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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The Stony Summit Of Antisana, Covered With Eternal Snow,
Forms An Islet In The Midst Of An Immense Plain, The Surface Of
Which Is Twelve Leagues Square, While Its Height Exceeds That Of
The Peak Of Teneriffe By Two Hundred Toises.
At Vesuvius, at three
hundred and seventy toises high, the cone detaches itself from the
plain of Atrio dei Cavalli.
The peak of Teneriffe presents two of
these elevated plains, the uppermost of which, at the foot of the
Piton, is as high as Etna, and of very little extent; while the
lowermost, covered with tufts of retama, reaches as far as the
Estancia de los Ingleses. This rises above the level of the sea
almost as high as the city of Quito, and the summit of Mount
Lebanon.
The greater the quantity of matter that has issued from the crater
of a mountain, the more elevated is its cone of ashes in proportion
to the perpendicular height of the volcano itself. Nothing is more
striking, under this point of view, than the difference of
structure between Vesuvius, the peak of Teneriffe, and Pichincha. I
have chosen this last volcano in preference, because its summit*
enters scarcely within the limit of the perpetual snows. (* I have
measured the summit of Pichincha, that is the small mountain
covered with ashes above the Llano del Vulcan, to the north of Alto
de Chuquira. This mountain has not, however, the regular form of a
cone. As to Vesuvius, I have indicated the mean height of the
Sugar-loaf, on account of the great difference between the two
edges of the crater.) The cone of Cotopaxi, the form of which is
the most elegant and most regular known, is 540 toises in height;
but it is impossible to decide whether the whole of this mass is
covered with ashes.
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