ITS SUMMIT GAINED BY M. EEMY. 243 



razo ; but that is enough for a lifetime." It is a feeling 

 of reverence that one experiences, as he has unveiled to 

 him this Colossus of the Andes. By no other exhibition 

 of hei-self does Nature so overpower us with her greatness 

 and grandeur. Shortly after our return from our wander- 

 ings among the Andes, we were privileged to visit the 

 Falls of Niagara. It was our first visit. We were disap- 

 pointed. We viewed them from every stand-point : we 

 looked down from above ; we looked up from below ; we 

 watched them from the front ; we went behind the sheet 

 of water ; but the rush, and plunge, and roar of Niagara, 

 failed to inspire in us those feelings of sublimity that we 

 felt as we stood in the silent presence of the mighty 

 Chimborazo. Nature is never so grand, so awe-inspiring, 

 as in the awful i*epose of her giant mountains. 



During early morning Chimborazo is generally free 

 from vapors ; but later, as the heated columns of air rise 

 from the plains, and come in contact with its icy sides, the 

 dome is quickly capped with clouds, swept and whirled 

 by the frigid currents which push down the slopes of 

 the mountains. What an ^olus indeed it would be, had 

 it been placed in the Boreal regions, instead of under the 

 tropics ! Its crest has been reached but once by man ; 

 yet the condor, the "kingly bird of the Andes," often 

 soars, on balanced wings, far above its summit. Humboldt 

 and Bonpland attempted its ascent in 1802, but failed. 

 In 1831, Boussingault and Hall reached a point only 

 eighteen hundred feet below the summit, three hundred 

 feet higher than the elevation attained by Humboldt and 

 his companion ; but difficulty of respiration, and the den- 

 sity of the clouds, forced them back. But upon the third 

 of November, 1856, its summit was first reached by M. 

 Jules Remy and Mr. Brenckly. The view, however, was 

 entirely cut ofl" by heavy clouds that enveloped the moun- 

 tain. These travellers determined, by the boiling of water 



