Personal Narrative Of Travels To The Equinoctial Regions Of America During The Years 1799-1804 - Volume 1 - By Alexander Von Humboldt And Aime Bonpland.
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With These Data, The Ratio
Of The Height To The Circumference Would Be Only A Seventy-Second;
But I Find On Tracing A Curve Through Catania, Palermo, Bronte, And
Piemonte, Only 62 Miles In Circumference, According To The Best
Maps.
This increases the ratio to a fifty-fourth.
Does the basis
fall on the outside of the curve that I assume?) If the slope of
these three volcanoes were uniform from the summit to the base, the
peak of Teyde would have an inclination of 12 degrees 29 minutes,
Vesuvius 12 degrees 41 minutes, and Etna 10 degrees 13 minutes, a
result which must astonish those who do not reflect on what
constitutes an average slope. In a very long ascent, slopes of
three or four degrees alternate with others which are inclined from
25 to 30 degrees; and the latter only strike our imagination, because
we think all the slopes of mountains more steep than they really are.
I may cite in support of this consideration the example of the
ascent from the port of Vera Cruz to the elevated plain of Mexico.
On the eastern slope of the Cordillera a road has been traced,
which for ages has not been frequented except on foot, or on the
backs of mules. From Encero to the small Indian village of Las
Vigas, there are 7500 toises of horizontal distance; and Encero
being, according to my barometric measurement, 746 toises lower
than Las Vigas, the result, for the mean slope, is only an angle of
5 degrees 40 minutes.
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