Abstract
STANDING fifty miles below the equator, and a hundred west of the meridian of Washington, Cotopaxi is at once the most beautiful and the most terrible of volcanoes. From the valley of Quito it appears like a huge truncated cone, in altitude equal to five Vesuviuses piled upon each other, its summit rising 4,000 ft. above the limit of perpetual snow, its sides presenting alternate ridges and gorges ploughed by descending floods of water, and around the base for miles heaps of ruins—boulders 20 ft. square, and volcanic ashes and mud 600 ft. deep. Very seldom does Cotopaxi wake up to intense activity, for as a rule the higher a volcano the less frequent its eruptions. Generally the only signs of life are the deep rumbling thunders and a cloud of smoke lazily issuing from the crater.
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Cotopaxi—The First Ascent of the Great Volcano * . Nature 7, 449 (1873). https://doi.org/10.1038/007449a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/007449a0