13 



*>f the perpetual ice, is the termination of organic 

 life. 



However stupendous the height ofChimborazo, 

 its summit is four hundred metres lower than the 

 point, at which M. Gay-Lussac, in his memo- 

 rable aerial excursion, made experiments so im- 

 portant both to meteorology and the knowledge 

 of the laws of magnetism. The natives of the 

 province of Quito preserve a tradition, ac cor ding- 

 to which a summit of the eastern ridge of the 

 Andes, now called the Altar (el Altar), part of 

 which fell down in the fifteenth century, was 

 formerly loftier than Chimborazo. In Boutan, 

 the highest mountain of which English travellers 

 have given us the measure, the Soumounang is 

 only 44 1,9 metres (2268 toises) high : but, ac- 

 cording to the assertion of Colonel Crawford *, 

 the loftiest summit of the Cordilleras of Thibet 

 is above twenty-five thousand English feet, or 

 7617 metres (3909 toises). If this calculation 

 be founded on an accurate measurement, a moun- 

 tain of central Asia is a thousand and ninety me- 

 tres higher than Chimborazo. To the eye of the 

 real geologist, who, engaged in the study of 

 the formations has been accustomed to contem- 

 plate nature in all her greatness, the absolute 

 height of mountains is an object of little impor- 

 tance ; nor will he be astonished, if hereafter, in 



* Jameson's System of Mineralogy, vol. 3, p. 329. 



