ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT (1769-1859)
Cayambe (5,790 m -19,000 ft)
Ecuador
In Vues des Cordillères et Monumens des Peuples Indigènes de l’Amérique
book published in 1816 in Paris, University of Ottawa
The mountain
Cayambe or Volcбn Cayambe (5,790 m -19,000 ft) is the name of a volcano located in the Cordillera Central, a range of the Ecuadorian Andes. It is located in Pichincha province some 70 km (43 mi) northeast of Quito. It is the third highest mountain in Ecuador.
Cayambe, which has a permanent snow cap, is a Holocene compound volcano which last erupted in March 1786. At 4,690 metres (15,387 ft) on its south slope is the highest point in the world crossed by the Equator and the only point on the Equator with snow cover. The volcano and most of its slopes are within the Cayambe Coca Ecological Reserve. Studies conducted since 1995 by a joint team of Ecuadorian and French researchers have shown that during the last 4000, the Cayambe has experienced periods of intense eruptive activity about 700 years alternating with rest periods of 500 to 600 years. The resumption of eruptions must be considered.
Moreover, the region is home to numerous flower plantations for export; however, the non-secure management and toxic effects of these crops have caused serious damage to the environment and create health problems among employees of the plantations.
The cartographer and painter
Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was a Prussian geographer, naturalist, explorer, and influential proponent of Romantic philosophy and science. He was the younger brother of the Prussian minister, philosopher, and linguist Wilhelm von Humboldt (1767–1835). Humboldt's quantitative work on botanical geography laid the foundation for the field of biogeography. Humboldt's advocacy of long-term systematic geophysical measurement laid the foundation for modern geomagnetic and meteorological monitoring.
Between 1799 and 1804, Humboldt travelled extensively in Latin America, exploring and describing it for the first time from a modern scientific point of view. His description of the journey was written up and published in an enormous set of volumes over 21 years. Humboldt was one of the first people to propose that the lands bordering the Atlantic Ocean were once joined (South America and Africa in particular). Humboldt resurrected the use of the word cosmos from the ancient Greek and assigned it to his multi-volume treatise, Kosmos, in which he sought to unify diverse branches of scientific knowledge and culture. This important work also motivated a holistic perception of the universe as one interacting entity.
On their way back to Europe from Mexico on their way to the United States, Humboldt and his fellow scientist Aimé Bonpland stopped in Cuba for a while. After their first stay in Cuba of three months they returned the mainland at Cartagena de Indias (now in Colombia), a major center of trade in northern South America. Ascending the swollen stream of the Magdalena River to Honda and arrived in Bogotá on July 6, 1801 where they met Spanish botanist José Celestino Mutis, the head of the Royal Botanical Expedition to New Granada, staying there until September 8, 1801. Mutis was generous with his time and gave Humboldt access to the huge pictorial record he had compiled since 1783. Humboldt had hopes of connecting with the French sailing expedition of Baudin, now finally underway, so Bonpland and Humboldt hurried to Ecuador. They crossed the frozen ridges of the Cordillera Real, they reached Quito on 6 January 1802, after a tedious and difficult journey.
Their stay in Ecuador was marked by the ascent of Pichincha and their climb of Chimborazo, where Humboldt and his party reached an altitude of 19,286 feet (5,878 m). This was a world record at the time, but a thousand feet short of the summit. Humboldt's journey concluded with an expedition to the sources of the Amazon en route for Lima, Peru.
2018 - Wandering Vertexes...
by Francis Rousseau
