Account of Travels between the Tropia. 3Ci 



porphyry, was cooled anc^ filled with snow : our travellers 

 found it again on fire ; and this intelligence was distressing; 

 to the town of Quito, which is distant only about four or 

 five thousand toises. Here M. Humboldt was in dancer 

 of losing his life. Being alone with an Indian, who was 

 as little acquainted withlhe crater as himself, and walkino- 

 over a fissure concealed by a thin stratum of congealed snow^ 

 he had almost fallen into'it. 



Our travellers, during their stay in the kingdom of Quito, 

 made several excursions to the snowy mountains of^Anti- 

 sana, Cotopaxi, Tunguragiia, and Chimborazo, which is 

 the highest summit of our earth, and wliich the French 

 academicians measured only by approximation. They exa- 

 mined in particular the geogn'ostic part of the cordillera of 

 the Andes, respecting which nothing has vet been published 

 in Europe ; mineralogy, as we may saV, being new er than the 

 voyage of La Condamine, whose universaf genius and in- 

 credible activity embraced every thing else tlvit could be 

 interesting to the sciences. The trigonometrical and baro- 

 metrical measurements of M. Hunil)oldt have proved that 

 some of these volcanoes, and especially that of Tuncinaoua, 

 have become considerably lower since 1 753; a result, which 

 accords with what the inhabitants of Pelileo and the plains 

 of Tapia have observed. 



M. Humboldt found that all these large masses were 

 the work of crystallization. " Every thing I have seen," 

 says he in a letter to Delametherie,' " in these recrions, 

 where the highest elevations oF the globe are situated,^ liave 

 confirmed me more and more in the grand idea that you 

 threw out in your Theory of the Earth, the most complete 

 work we have on that subject, in regard to the formation of 

 mountains. All the masses of which ihey consist lu-.ve 

 united according to their affinities by the laws of attraction, 

 and have formed these elevations, niore or less considerable 

 in different parts on the surface of the earth, by the laws of 

 general crystallization. There can remain no doubt in this 

 respect to the traveller who considers without prejudice 

 these large masses. You will see in our relations that there 

 is not one of the objects you treat of which we have not en- 

 deavoured to improve by our labours." 



In all these excursions, begun in .January 1 802, our travel- 

 lers were accompanied by M. Charle:, Montufar, son of the 

 marquis de Selvalegre, of Quito, an individual zealous for the 

 progress of the sciences, and who caused to be reconstructed, 

 at his own expense, the pyramids of Sarouguicr, the boun- 

 daries of the celebrated l)a.se of the French and Sjianish aca- 

 demicians. 



