analogous to sea-sickness. On the volcano of Pichincha I once felt,without experiencing hæmorrhage, so violentan affection of the stomach, accompanied bygiddiness, that I was found senseless on theground, just as I left my companions on awall of rock above the defile of Verde-Cucha,in order to perform some electrical experi-ments on a perfectly open space. Theheight was inconsiderable, below 13,800 feet.But on the Antisana, at the considerableelevation of 17,220 feet, our young travellingcompanion, Don Carlos Montufar, bled freelyfrom the lips. All of these phenomena varyaccording to age, constitution, the tendernessof the skin, the preceding exertions of themuscular powers; yet for single individualsthey are a kind of measure of the atmospherictenuity, and of the absolute elevation reached.According to my observations in the Cordil-leras, these symptoms manifest themselves inwhite people, with a mercurial column between14 inches,—and 15 inches 10 lines. It isknown that the estimates regarding heights,which æronauts maintain that they havereached, generally deserve but little credit,and if a more certain and extremely accurateobserver, M. Gay Lussac, who, on the 16th |164| of September, 1804, reached the vast heightof 21,600 feet (thus between the height ofChimborazo and Illimani), experienced nohæmorrhage, this is perhaps to be ascribed tothe absence of muscular exertion. Accordingto the present condition of eudiometry, theair of those lofty regions appear to contain inproportion as much oxygen as that of lowerheights; but since in that attenuated air—the barometric pressure only one half of thatto which we are generally exposed—the bloodin each act of respiration takes up a smallerquantity of oxygen, it is certainly conceivablethat a general feeling of weakness shouldtake place. Why this asthenie as in faint-ing, should excite nausea and a tendency tovomiting, it is not our purpose to determine;as little is it here to be proved, that theoozing of blood (the hæmorrhage from thelips, gums, and eyes), which also has notbeen experienced by all, at such greatheights,—can by no means be satisfactorilyexplained by the absence of a “mechanicalcounterpressure” on the vascular system;our attention should rather be engaged inexamining the probability of the influence ofa diminished atmospheric pressure, duringfatigue, on the moving of the legs in regionsof very attenuated air; for, according to thememorable discovery of two spirited inquirers,Wilhelm and Edward Weber,* the hoveringleg, hanging from the trunk, is held andcarried merely by the pressure of the atmos-phere. The layers of mist that prevented our see-ing distant objects, appeared suddenly, not-withstanding the total stillnes of the air,perhaps through electrical processes, to bebroken up. We recognised once more, andindeed immediately before us, the dome-shaped summit of Chimborazo. It was anearnest, momentous gaze. The hope toreach this summit animated our powers anew.The ridge of rock, only here and there coveredwith thin flakes of snow, became somewhatbroader. We hastened onwards with certainsteps, when all at once a ravine of some400 feet in depth, and 50 broad, set an insur-mountable barrier to our undertaking. Wesaw distinctly beyond the abyss, our ridge ofrock continued forward in the same direction;yet I doubt its leading to the summit itself.The chasm was not to be gone round. Onthe Antisana. M. Bonpland indeed had foundit possible, after a very cold night, to proceedfor a considerable length through the snow.We durst not venture the attempt, because ofthe looseness of the mass, and the form ofthe precipice rendered climbing down impos-sible. It was one o’clock in the afternoon.|Spaltenumbruch|We set up with much care the barometerIt indicated 13 inches 11.2·10 lines. Thetemperature of the air was now—1° 6′ (+29° 12′ F.), but after several years’ stay inthe hottest regions of the Tropics, this smalldegree of cold benumbed us. Besides, ourboots were thoroughly soaked with snowwater, for the sand that covered here andthere the ridge was mixed with old snow.According to La Place’s barometrical formula,we had reached a height of 3,016 toises, ormore precisely 18,097 Paris feet. If LaCondamine’s estimate of the height of Chim-borazo, as noted on the stone-table of theJesuit’s College in Quito, be correct, therefailed us yet of the summit of the mountain1,224 feet, or thrice the height of St. Peter’schurch at Rome. La Condamine and Bouguer say explicitly,that they attained, on Chimborazo, theheight of 2,400 toises only; but they gloryin having seen on the Corazon,—one of