two attempts to ascend chimborazo. by alexander von humboldt.

(Translated from the German by Dr. Martin Barry; in Jameson's 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, 3,016 toises, in December, 1831, 3,080 toises, above the level of the sea.

Barometrical measurements have thus been made, in the chain of the Andes 3,720 (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 1,1.15th English.--Tr.

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

The attainment of great heights is of less scientific interest, when the same lie far above the snow-line, and can be visited for a few hours only.

Immediate barometrical measurements of heights afford indeed this advantage, that the results are quickly obtained, yet the summits are, for the most part, surrounded by high plains, adapted for trigonometrical operations, by which all the elements of the measurements can be repeatedly proved; whilst a single determination by means of the barometer, is liable to considerable errors, because of the ascending and descending currents of air on the mountain slopes, and the variation in the decrease of temperature thus occasioned.

The nature of the rocks, from the permanent covering of snow, is almost entirely withdrawn from geognostic observation, since there are presented only single ridges composed of much weathered strata.

Organic life ceases in these lofty solitudes.

Scarcely do the condor and winged insects stray into these attenuated strata of the atmosphere, the latter being carried up by the currents of air.

If the endeavours of travelling natural philosophers who strive to climb the higher summits of the earth, is scarcely rewarded by a serious scientific interest, there is, on the other hand, an active popular participation in such endeavours.

That which seems unattainable has a mysterious attractive power; we wish that all should be explored,--at least attempted, though not to be obtined.

Chimborazo has been the wearisome object of all inquiries addressed to me since my first return to Europe.

The thoroughly exploring of the most important laws of nature, the most vivid delineations of stratified zones of plants and differences in climates, determining, as the latter do, the object of agriculture, were seldom capable of diverting attention from the snow clad summit which at that time (before Pentland's journey to Bolivia) was supposed to be the culminating point of the dike-like Andes.

I shall here extract from the still unprinted portion of my journals, the simple narration of a mountain journey.

The entire detail of the trigonometrical measurement, which I made at New Riobaraba in the plain of Tapia, was made known in the introduction to the first volume of my Astronomical Observations, soon after my return.

The geographical distribution of the plants on the acclivity of Chimborazo and the neighbouring mountains (from the sea-coast up to a height of 14,800 feet), I have attempted to represent by a figure in a table of my Geographical and Physical Atlas of South America, according to the excellent determination by Kunth of the alpine vegetation of the Cordilleras, collected by Bonpland and myself.

The history of the ascent itself, which can present but little dramatic interest, was reserved for the fourth and last volume of my journey towards the equatorial regions.

But since my friend M. Boussingault, now Professor of Chemistry at Lyons, one of the most talented and learned travellers of modern times, has recently, at my request, described in the Annals de Chimie et de Physiques, this enterprise, which very closely resembles my own,--and since our observations are mutually confirmative of each other,--this small fragment of a journey, which I here lay before the public, will no doubt be favoured with an indulgent reception.

I shall provisionally refrain from all circumstantial geognostic and physical discussions.

See Edinburgh New Philosophical Journal, vol. xix, for 1835, where there is a translation of Boussingault's memoir.

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

Three years afterwards, almost on the same day (the 23rd of June, 1802), I reached a point 6,700 feet higher, near the summit of Chimborazo.

After a long delay in the tableland 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 of November, 1802.

On a plain covered with pumice-stone,--where (after the fearful earthquake of February 4, 1797) the buildding 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 15,700 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 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.

This terrorspreading event is said to have taken place shortly before the conquest of Quito by the Inca Tupac-Yupanqui.

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 of February, 1797, which in a few minutes destroyed 45,000 human beings.

The new Riobamba lies, according to my chronometrical observations, 42 seconds more to the eastward than the old Riobamba, but almost in the same latitude (1° 41' 46" south).

We were in the plain of Tapia, from which, on the 22nd of June, we began our expedition towards Chimborazo, being already 8,898 Paris feet (1,483 toises) above the level of the South Sea.

This table-land is a part of the valley-land between the Eastern and Western Andes, i. e. between the chain of the active volcanoes Cotopaxi and Tungurahua on the one hand, and the chain of the Iliniza and Chimborazo on the other.

We gently ascended as far as the foot of the last mentioned 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.

