edie aie 
Colombia between the Years 1820 and 1830. 19 
clude that the region of forests had scarcely ascended to the 
height of 8,000 feet, yet some of the houses of Quito are still 
standing, built with timber cut on the spot. 
A circumstance which cannot have escaped the notice of those 
who have ascended towards the limit of perpetual snow, is the 
variety and luxuriance of the Flora at the very point where the 
powers of vegetation are on the brink of total suspension. At 
above 15,000 feet the ground is covered with Gentianas, purple, 
azure and scarlet ; the Drabas, the Alchemillas ; the Culatium 
rufescens with its woolly hood; the rich Ranunculas Gusmanni ; 
the Lupinus nanus with its cones of blue flowers enveloped in 
white down; the Sida Pichinchensis spotting the ground with 
purple ; the Chuqueraga insignis ; all limited within a zone of 
about 500 feet, from whence they seem scarcely to be separated 
by any effort at artificial cultivation. Several attempts I have 
made to raise the Gentians, Sida, and other plants of the summits 
of the Andes, at the height of Quito, have been invariably unsuc- 
cessful. The attempts indeed to domesticate plants in a situation 
less elevated, is attended with greater difficulties than the trans- 
port of- plants from one climate to another. Besides the differ- 
ence of atmospheric pressure, as Humboldt has observed, plants 
transferred from one elevation to another never meet, for a single 
day, with the mean temperature to which they have been accus- 
tomed; whereas, transferred from one latitude to another, the 
difference is rather in its duration than in its intensity. It is 
easier to'accustom a plant of the lowlands to this elevation, than 
to bring down those of the paramos. 'Thus the orange and lem- 
On trees, Aguacates (Laurus persea) Ricinus communis, Datura 
arborea, all natives of the hot lowlands, grow and flourish, more 
or less at an elevation of 8,000 feet above the level of the sea, - 
On the Method of Measuring Heights by Boiling Water. 
Ir will be observed in the following Journal, that the indication 
of heights is, in most cases, joined with that of boiling water. 
The former is in fact a deduction from the latter; I had but a 
confused idea of this method, till, upon my arrival at Quito, I 
met with a pamphlet of the late D. Francisco José Caldas, (one 
of the most eminent victims sacrificed by the barbarity of Mu- 
Tillo on taking possession of Bogota in 1816,) published in 1819 
at Bourdeaux, in which he details the steps by which he arrived 
