BOUGUER's voyage to PERU. 30I 



contains much of that matter attraded by the loadftone, has been heaved up by the 

 adion of a fubterraneous fire ; this fire having been without fufficient force to make 

 its way through the fummit of the rock, had found other avenues to its rage. 



To return to Cotopaxi, we difcovefed at its bafe, beds of burnt flone reduced to 

 very fmall particles, in thicknefs equal to five or fix times the height of a man ; the 

 upper bed is the thickeft, and is the fame I doubt not that fpreads itfelf very wide, 

 and is hid under the good foil, which was originally nothing elfe than afhes. I am 

 led to believe we muft attribute the upper bed of calcined ftones to the dreadful erup- 

 tion taken notice of by hiftorians, which took place after the death of Atahualpa, King 

 of Quito, about the beginning of 1533, and of which we have viewed with greater 

 aftonifhment other more extraordinary vefliges, — flones of from more than eight to 

 nine feet diameter, carried to the diftance of three leagues, many of which form 

 furrows that indicate the volcano from whence they were ejefted. Thefe large 

 flones are not burnt Hke thofe with which the bafe of the mountain is covered, and 

 could not have been ejected fo far but at the firfl effort of the explofion. Thus it 

 feems a like effeQ: is not to be apprehended while the mouth of the volcano continues 

 of its prefent breadth, which appears to be fix hundred toifes. 



The Indians pretend this difafler was announced to them, and they confidered it as 

 the fatal moment when any oppofition to the flrangers who were come to fubjugate 

 them, and had already much advanced their conquefl, was become ufelefs. Pedro 

 Cieca de Lion, GarcilafTo, Herrera, and all the other hiftorians mention this circum- 

 ftance ; they attribute thefe predictions in part to Huayana Capac, the twelfth and laft 

 emperor, and father of Atahualpa ; this volcano, which is from five to fix leagues 

 diftant, is called Latacuriga. Were we authorifed to compute the different eruptions 

 by the multitude of different beds of calcined ftones, found at the foot of this moun- 

 tain, having no regard to the interior beds, we might fet it down the twentieth in 

 fuccefTion : apparently there has been an iffue of new matters, and of different colours 

 and fpecies at every eruption, and have been fucceflively ejected as they are diverfely 

 arranged in the bofom of the mountain. In the mean time, there can be no doubt of 

 there having been many conflagrations, and it is as certain that that of the year 1533 

 has not been able alone, to fupply the quantity of matter lying at the foot of the vol- 

 cano. Had all the different beds been ejeded at the fame time, the divers eftablifh- 

 ments the Indians had in the environs of it, would have been entirely deftroyed, 

 whereas fome of thefe are yet in being ; but nature forgetting, thus to exprefs myfelf, 

 her flow manner of ading, embraced all this portion of the Cordelier in the convulfion. 

 I have obferved thefe broken beds in the environs of a place called Tioupoulou, at 

 more than four leagues from the volcano, and more than forty feet in depth ; how 

 prodigious muft have been the agitation thus to have fradured, and piled them upon 

 one another in the manner we find they are ! 



It was apparently, in remote times, and perhaps ere the country was yet inhabited, 

 that was formed that mafs of pumice-ftones which is at nearly feven leagues from Coto- 

 paxi. The pumice-ftones found upon the mountains are only of a certain bignefs, and 

 fimply fragments. But in this place of the Cordelier which correfponds with our tenth 

 triangle, thefe ftones are whole rocks, parallel ftielves of from five to fix feet thick, 

 within a fpace of more than a fquare league, the depth of which is unknown. Only 

 imagine the nature, and what muft have been the volume of fire capable of throwing 

 this enormous mafs into fufion, and doing it at once, and in the place where it now is ; 

 for it is eafy to fatisfy one's-felf it has never been thrown out of order, and that it has 

 cooled in the very place it has been liquified. The neighbourhood has profited by 



this 



