582 



GEOGEAPHICAL BOUNDABIES 



[Ch. XXIII 



degree of south, and the third degree of north latitude, rise to 

 vast elevations above the sea, many of them being between 

 14,000 and 18,000 feet high. The Indians of Lican have a 

 tradition that the mountain called 1/ Altar, or Capac Urcu, 

 which means ' the chief/ was once the highest of those near 

 the equator, being higher than Chimborazo ; but in the re 



before the discovery of America, a 

 prodigious eruption took place, which lasted eight years, and 



Abomatha 



broke it down. 



ments of trachvte. savs M 



singault, which once formed the conical summit of this 

 celebrated mountain, are at this day spread over the plain.* 

 Cotopaxi is the most lofty of all the South American vol- 

 canos which have been in a state of activity in modern 



times 



more 



mountain. It is a perfect cone, usually covered with an 

 enormous bed of snow, which has, however, been sometimes 

 melted suddenly during an eruption ; as in January 1803, for 

 example, when the snows were dissolved in one night. 



Deluges are often caused in the Andes by the liquefaction 

 of great masses of snow, and sometimes by the rending open, 

 during earthquakes, of subterranean 

 water. In these inundations fine volcanic sand, loose stones, 

 and other materials which the water meets with in its 

 descent, are swept away, and a vast quantity of mud, called 



9 is thus formed and carried down into the lower 



cavities filled with 



moya 



regions. Mud derived from 



Quito 



thousand feet wide to the depth of six hundred feet, damming 

 up rivers and causing lakes. In these currents and lakes of 

 moya, thousands of small fish are sometimes enveloped, 

 which, according to Humboldt, have lived and multiplied in 

 subterranean cavities. So great a quantity of these fish were 

 ejected from the volcano of Imbaburu in 1691, that fevers, 

 which prevailed at the period, were attributed to the effluvia 

 arising from the putrid animal matter. 



In Quito, many 



lin 



revolutions in the physical 



features of the country are said to have resulted, within the 



* Bull, de la Soc. Geol. torn. vi. p. 55. 









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