Before reaching Calpi, we visited Lican, now likewise a small village, but before the conquest of the country by the eleventh Inca, a considerable city, and the place of residence of the Conchocando, or Prince of Puruay.

The natives believe that the few wild llamas found on the western side of Chimborazo, are derived from dispersed and fugitive herds, which, after the destruction of the old Lican, became wild.

Thus 2.890 metres.

Boussingault calculated this elevation to be 2,870 metres, and estimated the mean temperature of the high plain of Tabia at 16°,4 C. (61°52 F.)

The same Tupac-Yupanqui, whose well preserved remains, Garcillasso de la Vega, so lately as in 1559, had seen in the family-vault at Cuzco.

Very near to Calpi, north-westward 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 SS.E. of Chimborazo, at a distance of less than three miles (15 to 1°), and separated from the same by the high plain of Luisa only.

If in it we do not recognise 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 horseshoe; 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.

The whole eminence reminds one,--through its horse-shoe form, not in regard to its rock,--of the somewhat higher hill Javirac (el Panecillo de Quito), which rises isolated at the foot of the volcano Pichincha, in the plain of Turubamba, and which, in La Condamine's, or rather Morainville's map, is drawn erroneously as a perfect cone.

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 15th 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.

The rock of the Yana-Urcu is a porous, dark clove-coloured, often entirely black slaggy mass, which may be easily confounded with porous basalt.

Olivin is entirely wanting in it, the white, sparingly distributed crystals it contains, are throughout small and probably Labrador.

Here and there, I saw a sprinkling of iron-pyrites.

The whole belongs probably to the black augite-porphyry, as well as the whole formation of Chimborazo, to which I am not disposed to give the name trachyte, since it contains no felspar, (with some albite), such as is contained in our trachyte of the Siebengebirge near Bonn.

The slaggy masses of the Yana-Urcu altered by a very active fire, are indeed extremely light, but proper pumice-stone has not been thrown out there.

The eruption has taken place through a grey, irregularly stratified mass of dolerite, which here forms the tableland, and resembles the rock of Penipe (at the foot of the volcano of Tungurahua) where syenite and mica-slate containing garnets, have been broken through.

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 of 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.

(To be continued.)

humboldt's two attempts to ascend chimborazo.

(Continued from. page 92.)

After we had passed the night at Calpi, which, according to my barometrical measurement, lies 9,720 feet (1,620 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 SS.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 Luisa, then after rather a gradual ascent of scarcely 5,000 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 tahle-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 step-like 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 (los Pajonales) are on Chimborazo, as every there around the high summits of the Andes, so monotonous that the family of the grasses (species of Paspalum, Andropogon, Bromus, Dejeuxia, Stipa) 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, (Bidens, Eupatorium, Dumerilia paniculata, Werneria nubigena) 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 temture of the air generally prevailing in these regions of alpine grasses, elevated respectively 1,600 and 2,000 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.).

The mean temperature of the whole year, according to my collective observations in the neighbourhood of the Equator, appears to be about 9° (48°.2 F.).

In the flat lands of the Temperate Zone, this is the mean temperature of the north of Germany, for example, of Luneburg (Lat. 53° 15'); but here the distribution of heat among the different months (the most important element in determining the character of the vegetation of a country) is so unequal, that in February, the mean heat is--1°.8 (+28°.76 F.), in July + 18° (+64°.4 F.)

All temperatures mentioned in this paper are expressed in degrees of the centigrade thermometer. (The equivalent degree of Fahrenheit has been since added.--Tr.)

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 8,400 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 miststrata 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 rocks, extending from the N.E. towards the S.W., in part cleft into misshapen columns, reared themselves out of the eternal snow,--a brownishblack augite rock shining like pitch-stone porphyry.

The columns were very thin, perhaps fifty to sixty feet in height, almost like the trachyte columns of Table-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 basalticamygdaloid.

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 seeming glazed with frost.

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

On the right our view sank shuddering 800 or 1,000 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.

I had had besides (if it be permitted a traveller to mention such unimportant particulars) for several weeks a sore in the foot, occasioned by the accumulations of Niguas (Pulex penetrans), and much increased by fine dust of pumice-stone during measurements in Llano de Tapia.

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.

