PHYSICAL GEOGBAPHY OP PEKU. 



37 



enormous masses that gravitate on Peru, are those which re- 

 gulate the equihbrium of the globe. More lofty in compari- 

 son to the northern mountains, than is the superb tower to the 

 lowly hut, and constru6led of metallic substances from the 

 basis to the summit*, why should they not be able to counter- 

 balance the excess of the territories opposite to those we inha- 

 bit ? If Chimborazo alone has been capable of measuring its 

 strength with the whole earth, and of giving to the pendulum 

 a divergence of seven seconds and a half from the line, where 

 all the efficacy of the globe dire6ls it to the centre, with how 

 much greater reason ought an entire world of analogous moun- 

 tains, united to Chimborazo, to equiliberate, not the absolute 

 weight of the globe, nor the northern territories, but, respec- 

 tively, the sum of the excess of the latter over the southern ? 



Finally, philosophy requires the equilibrium of the terra- 

 queous globe ; navigation denies the existence of new conti- 

 nents beyond Cape Horn ; and the ocean cannot compensate 

 the defe6t. The cordillera of Peru is the largest and most ele- 

 vated on the surface of the earth '; and the masses of which it 



* It is the opinion of the celebrated Bouguer, that the soHdity of the Cordillera 

 does not correspond with its bulk, on account of the caverns of the volcanoes ; these 

 are, however, very small, when compared with the mountains which announce 

 themselves to be solid, and to be every where composed of metallic portions. In the 

 year 1681, a mass of rock having been detached, by the lightning, from the famous 

 Illimani, a mountain of the first magnitude, so large a quantity of gold was extracted 

 from it, that it was sold, in the city of La Paz, at the rate of eight piastres (about 

 il. i6s. sterhng) per ounce, precisely the one half of the then current price of gold 

 in Peru. Notwithstanding the elevation of the above mountain is far greater than 

 that of the Cordillera in general, so as to prevent its mines from being regularly 

 worked, a certain quantity of gold is still extradted from it. Many other mountains 

 might be cited, the silver veins of which are buried in the snow. 



is 



