314 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



doubtful whether, after all, it really led to the summit. There 

 was no means of getting round the cleft. On Antisana, after a 

 night of severe frost, Bonpland had been able to travel a con- 

 siderable distance upon the frozen surface of snow ; but here the 

 softness of the snowy mass prohibited such an attempt, and the 

 nature of the declivity rendered it equally impossible to scale 

 the sides. 



' It was now one o'clock in the day. We fixed up the baro- 

 meter with great care, and found it stood at thirteen inches 

 11 T 2 o lines. The temperature of the air was only three degrees 

 below the freezing point ; but from our long residence in the 

 tropics even this amount of cold seemed quite benumbing. Our 

 boots were wet through with snow-water, for the sand, which 

 here and there lay on the mountain ridge, was mixed with the 

 remains of former snow-drifts. According to the barometric 

 formula given by Laplace, we had now reached an elevation of 

 18,096 Paris feet 1 [19,286 English]. 



' We remained but a short time in this dreary waste, for 

 we were soon again enveloped in mist ; which hung about 

 us motionless. We saw nothing more of the summit of Chim- 

 borazo, nor of the neighbouring Snow Mountains, far less of 

 the elevated plain of Quito. We were isolated as in a balloon ; 

 a few rock lichens were to be observed above the line of per- 

 petual snow, at a height of 16,920 feet; the last green moss 

 we noticed was growing about 2,600 feet lower. A butterfly 

 was captured by M. Bonpland, at a height of 15,000 feet, and a 

 fly was observed 1,600 feet higher ; both had been carried up 

 into the higher regions of the atmosphere by the currents of 

 air originating in the warmer plains beneath. We did not, 

 however, see any condors, which are so numerous upon the 

 Antisana and Pichincha, where, in those vast solitudes, from 

 being unaccustomed to the sight of man, they are wholly 

 devoid of fear. 



'As the weather became increasingly threatening, we hurried 

 down along the ridge of rock, and from the insecurity of our 

 footing found that greater caution even was necessary than 



1 ' If La Condamine's estimation of the height of Chimborazo be correct, 

 we were only 1,224 feet in a direct line short of the summit, or a distance 

 equal to three times the height of St. Peter's at Rome.' 



