Identifier: lifenatureun00myer (find matches)
Title: Life and nature under the tropics: or, Sketches of travels among the Andes, and on the Orinoco, Rio Negro, and Amazons
Year: 1871 (1870s)
Authors: Myers, H. M. (Henry Morris), d. 1872 Myers, P. V. N. (Philip Van Ness), 1846-1937
Subjects: Scientific expeditions South America -- Description and travel
Publisher: New York : D. Appleton and company
Contributing Library: University of California Libraries
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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Eeturu to Quito. The volcanoes of the New Worldâunlike those ofthe Old, which are generally placed upon the islandsâaresituated upon the continental land, in connection with itsgreat mountain-axes; and, moreover, curiously disposedin five great linear groups. Humboldt, in a geognostic andgeographic description of the volcanoes of the Americas,designates these as the group of Mexico, of CentralAmerica, of New Granada and Quito, of Peru and Bo-livia, and of Chili.* More than ninety volcanoes are em-braced by these series, of which number foi-ty-eight stillgive evidence of activity. The distance between the mostnorthern in Mexico and the most southern in Chili is al-most five thousand miles; the greatest distance betweenany two of the groups is found separating the clusters ofQuito from that of Bolivia, a stretch of nine hundred andsixty miles. The volcanoes in each assemblage have alinear meridional disposition ; those in Chili being set along ⢠Sea Cosmos, vol. v., pp. 265, 283.
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f W ^^-- »^-j--^i^ *^^^ VOLCANIC GROUPS. 239 a stretch of one thousand miles, while those about Quitoare crowded upon a line of four hundred and seventy-twomiles. The group of Central America comprises thegreatest number, having twenty-nine volcanic peaks,of which eighteen are still active. But Chili claimsthe honor of having the highest mountain of tlie series,Aconcagua, which rises 23,200 feet above the Pacificâ1,700 feet higher than Chimborazo, yet 6,000 feet belowthe summit of the highest peak of the Himalayas. ThePeruvian and Bolivian group names the snowy peaks,Gulateiri, Sahama, Sorata, and lUimani, that look downupon the loftiest table-lands of the New WorldâthePlateau of Bolivia. Here is Lake Titicaca,* lifted up inthe air to a height twice as great as the elevation ofMount Washington. But the grandest of these groups is the one which cir-cles, with its snow-mantled peaks, the valley of Quito.The volcanoes of this cluster are found between Sangai,two degrees south of the

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