Mountain Journeys 31 



different ones, the illustrious naturalist held about the explanation 

 of these various phenomena. 



But before going on to other accounts, I should include here a 

 fragment of one of the works of Humboldt, 17 in which he gives in- 

 formation full of interest for the subject of our study about the 

 usual habitat of the condor and the maximum height to which it 

 rises: 



The region which one may consider the habitual sojourn of the 

 condor begins at a height equal to that of Etna, and includes layers of 

 the air from 1,600 to 3,000 fathoms above sea level. The largest speci- 

 mens found in the chain of the Andes of Quito have a wing-spread of 

 14 feet, and the smallest only 8 feet. By these dimensions and by the 

 visual angle at which this bird appeared sometimes perpendicularly 

 above our heads, one may judge to what prodigious height it rises when 

 the sky is clear. Seen, for example, at a visual angle of four minutes, 

 he would be at a perpendicular distance of 1,146 fathoms. The cavern 

 (machay) of Antisana, situated opposite the mountain of Chuesolongo, 

 and from which we took the measurement for the soaring bird, is 

 2,493 fathoms above the level of the Great Ocean. So the absolute 

 height which the condor attained was 3,639 fathoms; there the barom- 

 eter is hardly twelve inches high. It is a very remarkable physiological 

 phenomenon that this same bird, which for hours soars in circles in 

 regions where the air is so rarefied, suddenly swoops down to the sea- 

 shore, for instance, along the western slope of the volcano of Pichincha, 

 and thus in a few instants passes through all climates, as it were. At 

 a height of 3,600 fathoms, the aerial and membranous sacs of the con- 

 dor, which were filled in lower regions, . must be extraordinarily in- 

 flated. Sixty years ago Ulloa expressed his surprise that the vulture 

 of the Andes could soar at a height where the air pressure was only 

 14 inches. It was believed then, on the basis of experiments made with 

 the pneumatic machine, that no animal could live in a medium so rare. 

 As I have already stated, on Chimborazo I saw the barometer drop to 

 13 inches 11.2 lines. My friend, M. Gay-Lussac, breathed for a quarter 

 of an hour in air the pressure of which was only 0.3288 meters. At 

 such great heights, in general man finds himself in a very painful state 

 of asthenia. On the contrary, in the condor the act of respiration ap- 

 pears to take place with equal ease in media in which the pressure 

 varies from 12 to 28 inches. Of all living beings, this is certainly the 

 one which can at will rise furthest from the surface of the earth. I 

 say at will, because small insects are carried still higher by ascending 

 currents. Probably the height reached by the condor is greater than 

 we found by the calculation given. I remember that on Gotopaxi, in 

 the plain of Suniguaicu, covered with pumice stones, and at an eleva- 

 tion of 2,263 fathoms above sea level, I saw this bird at such a height 

 that it seemed only a black dot. What is the smallest angle at which 

 objects dimly lighted can be distinguished? The weakening of the rays 

 of light by their passage through the layers of air has a great effect 

 upon the minimum of this angle. The transparency of mountain air is 

 so great at the equator, that in the province of Quito, as I have shown 