The Sand-flea, the Chique of the French colonists of the West Indies, an insect that introduces itself under the human skin, and, as the ovary of the impregnated female considerably enlarges, inflammation is excited.

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 2,860 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.

(To be continued.)

two attempts to ascend chimborazo. by alexander von humboldt.

(Continued from page 136.)

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 Mont 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 master-piece of the 16th 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.

It is known that the estimates regarding heights, which aeronauts maintain that they have reached, generally deserve but little credit, and if a more certain and extremely accurate observer, M.

Gay Lussac, who, on the 16th of September, 1804, reached the vast height of 21,600 feet (thus between the height of Chimborazo and Illimani), experienced no haemorrhage, this is perhaps to be ascribed to the absence of muscular exertion.

According to the present condition of eudiometry, the air of those lofty regions appear to contain in proportion as much oxygen as that of lower heights; but since in that attenuated airthe barometric pressure only one half of that to which we are generally exposed--the blood in each act of respiration takes up a smaller quantity of oxygen, it is certainly conceivable that a general feeling of weakness should take place.

Why this asthenie as in fainting, should excite nausea and a tendency to vomiting, it is not our purpose to determine; as little is it here to be proved, that the oozing of blood (the haemorrhage from the lips, gums, and eyes), which also has not been experienced by all, at such great heights,--can by no means be satisfactorily explained by the absence of a "mechanical counterpressure" on the vascular system; our attention should rather be engaged in examining the probability of the influence of a diminished atmospheric pressure, during fatigue, on the moving of the legs in regions of very attenuated air; for, according to the memorable discovery of two spirited inquirers, Wilhelm and Edward Weber, the hovering leg, hanging from the trunk, is held and carried merely by the pressure of the atmosphere.

Mechanik der Menschlichen Gehwerkzeuge. 1836.

§ 64. S. 147-160.

More recent experiments of the brothers Weber, at Berlin, have fully confirmed the position, that the leg is carried in the acetabulum by the pressure of the atmosphere.

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

We recognised 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 11.2·10 lines.

The temperature of the air was now--1° 6' (+ 29° 12' F.), 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 3,016 toises, or more precisely 18,097 Paris feet.

If La 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 summit of the mountain 1,224 feet, or thrice the height of St. Peter's church at Rome.

La Condamine and Bouguer say explicitly, that they attained, on Chimborazo, the height of 2,400 toises only; but they glory in having seen on the Corazon,--one of the most picturesque snow-mountains (Nevados) in the immediate neigh bourhood of Quita,-- the barometer at 15 inches 10 lines.

They say this is "a lower state than any human being has hitherto ever been in a situation to observe."

At the above described point on Chimborazo, the pressure of the air was about two inches less; less also than at the highest point reached in 1818, sixteen years afterwards, by Captain Gerard, on the Tarhigang, in the Himmalayan Mountains. I have been exposed in a diving-bell in England to an air-pressure of forty-five inches, for almost an hour together.

The flexibility of the human organism consequently endures changes in the state of the barometer, amounting to thirty-one inches.

Yet the physical constitution of the human race might be remarkably changed, if great cosmical causes were to make permanent such extremes in atmospheric tenuity and condensation.

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 Lecidea atrovirens (Lichen geographicus, Web.), and a Gyrophora of Acharius, a new species (Gyrophora rugosa), at about the height of 2,820 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 1,600 feet higher.

The following facts afford the most striking proof that these animals are involuntarily carried up into those upper regions by the current of air which rises from the warmed plains.

As Boussingault ascended the Silla de Caracas, to repeat my measurement of the mountain, he saw from time to time, at the height of 8,000 feet, at noon, as the west wind blew, whitish bodies rapidly pass through the air, which he at first took for soaring birds with white plumage, that reflected the sun's rays.

These bodies rose with great rapidity out of the valley of Caracas, and surmounting the summit of Silla, took a north-east direction, and reached probably the sea.

Some fell upon the southern acclivity of the Silla; they were grass-halms, that had reflected the sun's rays.

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 tenacissima, which grows in the valley of Caracas, and which he has described in our work, Nova Genera et Species Plantarum Americae AEquinoctialis. I must remark, that we met with no condor on Chimborazo, that powerful vulture, which is so frequent on the 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 recognise 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.