themost picturesque snow-mountains (Nevados)in the immediate neigh bourhood of Quita,—the barometer at 15 inches 10 lines. Theysay this is “a lower state than any humanbeing has hitherto ever been in a situation toobserve.” At the above described point onChimborazo, the pressure of the air wasabout two inches less; less also than at thehighest point reached in 1818, sixteen yearsafterwards, by Captain Gerard, on the Tarhi-gang, in the Himmalayan Mountains. Ihave been exposed in a diving-bell in Eng-land to an air-pressure of forty-five inches,for almost an hour together. The flexibilityof the human organism consequently endureschanges in the state of the barometer,amounting to thirty-one inches. Yet thephysical constitution of the human racemight be remarkably changed, if great cosmi-cal causes were to make permanent such ex-tremes in atmospheric tenuity and condensa-tion. We remained but a short time in thismournful solitude, being soon again entirelyveiled in mist. The humid air was notthereby set in motion. No fixed directionwas to be observed in single groups of thedenser particles of vapour; I therefore cannotsay whether at this elevation the west windblows, opposing the Tropical monsoon. Wesaw no longer the summit of Chimborazo,none of the neighbouring snow-mountains,still less the table-lands of Quito. We wereas though isolated in a ball of air. Somestone-lichens only had followed us above theline of perpetual snow. The last cryptoga-mic plants which I collected were Lecideaatrovirens (Lichen geographicus, Web.), anda Gyrophora of Acharius, a new species(Gyrophora rugosa), at about the height of2,820 toises. The last moss, Grimmia longi-rostris, grew 400 toises lower down. Abutterfly (sphinx) was caught by M. Bon-

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* Mechanik der Menschlichen Gehwerkzeuge. 1836.§ 64. S. 147-160. More recent experiments of thebrothers Weber, at Berlin, have fully confirmed theposition, that the leg is carried in the acetabulum bythe pressure of the atmosphere.|165| pland at the height of 15,000 feet; we saw afly 1,600 feet higher. The following factsafford the most striking proof that these ani-mals are involuntarily carried up into thoseupper regions by the current of air whichrises from the warmed plains. As Boussin-gault ascended the Silla de Caracas, to repeatmy measurement of the mountain, he sawfrom time to time, at the height of 8,000 feet,at noon, as the west wind blew, whitishbodies rapidly pass through the air, whichhe at first took for soaring birds with whiteplumage, that reflected the sun’s rays.These bodies rose with great rapidity out ofthe valley of Caracas, and surmounting thesummit of Silla, took a north-east direction,and reached probably the sea. Some fellupon the southern acclivity of the Silla; theywere grass-halms, that had reflected the sun’srays. Boussingault sent me some of these,which still had ears, in a letter to Paris,where my friend and fellow-labourer, Kunth,instantly recognised them as the Wilfa tena-cissima, which grows in the valley of Cara-cas, and which he has described in our work, Nova Genera et Species Plantarum Ame-ricæ Æquinoctialis. I must remark, thatwe met with no condor on Chimborazo, thatpowerful vulture, which is so frequent on theAntisana and Pichincha, and which showsgreat confidence from its ignorance of man.The condor loves pure air, in order the easierfrom on high to recognise its prey or its food,for it gives dead animals the preference. As the weather became more and morecloudy, we hastened down upon the sameledge of rock, that had favoured our ascent.Caution, however, on account of the uncer-tainty of the steps, was more necessary thanin climbing up. We tarried only just to col-lect fragments of rock. We foresaw that inEurope “a little bit of Chimborazo” wouldbe asked for. At that time, no mountainrock in any part of South America had beennamed; the rocks of all the high summits ofthe Andes were called granite. As we wereat the height of about 17,400 feet, it beganto hail violently. The hailstones wereopaque, and milk-white, with concentriclayers, some appeared considerably flattenedby rotation, twenty minutes before we reachedthe lower limit of perpetual snow, the hailwas replaced by snow. The flakes were sodense, that the snow soon covered the ridgeof rock many inches deep; we should havebeen brought into great danger, had the snowsurprised us at the height of 18,000 feet. Ata few minutes after two o’clock, we reachedthe point where our mules were standing.The natives that remained behind, had beenvery apprehensive for our safety.