TOL. v.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 4Q3 



he found any difficulty of breathing. To the first part .of which question he an- 

 swered, that they were really exceeding high (which he might well judge of, 

 having been upon some of the most famous both in Europe, Asia, and Africa) 

 and that he could not come to the top, because of the unpassable snows; and 

 to the second part he replied, that while he was in the upper part of the moun- 

 tain, he plainly perceived that he was reduced to fetch his breath much oftener 

 than he was wont, and than he did before he ascended the hill, and after he 

 came down from it. And upon my inquiring, whether or no that difficulty of 

 breathing might not be accidental or peculiar to him, he told me that he him- 

 self having expressed some wonder at finding himself so short-winded, the peo- 

 ple told him that it was no more than happened to them when they were so high 

 above the plain, it being a common observation among them. And I was the 

 more inclined both to make inquiry about these matters, and to believe what 

 he said, because what he related of their being covered with snow, and of an 

 odd temperature of air, I had learned before from a traveller of another nation, 

 and a stranger to this person. 



The same churchman being asked by me, whether he had not in some part 

 of Europe made the like observation (of the difficulty of breathing) told me that 

 he had done it upon the top of a mountain in the country of Souenes, in or 

 near the province of Languedoc ; which may serve to confirm what I am about 

 to relate from the mouth of a learned traveller that was upon the top of one of 

 the Pyrenees not very remote from the mountains we speak of. 



This gentleman, who was a person curious and intelligent, being brother in 

 law to one of the chief lords of those parts, was by him invited, about the be- 

 ginning of September, to visit a neighbouring mountain, one of the highest of 

 the Pyrenees, which is commonly called Pic de Midi, upon whose top they 

 stayed many hours. I inquired of him whether they found the air at the top as 

 fit for respiration as common air, which he told me they did not, but were forced 

 to breathe shorter and oftener than usual ; and because I suspected that might 

 be caused by their motion, I asked whether they observed it to cease when they 

 came down to the bottom of the hill, which he told me they plainly did, be- 

 sides that they stayed many hours at the top, too long to continue out of 

 breath. 



But that I may not here conceal any thing, that may conduce to the dis- 

 covery of the truth in the matter under consideration, I shall add, that I some- 

 times thought it worth further inquiry, whether the sickness, if not also the 

 difficulty of breathing, that some have been obnoxious to in the uppermost 

 parts of Pariacacha, and perhaps some other high mountains, may be im- 

 puted not so precisely to the thinness and rarity of the air, in places so remote 



