Mount Chimborazo

“ If we were even to picture to ourselves Mount Pilatus placed on the Schreckhorn,* or the Schneekoppe of Silesia on Mont Blanc, we should p 29 not have attained to the height of that great Colossus of the Andes, the Chimborazo, whose height is twice that of Mont Aetna; and we must pile the Righi, or Mount Athos, on the summit of the Chimborazo, in order to form a just estimate of the elevation of the Dhawalagiri, the highest point of the Himalaya. ”

“ It is only while sailing on the Pacific that one sees Chimborazo in its complete proportions. Its very magnificence diminishes the impression of awe and wonder, for the Andes on which it rests are heaved to such a vast altitude above the sea, that the relative elevation of its summit becomes reduced by comparison with the surrounding mountains. Its altitude is twenty-one thousand four hundred and twenty feet, or forty-five times the height of Strasburg cathedral; or, to state it otherwise, the fall of one pound from the top of Chimborazo would raise the temperature of water thirty degrees. ”

“ Chimborazo, in Columbia, province of Quito, is one of the loftiest of the chain of the Andes, and is situated in lat. 1° 30' S., long. 78° 58' W. Though not in a state of activity, it is wholly composed of volcanic material, and reaches an elevation of over 20,000 feet above the ocean; its sides being covered by a sheet of permanent snow to a level of 2,600 feet below the summit. ”

“ The valleys which furrow the flank of Chimborazo are in keeping with its colossal size. Narrower, but deeper than those of the Alps, the mind swoons and sinks in the effort to comprehend their grim majesty. The mountain appears to have been broken to pieces like so much thin crust, and the strata thrown on their vertical edges, revealing deep, dark chasms, that seem to lead to the confines of the lower world. The deepest valley in Europe, that of the Ordesa in the Pyrenees, is 3200 feet deep; but here are rents in the side of Chimborazo in which Vesuvius could be put away out of sight. ”

“ If Chimborazo alone has been capable of measuring its strength with the whole earth, and of giving to the pendulum a divergence of seven seconds and a half from the line, where all the efficacy of the globe directs it to the centre, with how much greater reason ought an entire world of analogous mountains, united to Chimborazo, to equiliberate, not the absolute weight of the globe, nor the northern territories, but, respectively, the sum of the excess of the latter over the southern? ”

“ The reason that we are so noisy is that we are so full of wants; we are unfinished characters. Had we perfect fulness of all things, the beatitude of being without a want, we should lapse into the eternal silence of God.
Chimborazo is a leader of a long train of ambitious crags and peaks; but as he who comes after the king must not expect to be noticed, we will only take a glimpse of these lesser lights as we pass up the Western Cordillera, and then down the Eastern.
The first after leaving the monarch is Caraguairazo. The Indians call it “the wife of Chimborazo.” ”

“ Toward the extremity of the part where the rush grows, and the cold begins to increase, is found a vegetable with a round bulbous head. Higher still, the earth is bare of vegetation, and seems covered with eternal snow. The most remarkable of the Andes are the mountains of Chimborazo, Cotopaxi, and Pichincha.”
CHIMBORAZO. This is the most lofty and majestic peak of the Andes, and has a circular summit. It is twenty-two thousand feet, or more than four miles high. On the shores of the ocean, after the long rains of winter, Chimborazo appears like a cloud in the horizon. ”

“ His feet are as eternally green as his head is everlastingly white; but they are far away beneath the bananas and cocoa-palms of the Pacific coast.
Rousseau was disappointed when he first saw the sea; and the first glimpse of Niagara often fails to meet one's expectations. But Chimborazo is sure of a worshiper the moment its overwhelming grandeur breaks upon the traveler. You feel that you are in the presence-chamber of the monarch of the Andes. There is sublimity in his kingly look, of which the ocean might be proud. ”

“ The measurement (now divested of former errors) of the altitude of the two mountains, Sorata and Illimani, in the eastern chain of the Andes of Bolivia, has not yet, with certainty, restored the Chimborazo to its ancient pre-eminence among the snowy mountains of the new world. In the Himalaya the recent barometric measurement of the Kinchinjinga (26,438 Parisian, or 28,178 English feet) places it next in height to the Dhawalagiri, which has also been trigonometrically measured with greater accuracy. ”

