260 
CHAP. 
VII. 
State of 
the Ther- 
mometer. 
SUMMIT OF PARNASSUS. 
in pure aether; for although there were clouds 
J below, we had not one above us. It was now 
two o'clock p. M. If the wind had blown from 
the north, we could not have remained an 
instant in this icy region, being little prepared 
to encounter such a sudden change of tempera- 
ture \ Even with a soft breeze from the west, 
we had no sooner exposed our thermometer, 
than the mercury fell two degrees below the 
freezing point, and we had not seen it so low 
since we left the north of Russia. 
Having been for years engaged in visiting the 
tops of mountains, the author must still confess 
that he never saw any thing to compare with 
the view which he beheld from the summit of 
Parnassus. He possessed no other means at 
the time of ascertaining its elevation, than by 
attending to the objects visible in the horizon; 
and he determined their relative position by 
the compass. It is impossible therefore to state 
what the height of Parnassus may be; but he 
(1) HumboU, upon the Peak of Tener'iff'e, speaks of the piercing' 
temperature to which he was exposRd, when the mercury had not 
fallen to the freezing point. " It was eight in the morniiij(," says he, 
" and we were frozen with the cold, though the thermometer kept a 
little above the freezing point." 
Humbolt's ''' Peisonal IVarrative," volA. /j. 1G8. Lond. 1814. 
