32 



PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY OF PERU. 



his commerce, cherishes his arts and sciences, renders his 

 troops and fleets respe6led, and gives him a preponderance in 

 the balance of power. 



The Icarus of the age, M. Charles, quitted the banks of 

 the Seine, and ascended into the region of the air, amid the 

 applauses of an immense concourse of spe6lators. When he 

 could no longer hear the acclamations of the admiring popu- 

 lace ; when Paris had already disappeared from his view ; 

 vvhen the Alps and Pyrenean mountains were, in a manner, 

 annihilated ; and when the whole of Europe merely appeared 

 to him like a large spot by which the horizon was obscured ; 

 our aerial navigator was persuaded that he had quitted the 

 vortex of the earth, and was on the point of ascending into 

 that of the moon ! Presumptuous and mistaken mortal, in 

 that elevated region thou didst not exceed the level of the sur- 

 face of the more elevated parts of Peru * ! At the height at 

 which it appeared to thee impossible that human beings should 

 respire, those who inhabit that delightful angle have gardens 

 and plains which rival those of Versailles-f . No: thou didst 

 not soar to the highest pitch to which man, oppressed as he 



* The barometrical observations of Paris being comparer] with those of our 

 coast, they will be found to be on the same level. Now, M. Charles was carried 

 1368 toises over the plane of Paris. The plane of Quito exceeds that of the banks 

 of the Pacific Ocean from 1500 to 1600 toises ; and the surface of the city of 

 Huancavelica 1949 ; consequently Messrs. Charles and Robert did not attain the 

 height on wliich the cities of La Sierra are placed. 



f M. Bouguer, who acknowledges that the fertile plains of Quito, Riobamba, 

 &c. are, as has been above stated, fiom 1500 to 1600 toises higher than the level 

 of the sea, in speaking of them, makes the following observation : " I fancied I 

 saw France, and its verdant plains, in the state in which they are during the spring 

 season." 



is 



