CHAP. X. CRATERS AND CREVASSES. 197 



After we had descended a short distance the clouds cleared 

 sufficiently to let it be seen that we had been on the top, and 

 to shew that the snowy portion of the mountain extends for a 

 long distance to the north-east. As there was still time to 

 spare, we made a detour, in search of craters, to the curved 

 ridge which connects the nearer peaks of Antisana with the more 

 distant ones in the engraving ; and looked down upon some 

 exceedingly precipitous glacier on the other side. We saw no 

 open crater, nor anything suggestive of one on any part of 

 Antisana ; though, on March 7, when arrested at the edge of the 

 great crevasse, several puffs of strongly sulphurous vapour reached 

 us. Dr. W. Eeiss, however, says,^ in the Proceedings of the Geo- 

 graphical Society of Berlin for 1880, that there is a crater, opening 

 towards the east, filled with a glacier (from which a stream flows 

 that is impregnated with sulphur), and I presume that he must 

 refer to the glacier basin we saw beneath us. 



An hour later we were at the bottom of the snow-slopes, 

 with only about a mile of slightly descending and nearly flat 

 glacier between ourselves and the tent, — having just discussed 

 whether the rope should be taken off, to move with greater 

 freedom, and decided against it, as we were so near home ; 

 striding along at our best pace, about fifteen feet apart, Louis in 

 front and Jean-Antoine last, keeping step as we walked. In the 

 twinkling of an eye the surface gave way, and I shot down, as 

 it were through a trap-door, nearly pulling both men over ; and 

 in the next second found myself dangling between two varnished 

 walls of glacier, which met seventy feet beneath. 



The voices of the cousins were nearly inaudible, for the hole 

 was no bigger than my body, and they could not venture to 



1 "Der Antisana umschliefst einen tiefen, nach Osten geoffneten Krater, in 

 dessen Grunde die iiber die steilen Wande herabziehenden Sclinee und Eismassen 

 sich zu einem mactitigen Gletseher ansammeln. Dem Gletscher, dessen unteres 

 Ende in 4216 m. Hohe liegt, entspringt der sauere, mil Schwefel geschw^ngerte 

 Bach der Quehrada ^ Piedra Azufre,'' dessen Namen schon auf eine, wenn auch 

 noch so geringe vulkanische Thatigkeit hinweist." 



