| 0° | 5,800 | feet. | 40° | 8,300 | feet. |
| 27° | 18,800 | " | 54° | 3,700 | " |
| 33° | 12,780 | " | 70° | 3,300 | " |
The limit appears to descend more rapidly going south of the equator than in going north.
[67] We traveled over a portion of this ancient road in going from Riobamba to Cajabamba. It is well paved with cut blocks of dark porphyry. It is not graded, but partakes of the irregularity of the country. Designed, not for carriages, but for troops and llamas, there are steps when the ascent is steep.
[68] Grand as the Andes are, how insignificant in a general view! How slightly they cause our globe to differ from a perfect sphere! Cotopaxi constitutes only 1/1100 of the earth's radius; and on a globe six feet in diameter, Chimborazo would be represented by a grain of sand less than 1/20 of an inch in thickness.
[69] But Chimborazo is steeper than the Alp-king; and steepness is a quality more quickly appreciated than mere massiveness. "Mont Blanc (says a writer in Frazer's Magazine) is scarcely admired, because he is built with a certain regard to stability; but the apparently reckless architecture of the Matterhorn brings the traveler fairly on his knees, with a respect akin to that felt for the leaning tower of Pisa, or the soaring pinnacles of Antwerp."
[70] "White Mountain" is the natural and almost uniform name of the highest mountains in all countries: thus Himalaya, Mont Blanc, Hocmus, Sierra Nevada, Ben Nevis, Snowdon, Lebanon, White Mountains of United States, Chimborazo, and Illimani.
[71] Humboldt's statement that the condor flies higher than Chimborazo has been questioned; but we have seen numbers hovering at least a thousand feet above the summit of Pichincha. Baron Müller, in his ascent of Orizaba, saw two falcons flying at the height of full 18,000 feet; Dr. Hooker found crows and ravens on the Himalayas at 16,500 feet; and flocks of wild geese are said to fly over the peak of Kintschinghow, 22,756 feet.
[72] Mount Everest is 29,000 feet, and Aconcagua 23,200. Schlagintweit enumerates thirteen Himalayan summits over 25,000 feet, and forty-six above 20,000. We have little confidence in the estimates of the Bolivian mountains. Chimborazo has nearly the same latitude and altitude as the loftiest peak in Africa, Kilima Njaro.
[73] Humboldt ascribes the absence of glaciers in the Andes to the extreme steepness of the sides, and the excessive dryness of the air. Dr. Loomis, above quoted, mentions indications of glacial action—moraines, and polished and striated rocks—on the crest of the Cordillera, between Peru and Bolivia, lat. 21° S.
[74] Pichincha, in the Inca language, signifies "the boiling mountain;" Rucu means old; Guagua, young; and Cundur-guachana, the condor's nest.