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Euganean mountains, or the trappean hills of 

 Bohemia. The granites, the micaceous schists, 

 the old sand-stones, the calcareous formations, 

 which the mineralogists designate under the 

 names of formations of the Jura, of the High 

 Alps, or transition limestone, give a particular 

 character to the outline of the great masses, and 

 to the breaches found on the ridges of the Andes, 

 the Pyrenees, and the Uralian mountains. The 

 nature of the rocks has every where modified the 

 external form of the mountains. 



Cotopaxi, the summit of which is represented 

 in the tenth plate, is the loftiest of those volca- 

 noes of the Andes, which at recent epochs have 

 undergone eruptions. Its absolute height is five 

 thousand seven hundred and fifty-four metres 

 (two thousand nine hundred and fifty-two toises); 

 it is double that of Canigou ; and consequently 

 eight hundred metres higher than Vesuvius 

 would be, were it placed on the top of the Peak 

 of Teneriffe. Cotopaxi is also the most dread- 

 ful volcano of the kingdom of Quito, and its ex- 

 plosions the most frequent and disastrous. The 

 mass of scoriae, and the huge pieces of rock 

 thrown out of this volcano, which are spread 

 over the neighbouring valleys, covering a surface 

 of several square leagues, would form, were they 

 heaped together, a colossal mountain. In 1738, 

 the flames of Cotopaxi rose nine hundred metres 

 above the brink of the crater. In 1744, the 



