enormous masses that gravitate on Peru, are those which regulate the equilibrium of the globe. More lofty in comparison to the northern mountains, than is the superb tower to the lowly hut, and constructed of metallic substances from the basis to the summit[1], why should they not be able to counter-balance the excess of the territories opposite to those we inhabit? If Chimborazo alone has been capable of measuring its strength with the whole earth, and of giving to the pendulum a divergence of seven seconds and a half from the line, where all the efficacy of the globe directs it to the centre, with how much greater reason ought an entire world of analogous mountains, united to Chimborazo, to equiliberate, not the absolute weight of the globe, nor the northern territories, but, respectively, the sum of the excess of the latter over the southern?
Finally, philosophy requires the equilibrium of the terraqueous globe; navigation denies the existence of new continents beyond Cape Horn; and the ocean cannot compensate the defeat. The cordillera of Peru is the largest and most elevated on the surface of the earth; and the masses of which it
- ↑ It is the opinion of the celebrated Bouguer, that the solidity of the Cordillera does not correspond with its bulk, on account of the caverns of the volcanoes; these are, however, very small, when compared with the mountains which announce themselves to be solid, and to be every where composed of metallic portions. In the year 1681, a mass of rock having been detached, by the lightning, from the famous Illimani, a mountain of the first magnitude, so large a quantity of gold was extracted from if, that it was sold, in the city of La Paz, at the rate of eight piastres (about 1l. 16s. sterling) per ounce, precisely the one half of the then current price of gold in Peru. Notwithstanding the elevation of the above mountain is far greater than that of the Cordillera in general, so as to prevent its mines from being regularly worked, a certain quantity of gold is still extracted from it. Many other mountains might be cited, the silver veins of which are buried in the snow.
