cV> A HISTORY OF 



If wo '-umpire the Alps with the mountains already described, wo 

 shall find them but little more than one half of the height of the for- 

 mer. The Andes, upon being measured by the barometer, are found 

 ibove three thousand one hundred and thirty-six toises or fathoms 

 above the surface of the sea.* Whereas the highest points of the 

 Alps is not above sixteen hundred. The one, in other words, is above 

 three miles high ; the other about a mile and a half. The highest 

 mountains in Asia are, Mount Taurus, Mount Immaus, Mount Cauca- 

 sus, and the mountains of Japan. Of these, none equals the Andes in 

 height : although Mount Caucasus, which is the highest of them, 

 makes very near approaches. Father Verbiest tells of a mountain 

 in China, which he measured, and found a mile and a half high.t In 

 Africa, the Mountains of the Moon, famous for giving source to the 

 Niger and the Nile, are rather more noted than known. Of the Peak 

 of Teneriffe, one of the Canary Islands that lie off this coast, we 

 have more certain information. In the year 1727 , it was visited by 

 a company of English merchants, who travelled up to the top, where 

 they observed its height, and the volcano on its very summit.^ They 

 found it a heap of mountains, the highest of which rises over the rest 

 like a sugar-loaf, and gives a name to the whole mass. It is com- 

 puted to be a mile and a half perpendicular from the surface of the 

 sea. Kircher gives us an estimate of the heights of most of the other 

 great mountains i"n the world ; but as he has taken his calculations in 

 general from the ancients, or from modern travellers, who had not the 

 art of measuring them, they are quite incredible. The art of taking 

 the heights of places by the barometer, is a new and an ingenious in- 

 vention. As the air grows lighter as we ascend, the fluid in the tube 

 rises in due proportion: thus the instrument being properly marked, 

 gives the height with a tolerable degree of exactness ; at least enough 

 to satisfy curiosity. 



Few of our great mountains have been estimated in this manner ; 

 travellers having, perhaps, been deterred, by a supposed impossibility 

 of breathing at the top. However, it has been invariably found, that 

 the air in the Highest that our modern travellers have ascended, is not 

 at all too fine for respiration. At the top of the Peak of Teneriffe. 

 there was found no other inconvenience from the air, except its cold- 

 ness ; at the top of the Andes, there was no difficulty of breathing 

 perceived. The accounts, therefore, of those who have asserted that 

 they were unable to breathe, although at much less heights, are groat 

 ly to be suspected. In fact, it is very natural for mankind to paint 

 those obstacles as insurmountable, which they themselves have not had 

 the fortitude or perseverance to surmount. 



The difficulty and danger of ascending to the tops of mountains, 

 proceeds from other causes, not the thinness of the air. For instance, 

 some of the summits of the Alps have never yet been visited by man. 

 But the reason is, that they rise with such a rugged and precipitate 

 ascent, that they are utterly inaccessible. In some places they appear 

 like a great wall of six or seven hundred feet high ; in others, there 

 lick out enormous rocks, that hang upon the brow of the steep, and 

 very moment threaten destruction to the traveller below. 



Ulloa, vo.. .. p. 442 f Verbiest, alia Chine. J P-.il. Trans. voL ?. 



