260 Some Account of the Island of Teneriffe. 



above the level of the sea appeared considerably more than ft 

 similar elevation above the lake of Geneva. We remained at 

 the summit about three quarters of an hour, our ascent had cost 

 US a labour of four hours, as we left the Estancia at ten minutes 

 before three and reached the top of the Peak before seven ; many 

 indeed of our halts were needless, and M. Escolar told me that he 

 had twice ascended to the summit in somewhat less than three 

 hours. Our thermometer, which was graduated to the scale of 

 Fahrenheit, was during our ascent as follows : at Orolava at eight 

 in the morning, 74° ; at six in the evening at La Estancia, 50° ; 

 at one in the following morning, 42^; at La Cueva at half- past 

 four, 32'; at the Ijottom of the cone, 36'; at the top of the 

 Peak one hour and a half after sun-rise, 3S-. The descent down 

 'the cone is difficult from its extreme rapidity, and from the fall 

 of large stones which loosen themsehes from the beds of pumice. 

 Having at last scrambled to tlie bottom, we pursued our march 

 down the other course of the lava, that is to say down its westerly 

 side, having ascended its eastern. The ravines and rents in this 

 stream of lava are deeper and more formidable; the descent into 

 them was always painful and troublesome, often dangerous, in 

 soniC places we let oursehes down from rock to rock. I can 

 form no opinion why there should be these strange irregularities 

 in the surface of this lava ; in places it resembles what sailors 

 term the trough of the sea, and I can compare it to nothing but 

 as if the sea in a storm had by some force become on a sudden 

 stationary, the waves retaining their swell. As we again ap- 

 proached La Cueva there is a singular steep valley, the depth of 

 which from its two walls cannot be less than lUO to 1.50 feet, 

 the lava lying in broken ridges one upon the other similar to the 

 masses of granite rock that time and decay have tumbled down 

 from the top of the Alps ; and, except from the scoria or what 

 Milton calls " the Fiery Surge," they in no degree bear the 

 marks of having rolled as a stream of liquid matter. This cur- 

 rent like that of the eastward branch has no resemblance to any 

 lavas I have seen elsewhere, it is hardly at all decomposed, full 

 of lamin?e of feldspar, the fracture conchoidal, and the texture 

 porphvritic, the colour ))rown like that of the other branch ; it 

 is but slightly celhdar, and contains no extraneous substances. 



We descended the pumice hill with great rapidity almost at a 

 run, and arrived at La Estancia in little more than two hours. 

 We then mounted our mules, and following the track by which 

 we had ascended the ])receding day, we reached about four 

 o'clock the country house of our hospitable friend Mr. Barry. 



The diificuli'es of this enterprise have been much exaggerated : 

 tlie ascent on foot is not a labour of more than four hours at 

 most, and the whole undertaking not to be compared in point 



of 



