338 COSMOS. 



enough, considering its smallness, the waters of the nor- 

 thern slope of Chisinche pass by the Rios de San Pedro, 

 de Pito, and de Guallabamba into the Pacific, whilst those 

 Df the southern declivity flow through the Rio Alaques and 

 the Rio de San Felipe into the Amazons and Atlantic 

 Ocean. The union of the Cordilleras by mountain knots 

 and dykes (sometimes low, like the Altos just mentioned ; 

 sometimes equal to Mont Blanc in height, as on the road 

 over the Paso del Assuay) appears to be a more recent 

 and also a less important phenomenon than the upheaval 

 of the divided parallel mountain chain itself. As Cotopaxi, 

 the greatest of the volcanoes of Quito, presents much 

 analogy in its trachytic rock with the Antisana, so also 

 we again meet with the rows of blocks (lines of fragments) 

 which have already occupied us so long, even in greater 

 number upon the slopes of Cotopaxi. 



It was especially our business when travelling to trace 

 these rows to their origin, or rather to the point where they 

 are concealed beneath the perpetual covering of snow. Wo 

 ascended upon the south-western declivity of the volcano 

 from Mulalo (Mulahalo), along the Rio Alaques, which is 

 formed of the Rio de los Bafios and the Rio Barrancas, up to 

 Pansache (12,066 feet), where we inhabited the spacious 

 Casa del Paramo in the grassy plain (el Pajonal). Although 

 up to this time much snow had fallen at night, we never- 

 theless got to the eastward of the celebrated Cabeza del 

 Inga, first into the Quebrada and Reventazoii de las Minas, 

 and afterwards still further to the east over the Alto de 

 Suniguaicu to the chasm of the Lion Mountain (Puma- 

 Urcu), where the barometer only showed an elevation of 

 2263 toises, or 14,471 feet. Another line of fragments 

 which, however, we only saw from a distance, has moved 

 from, the eastern part of the snow-clad ash-cone towards the 

 Rio Negro (an affluent of the Amazon) and Yalle vicioso. It 

 is uncertain whether these blocks were all thrown out of the 

 crater at the summit to a great height in the air, as glow- 

 ing, scoriaceous masses fused only at the edges (some angular, 

 some rounded, of 6 or 8 feet in diameter, rarely conchoidal 

 like those of Antisana), falling oil the declivity of Cotopaxi 

 and, hastened in their movement by the rush of the melted 

 snow water ; or whether, without passing through the air 



