NOTES. CX1X 



crater margin ; or is the snowlessness of the projecting rock occasioned both by 

 steepness and by crater warmth? On one night, in the autumn of 1800, the 

 whole upper part of the cone appeared luminous, without this being followed by 

 any eruption or even by any visible emission of vapour. On the other hand, at 

 the violent eruption, 4 Jan. 1803, when I was staying on the shores of the 

 Pacific and saw the windows shake in the port of Guayaquil from the vibration 

 caused by the thundering noise of the volcano 148 geographical miles distant, 

 the cone entirely lost its snowy covering and wore a threatening aspect. Had 

 such an effect been observed on any previous occasion ? Very recently we have 

 learnt from the lady who has wandered round the world with such admirable 

 bravery, Madame Ida Pfeiffer (Meine zweite Weltreise, Bd. iii. S. 170), that in 

 the early part of April 1 854 an outburst took place in which Cotopaxi emitted 

 thick columns of smoke " through which darted serpentine flames of fire." 

 May the flames have been the lightnings of a volcanic tempest excited by eva- 

 poration ? Eruptions have been frequent since 1851. 



The great regularity of the snow-covered truncated cone itself renders still 

 more striking the appearance, at the lower limit of the region of perpetual snow, 

 where the conical form begins, of a small grotesquely jagged mass of rock, hav- 

 ing three or four points. Probably by reason of its steepness, the snow lies on 

 it only here and there in patches. A glance at my drawing (Atlas pittoresque 

 du Voyage, PL X.) shows these relations more clearly. I approached this dark 

 gray, probably basaltic, mass of rock most nearly in the Quebrada and Reventa- 

 zon de Minas. Although for centuries this remarkable-looking mass has borne, 

 throughout the province, the name of Cabeza del Inga, yet among the coloured 

 inhabitants (the Indians) two very different hypotheses concerning its origin 

 prevail ; one simply asserts that this rock is the pointed top of the volcano whicli 

 has lallen off, without assigning any time for the supposed event, which the 

 other hypothesis places in the year (1533) in which the Inca Atahuallpa was 

 strangled; thus connecting it both with the terrible fiery eruptions of Cotopaxi 

 which ensued in the same year, and have been described by Herrera, and also 

 with the oracular predictions of Huayna Capac, Atahuallpa's father, on the ap- 

 proaching fall of the Peruvian empire. It may be asked whether the one thing 

 common to these two hypotheses, the supposition that the "Cabeza del Inga" 

 once formed the summit of the cone, may not indicate an obscure remembrance 

 of a real event, which might be thus preserved, though without any apprehension 

 of geological ideas. I altogether doubt the correctness of this view. The idea 

 of a truncated cone having " lost its top," and of this top having been thrown to 

 a distance unbroken, just as large masses of rock are seen to be hurled afar in 

 recent eruptions, is one which presents itself not unnaturally to even very un- 



