MOUNTAINS OF ECUADOR. 227 



daybreak we saw Cotopaxi pouring out a prodigious volume of steam, whicli 

 boiled up a few hundred feet above the rim of its crater, and then, being caught 

 by a south-westerly wind, was borne towards the north-east almost up to Cay- 

 ambe. The bottom of this cloud was about 5,000 feet above us ; it rose at least a 

 mile high, and spread over a width of several miles. I estimated that on this 

 occasion we saw a continuous body of not less than 60 cubic miles of cloud 

 formed from steam. If this vast volume, instead of issuing from a free vent, had 

 found its passage barred, itself imprisoned, Cotopaxi on that morning might have 

 been effaced, and the whole continent might have quivered under an explosion 

 rivalling or surpassing the mighty catastrophe at Krakatoa." * 



The irregular rim of the crater, broken by vertical or even overhanging preci- 

 pices, encloses a space 2,300 feet long from north to south and 1,640 from east to 

 west, with a depth of about 1,300 feet. The various measurements of altitudes 

 taken by travellers since the time of La Condamine offer manj'^ discrepancies for 

 Cotopaxi, as well as for the other mountains of Ecuador. But as regards Coto- 

 paxi, loftiest of all the still active volcanoes in the world, Whymper is inclined to 

 believe that it has considerably increased in height during the last 150 years. In 

 the Ecuadorean Andes it is overtopped only by Chimborazo, whose extinct crater 

 has long been covered by a dome of snows and ice. 



Cotopaxi is surrounded by several other cones, one of the highest of which is 

 Eurainahui in the north-west. Although scarcely reaching the lower limit of 

 perennial snows, few eminences present a more majestic form than this volcano, 

 whose crater, according to Reiss, has a depth of 2,645 feet. Rumiiîahui, with its 

 northern neighbour, Pasochoa, connects Cotopaxi with the Western Cordillera by 

 the transverse TiupuUo ridge (Humboldt's Chisinche), which forms the parling- 

 line between the northern basin of Quito and the southern Latacunga plain. 



South-eastwards, a spur separating the upper Rio Napo valleys from the Rio 

 Pastaza is continued to a great distance by the Quelendana chain. Then trending 

 round to the south and south-east, it terminates in the snowy Llanganati (Cerro 

 Hermoso, or " Fairmount "), whose schistose mass rises in the midst of the sur- 

 rounding forests to a height of 15,000 feet. 



South of Cotopaxi the range, varying greatly in altitude, is prolonged by a 

 wild and precipitous mass which, of all the Ecuadorean groups, most resembles the 

 European Alps in its varied aspects. But its exploration has been scarcely begun, 

 and little is known of its general character beyond what may be gathered from a 

 distant view of its snowy peaks glittering in the sun. In 1875 Reiss ascended the 

 slopes of Llanganati to the snow-line. The summit, from which flows a glacier, 

 presents the aspect of a gloomy rampart, which seems quite inaccessible. Cojiper 

 pyrites glisten in all the cleavages of the rocky mass. 



TUNGURAGUA — TkE AlTAK — SaNGAY. 



The Cordillera, interrupted by the deep gorge of the Rio de Bafios (Pastaza), 

 soon rises again to form the superb Tunguragua, which is all the more imposing 



* Whymper, pp. 153-4. 



