236 VIEWS, &C. PHYSIOGNOMY OF PLANTS. 



edly of higher antiquity than the introduction of the worship 

 of the sun, and of the court-language of the rulers of Cuzco. 

 The names of mountains and rivers belong in all regions of 

 the earth to the most ancient and authentic relics of languages ; 

 and my brother, Wilhelm von Humboldt, in his investigations 

 into the former distribution of the Iberian races, has made 

 ingenious use of these names. A singular and unexpected 

 statement has recently been made,* "that the Incas, Tupac 

 Yupanqui, and Huayna Capac, were astonished on their first 

 conquest of Quito, to find a dialect of their Qquichua language 

 in use among the natives." Prescott, however, seems to 

 regard this as a very bold assertion.! 



If we could suppose the pass of St. Gothard, Mount Athos, 

 or the Rigi, piled on the summit of the Chimborazo, we 

 should have the elevation which is at present ascribed to 

 the Dhawalagiri in the Himalaya. The geologist who regards 

 *iie interior of our planet from a more general point of view, 

 and to whom not the directions, but the relative heights of 

 the rocky projections, which we designate mountain chains, 

 appear but as phenomena of little importance, will not be 

 astonished if at some future period mountain summits should 

 be discovered between the Himalaya and the Altai, which 

 should surpass in height those of Dhawalagiri and Djewahir 

 as much as these exceed that of Chimborazo .J The great 

 height to which the snow-line recedes in summer on the nor- 

 thern declivity of the Himalaya, owing to the heat radiated 

 from the elevated plateaux in Central Asia, renders the moun- 

 tain, notwithstanding that it is situated in 29 to 30^ north 

 lat., as accessible as are the Peruvian Andes in the region 

 of the tropics. Captain Gerard has moreover recently ascended 

 the Tarhigang as high, if not 117 feet higher, than I ascended 

 the Chimborazo. Unfortunately, as I have elsewhere more 

 fully shown, these mountain ascents, beyond the line of per- 

 petual snow, however they may engage the curiosity of 

 the public, are of very little scientific utility. 



* Velasco, Historia de Quito, t. i, j>. 185. 



+ Hist, of the Conquest of Peru, vol. i. p. 125. 



J See my Vues des Cordilleres et Monumens des peuples indigenes 

 de I'Amerique, t. i. p. 116; and the Memoir entitled Ueber zwei Ver- 

 suche den Chimborazo zu.besteigen 1802 and 1831, in Schumacher's 

 Jahrbuchfur 1837, S. 176. 



| Critical Researches on Philology and Geography, 1824, p. 144. 



