[Footnote 2: According to Malte-Brun, it is under the equator that we meet with the loftiest summits of this chain. (Universal Geography, Eng. trans., book 86.) But more recent measurements have shown this to be between fifteen and seventeen degrees south, where the Nevado de Sorata rises to the enormous height of 25,250 feet, and the Illimani to 24,300.] [Footnote 3: At least, the word anta, which has been thought to furnish the etymology of Andes, in the Peruvian tongue, signified "copper." Garcilasso, Com. Real., Parte 1, lib. 5, cap. 15.] [Footnote 4: Humboldt, Vues des Cordilleres et Monumens des Peuples Indigenes de l'Amerique, (Paris, 1810,) p. 106. - Malte-Brun, book 88. The few brief sketches which M. de Humboldt has given of the scenery of the Cordilleras, showing the hand of a great painter, as well as of a philosopher, make us regret the more, that he has not given the results of his observations in this interesting region as minutely as he has done in respect to Mexico.] The face of the country would appear to be peculiarly unfavorable to the purposes both of agriculture and of internal communication. The sandy strip along the coast, where rain rarely falls, is fed only by a few scanty streams, that furnish a remarkable contrast to the vast volumes of water which roll down the eastern sides of the Cordilleras into the Atlantic. The precipitous steeps of the sierra, with its splintered sides of porphyry and granite, and its higher regions wrapped in snows that never melt under the fierce sun of the equator, unless it be from the desolating action of its own volcanic fires, might seem equally unpropitious to the labors of the husbandman. And all communication between the parts of the long-extended territory might be thought to be precluded by the savage character of the region, broken up by precipices, furious torrents, and impassable quebradas, - those hideous rents in the mountain chain, whose depths the eye of the terrified traveler, as he winds along his aerial pathway, vainly endeavours to fathom. *5 Yet the industry, we might almost say, the genius, of the Indian was sufficient to overcome all these impediments of Nature. [Footnote 5: "These crevices are so deep," says M. de Humboldt, with his usual vivacity of illustration, "that if Vesuvius or the Puy de Dome were seated in the bottom of them, they would not rise above the level of the ridges of the neighbouring sierra" Vues des Cordilleres, p. 9.]