“ Whymper is of the opinion that the snow domes that form the summit of Chimborazo were at one time two of the highest points of the rim of the old crater.
Nearly due south of Quito is the great volcanic cone of El Altar. Like all the peaks of this high plateau, El Altar rises to a great height above the sea, being at the present time 16,383 feet above the sea. This mountain has an enormous crater that appears to be dormant or extinct, and is covered with snow. ”

“ Equally debarred, by the unhappy dissensions between Chili, Peru, and Bolivia, from travel amongst the highest of the Andes, I turned to the Republic of Ecuador, the most lofty remaining country which was accessible.
As the main object of the journey was to observe the effects of low pressure, and to attain the greatest possible height in order to experience it, Chimborazo naturally claimed the first attention, on account of its absolute elevation above the sea; [11] and I proposed to encamp upon this mountain, at gradually increasing heights, with the ultimate aim of reaching the summit. ”

“ Remember, only forty-five!”
“‘Ting! ting! ting-ting-ting-ting!’ said the bell-punch; and now there were ten round holes in the strip of pasteboard. Chimborazo was now really frightened. He was silent for some time; and when his mother called him to his lessons he tried very hard not to say the dangerous words. But the habit was so strong that he said them unconsciously. By dinner-time there were twenty-five holes in the cardboard strip; by tea-time there were forty! Poor Chimborazo! he was afraid to open his lips, for whenever he did the words would slip out in spite of him. ”

“ It is on the other hand extremely difficult to obtain a convenient base line, as the space that is to be determined barometrically increases with every step we advance towards the mountain. These obstacles have to be encountered by every traveller who on the high table-lands, which surround the summit of the Andes, selects a spot for performing a geodetic operation. On the pumice-covered plain of Tapia, to the west of the Rio Chambo, at a height of 9477 feet, barometrically determined, I measured the Chimborazo. ”

“ Their greatest altitude is conjectured to take place nearly under the equator, where the cone of Chimborazo rises to the amazing height of 7147 yards above the level of the sea, but they insensibly decrease in elevation towards the province of Darien, and in running through the isthmus of Panama are nearly lost ”

“ Three hundred miles and more from Chimborazo, one hundred from the snows of Cotopaxi, in the wildest wastes of Ecuador's Andes, there lies that mysterious mountain valley, cut off from all the world of men, the Country of the Blind. Long years ago that valley lay so far open to the world that men might come at last through frightful gorges and over an icy pass into its equable meadows, and thither indeed men came, a family or so of Peruvian half-breeds fleeing from the lust and tyranny of an evil Spanish ruler. ”

“ Bring the most uninstructed peasant, who has seen nothing of the earth, but its plains, in sight of Chimborazo. The thrill of awe and sublimity, that springs within him at the view, and lifts his spirit above the blue summits to the divinity, is one of the forms, in which this sentiment acts. ”

“ We knew that the peak of Chimborazo is scarcely more than seventy miles distant from Guayaquil, and is easily seen from the town in clear weather; but we did not know that clear weather is a phenomenon that recurs only on about half a dozen days in the course of the year, and it is needless to say that we did not draw one of these prizes in the lottery. I had been conscious of a distinct change of climate during the preceding night, and this was still more marked after we entered the river. The increase of temperature was but trifling. ”

“ Ten miles farther south is the bare-headed Guamani range, over which passes the road to the wild Napo country. [78] The view from the crest is magnificent; but, like every grand panorama, eludes description. As we look eastward over the beginnings of the mighty forest which stretches unbroken to the Atlantic, the vast ridges, trending north and south, and decreasing in height as they increase in distance, seem like the waves of a great ocean rolling toward the mountains.
Near by stands Antisana in his snowy robe. This volcano ranks next to Chimborazo in dignity. ”

