ON ITS EXTERIOR. VOLCANOES. 309 



in the volcanoes of Quito. His " Journal d'un Voyage 

 en Italic/* read at the meeting of the 20th of April 

 1757, was first published in 1762, in the Memoirs of the 

 Paris Academy, and is of some importance in the his- 

 tory of the recognition of extinct volcanoes in France, 

 because in it La Condamine, without being aware of the 

 certainly earlier statements of Guettard ( 447 ), expressed 

 himself with great distinctness and sagacity as to the 

 existence of ancient crater-lakes and extinct volcanoes 

 in Middle and Northern Italy, and in the south of 

 France. 



The striking contrast between the thus early recog- 

 nised existence of narrow undoubted streams of lava in 

 Auvergne, and the often too positively and unreservedly 

 asserted absence of any flow of lava in the Cordilleras, 

 engaged my earnest attention during the whole of my 

 expedition. My journals written at the time are con- 

 stantly filled with considerations on this problem, 

 of which I long sought the solution in the absolute 

 altitude of the summit, and in the height of the escarp- 

 ment surrounding the deep depression on cones rising 

 from mountain plateaus 8000 or 9000 feet above the 

 sea But we now know that Macas (Sangay), a scoria3- 

 emitting Quito volcano 17,000 feet high, is more unin- 

 terruptedly active than the lowly Izalco and Stromboli ; 

 and we also know that Antisana and Sangay on the east 

 have free and open declivities towards the plains of 

 the Napo and the Pastaza, as have Pichincha, Iliniza 

 and Chimborazo on the west, towards the water-sheds of 

 the Pacific. In many instances the upper portion rises 

 without any surrounding escarpment, more than 8000 or 

 9000 feet above the high plateau. Moreover, all these 



