164 TRAVELS AMONGST THE GREAT ANDES, chap. viii. 



down to make it coliere, then dashed his axe in as high as he 

 could reach and hooked himself up, while number two drove in 

 his baton as far as it would go to prevent the snow from breaking- 

 down.-^ In this manner we arrived at the summit. Its top was 

 too small to get upon, and, by exception, was solid, unshattered 

 rock right up to its very highest 2)oint. Jean-Antoine knocked 

 off its head with his ice-axe whilst I operated a few feet below. 

 Having performed this important ceremony, we immediately 

 descended, face inwards for the first part of the way, with light- 

 ning blazing all around as far as the end of the summit ridge. 

 Then it ceased ; we ran down to Cevallos, and, driving the beasts 

 before us at a trot to the bottom of the slopes, recrossed the 

 Rio Pita higher up than before, and pushed the pace hard all 

 the way to Pedregal."^ The giant was slain, and we returned, 

 rejoicing, with its head'' in a bag, though with little to shew 

 besides, and nothing that need be mentioned except a sedge (a 

 variety of Carex Jamesoni, Boott) which was obtained at the 

 height of about 14,500 feet. 



1 Both here and in other places we should have been beaten if the snow had 

 not been moist and tenacious. Dry, flour-like snow will not stand at such angles 

 as were traversed at the top of Sincholagua. 



^ Left the suminit at 2.30 p.m., and arrived at Pedregal 6.50 p.m. The time 

 occupied on the ascent and descent (excluding halts) was 9 hs. 25 min. The mean 

 of the ascending and descending rates was about one thousand feet per hour. 



^ "A compact dark-coloured rock, with a slightly rough fracture, containing 

 numerous small crystals of whitish felspar, generally not exceeding '1 inch in 

 the longer diameter. Under the microscope, the ground-mass is seen to be a 

 felted, mass of minute elongated crystallites, probably felspar, and of specks of 

 opacite ; there is probably a residual glassy base, but so numerous are the crystallites 

 that it is by no means easy to be sure. In this ground-mass are scattered larger 

 crystals of plagioclastic felspar similar to those already described, augite, with 

 probably some hypersthene and magnetite. The rock is thus an augite-andesite, 

 l)robabIy hyperstheniferous.^'— Prof. T. G. Bonney, Proc. Roy. Soc, Nov. 1884. 



In the paper already cited in ITist. cle VAcad. Roy. defi Sciences, Paris, 1751, La 

 Condamine says :— " Sinchoulagoa, Volcan en 1660, communiquant avec Pitchincha." 

 I do not know his authority for these statements. No semblance of a crater was 

 seen on any part of it. 