“ Grand as the Andes are, how insignificant in a general view! How slightly they cause our globe to differ from a perfect sphere! Cotopaxi constitutes only 1/1100 of the earth's radius; and on a globe six feet in diameter, Chimborazo would be represented by a grain of sand less than 1/20 of an inch in thickness.
[69] But Chimborazo is steeper than the Alp-king; and steepness is a quality more quickly appreciated than mere massiveness. "Mont Blanc (says a writer in Frazer's Magazine) is scarcely admired, because he is built with a certain regard to stability ”

“ In the kingdom of Quito, the great catastrophe of Riobamba, which we have before mentioned, has led several well-informed persons to think, that this unfortunate country would be less often desolate, if the subterraneous fire would break the porphyritic dome of Chimborazo; and this colossal mountain should become a burning volcano. At all times analogous facts have led to the same hypothesis. ”

“ At Guayaquil, the westernmost city of South America, it is even possible on occasions in clear weather to see Chimborazo, eighty miles from the sea. Nowhere in the world is there a greater assembly of lofty peaks than will be seen as the vessel proceeds along the coast. ”

“ That part of the great group of mountains which we have before described, which lies in the new continent, contains many active volcanoes, and others but recently extinct. Terra del Fuego, as its very name imports, is the seat of many; Chili has several; in Peru are to be noted Arequipa, Pichinca, and Cotapaxi; while Chimborazo is obviously one that has become extinct at a period not remote. Passing the Isthmus of Panama, we find the volcanoes of Guatimala and Nicaragua almost infinite in number. ”

“ The constant temperature of the air is such, that the summits of those mountains which enter the region of perpetual snow have the line of congelation distinctly marked, and the road to Quito from Guayaquil leads along the northern declivity of Chimborazo, amid scenes of the most majestic nature, and near the regions of eternal frost. ”

“ According to Whymper, however, who has recently studied this part of South America, there is a succession of basins between the mountains, but there is no such thing as a single valley in the interior of Ecuador. The extinct volcanoes of Cayamba, Antisana, and Chimborazo are the most important. On all three mountains there are old lava streams on their sides. Although no craters can be seen on their summits, yet it is almost certain they once had craters. There is plenty of room on the summit of Antisana for a cone as great as that of Cotopaxi. ”

“ Ajusco, seen at the distance of ten leagues from the city of Mexico, is a noble sight; how then must I have been struck with the mountains of the Antigua, whose bases arise from the verge of its streets to an elevation nearly three times as great as that of Ajusco; and which, from their relative elevation above the level of the sea, and on account of their being situated under a warmer latitude, are covered with perpetual verdure, to their very summits! Chimborazo, the highest peak of the Andes in South America, is 21,441 feet ”

“ Groups of phanerogamic Alpine plants in the Andes chain at from 13,700 to nearly 15,000 feet high. Species of Culcitium, Espeletia, Ranunculus, and small moss-like umbellifera, Myrrhis andicola, and Fragosa arctioides—pp. 233–234. Measurement of Chimborazo, and etymology of the name—pp. 234–236. On the greatest absolute height to which men in both continents, in the Cordilleras and the Himalaya,—on the Chimborazo and Tarhigang—have as yet ascended—p. 236.
Economy, habitat, and singular mode of capturing the Condor (Cuntur, in the Inca language) by means of palisades—pp. ”

“ The only person who has visited this site since its selection, who is capable, through personal knowledge of the South American chinchona forests, of forming an opinion, is Mr. Cross. It is exceedingly satisfactory to find that he not only approves of it for the cultivation of plants of the "red-bark" species, but that, from the superior depth and richness of the soil, he considers that they are likely to thrive even better than in their native forests near Limon, on the eastern slopes of Chimborazo. ”

“ Without appearing astonished at so unexpected an encounter, they bowed politely, and on Chimborazo, as in politics, went their separate ways.
Betrayed by the New World, Lord K. directed his steps towards the Old. He penetrated the heart of Asia, plunged into the Dobrudja region, and paused only at the foot of Tschamalouri, upon the borders of Bootan. It is fair that I should thus visit on you the formidable erudition inflicted upon me by Milord.
You must know, then, dear Edgar, that the Tschamalouri is the highest peak of the Himalayan group. ”