Rensselaer Union, Volume 9, Number 2, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 28 September 1876 — On Chimborazo. [ARTICLE]

On Chimborazo.

Prof. Janies Qrton, of (Vassar OpllMlc* has twice Visited the equatorial Andes sod the Amazon River, and written a very readable book thereon, from which the foltowing graphic passaged are taken; There; must ty %>melbing singularly sublime about Chimborazo, for thespectator. at Riobamba f fs ! aiieaiiy 9,0 t» feet high, and tire fa no| w efovated above him as ■Mont Blanc above the vale of wheffy ! iii > fieality, that culminating poinLof Europe would not reach up even to the BHow Dniit Of Chimborazo by 2,000 feet. It is only while sailing on the Pacific that one sees. Chimborazo in its complete proportions. Its very magnitude diminishes tl|e impression of awe and wonder, for the Andes on which it rests are heaved to such a vast altitude above the sea, that the relative elevation of its summit becomes reduced by comparison with the surrounding mountains. Its altitude is 21,420 feet, or forty-five times the height of Strasburg Cathedral; or, to state jt the fan of one pound from flip top of Chimborazo would raise the temperature of ’rirater thirty degrees. One-fourth of this is perpetually covered with snow, so that its anpient name, Chimpurazu—tlie mountain of snow—is very appropriate. It is a stirring thought! thift this mountain, now mantled with snow, once gleamed with volcanic fires. There is a hot spring on the niff th sidfi/andfafi 1 immense amount of debris covers the slope below the snow limit. The valleys which furrow the flank of Chimborazo are in keeping >vi|h. its. colossal size. Narrower, but deeper than these of the Alps, the mind swoonsanfl sinks in the effort to comprehend their majesty. The mountain appears to have been broken to pieces like so much crust, and the strata thrown on their vertical edges, revealing deep; dark chasms that seem to lead to tbe confines of the lower world. The deepest valley in Europe, that of the Onfefia in the Pyrenees, is 3,200 feet deep, but Uierp are rents in the side of Chimborazo in which Vesuvius could be put away out of sight. As you look-down into the fathomless fissure, you see a White heck rising out of the gulf, and expanfling as it mounU, till the wings of the condor, fifteen feet in spread, glitter in the sun as Mie proud bird fearlessly wheels -over the dizzy chasm, and then, ascending above your bead, sails over the-dome or Chimborazo. Could the condor what a glowing description could lie give of the landscape beneath him. when his horizon is a thousand miles in diameter.

The silence is abeohite and actually dpi pressive. The road from. Guayaquail to Quito crosses Chimborazo at the elevation of 14,000 feet. Save the rush of the tradewind in the afternoon, as it sweeps over the Andes, hot A sound is audible ; not the hum of an insect, nor thfe chifp of a bird, nor the roar of the pumq, nor the piusic of running waters/’ Mid-ocean is never so silent. You pap the gibbet turning on its axis. "There was a time when the monarch deigned to Apeak, And spoke with a voice or thunder, for the lava on its sides is an evidence of volcanic v fi lif * * ‘ i ‘ 7 ; But eve£ since flip morning stars sang together over man’s creation Chimborazo has sat in sullen silence, satisfied to look “ from his'throne of clouds o’er half the world.” There is something very suggestive in thjs silence of Chin|borazo. It was once full of noise and fury, it is now a completed mountairi, and thunders no more. The reason we are so noisy is that we are full of wants, we are unfinished characters. Had we perfect fullness of aJJ things, the beatitude Of being without’ a Want, we should lapse into the eternal silence of God. Cotopaxi (18,880 feet) is slumbering .now, but it Is “in a state of solemn ana thoughtful suspense/’ It gives out deep rumbling thupdqrs, and a cloud of smoke rises from the Crater at the top. Sometimes at night this spioky column looks like a pillar of fire. Imagine Vesuyjqs on the summit of Mount Blanc, and you haveithe filtitlideof Cotopaxi—most beautiful and mo§t tqrrib)e of volcanoes. From the summit' of Antisania, another of fliese lordly mountains, higher than Cotopaxi, endrmoUs streams of hardened lava' testimony of terrible convulsions a#d- wuptioa» in earlier ages. One of these lava streams is ten miles long and 500 feet deep!—with.an average slope of fifteen degrees. “Itis a magnificent sight, aS seen from the surrounding Paramo —a stream of dark ragged rocks coming downout of the clouds and snows which cover tMsiimmt,”

, A tramp Stole into a the woman of the house came in. She shrieked for help and struck him over the fuce With k held in her hand, breaking the vessel and cutting hi&nose, when he dropped his booty and fled, merely pausing io call his hostess an “ unmiti gated old saucerpss,” which, considering his limited time and scant opportunities, wasn’t so bad. Observations lately made from the top Of Mount DiaHo, Cal., shoMv the area of land., and ocean within, view from the summit'to be square miles. The seahOrteon is distant eighty-three miles. The jpost dwtant mountain is Lassen’s The printer’s hand takes,UD and sets down 24,000 letters per day, and assuming that his hand nfeyes' the distance of two or from hereto -Europe every year.