TRUE VOLCANOES. 2(J7 



near Tuqucrrcs ; of Cumbal (15,018 feet) and of Chiles, in 

 the province de los Pastes; then follow the historieally cel- 

 ebrated volcanoes of the true highland of Quito, to the south 

 of the equator, of which four — namely, Pichincha, Cotopaxi, 

 Tungurahua, and Sangay — certainly can not be regarded as 

 extinct volcanoes. Although, to the north of the mountain 

 group of the Kobles, near Popayan, as we shall shortly more 

 fully show in the tripartition of the vast chain of the Andes, 

 it is only the central Cordillera, and not the western one, 

 nearer to the sea-coast, that exhibits a volcanic activity ; on 

 the other hand, to the south of this group, where the Andes 

 form only two parallel chains, so frequently mentioned by 

 Bouguer and La Condamine in their writings, volcanoes are 

 so equally distributed, that the four volcanoes of the Pastos, 

 as well as Cotocachi, Pichincha, Iliniza, Carguairazo, and 

 Yana-Urcu, at the foot of Chimborazo, have broken out upon 

 the western chain, nearest to the sea ; and upon the eastern 

 Cordillera, Imbabura, Cayambe, Antisana, Cotopaxi, Tung- 

 urahua (opposite to Chimborazo toward the east, but still 

 nearly approximated to the middle of the narrow elevated 

 plateau), the Altar de los Collanes (Capac-Urcu), and San- 

 gay. If we include the northernmost group of the linear 

 volcanoes of South America in one view, the opinion so often 

 expressed in Quito, and to a certain extent founded on his- 

 torical documents, of the migration of the volcanic activity 

 and increase of intensity from north to south, acquires, at all 

 events, a certain amount of probability. It is true that in 

 the south, and indeed close to the colossal Sangay, which 

 acts like Stromboli, we find the ruins of the " Prince of 

 Mountains," Capac-Urcu, which is said to have exceeded 

 Chimborazo in height, but which fell in and became extinct 

 in the latter part of the loth century (fourteen years before 

 the capture of Quito by the son of the Inca Tupac Yupangui), 

 and has never again resumed its former activity. 



The space of the chain of the Andes which is not occupied 

 by groups of volcanoes is far greater than is usually supposed. 

 In the northern part of South America, from the Volcan de 

 Ruiz and the conical mountain Tolima, the two most northern 

 volcanoes of the series of New Granada and Quito, over the 

 isthmus of Panama as far as the vicinity of Costa Pica, where 

 the series of volcanoes of Central America commences, there 

 is a country which is frequently and violently convulsed by 

 earthquakes, and in which flaming salses, but no true volcan- 

 ic eruptions, are known. The length of this tract amounts 



