Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- LIST OF PHOTO-STEREOGRAPHS
- PART I THE VOYAGE AND THE CLIMB
- PART II ON THE CRATER OF ELEVATION
- CHAP. I SECURING THE STATION
- CHAP. II SOUTH-WEST ALARM
- CHAP. III TERM-DAY WORK
- CHAP. IV THE GREAT CRATER
- CHAP. V SOLAR RADIATION
- CHAP. VI WHIRLWINDS AND VISITORS
- CHAP. VII DROUGHT AND LIGHT
- CHAP. VIII END OF GUAJARA
- PART III ON THE CRATER OF ERUPTION
- PART IV LOWLANDS OF TENERIFFE
- INDEX
CHAP. VII - DROUGHT AND LIGHT
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 July 2011
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- LIST OF PHOTO-STEREOGRAPHS
- PART I THE VOYAGE AND THE CLIMB
- PART II ON THE CRATER OF ELEVATION
- CHAP. I SECURING THE STATION
- CHAP. II SOUTH-WEST ALARM
- CHAP. III TERM-DAY WORK
- CHAP. IV THE GREAT CRATER
- CHAP. V SOLAR RADIATION
- CHAP. VI WHIRLWINDS AND VISITORS
- CHAP. VII DROUGHT AND LIGHT
- CHAP. VIII END OF GUAJARA
- PART III ON THE CRATER OF ERUPTION
- PART IV LOWLANDS OF TENERIFFE
- INDEX
Summary
About a mile to the south of our station, along; the descending slope, was a curving ridge of rocks, the mouldering rim of a small crater; and interesting, from the rare feature of verticality in some parts of its exterior. Just in front of it, was apparently, a road across the mountain; the “road of the Guanche kings,” we felt inclined to name it. Not a bush or rock was there visible, and the sides were bordered or marked out, by large blocks at short intervals. But then who would make so grand a line for traffic through desolate parts of the mountain, when there were only mule paths in the cultivated regions; a line too, from 100 to 150 feet broad, and leading only from a precipice on the west, over a barren and stony ridge, to another precipice on the east?
We went down to examine the place; and as soon as we arrived on the seeming road—a tract sure enough cleared of all large obstacles—we at once began to sink in over our ankles, in a gravel of yellow and brown stones, of remarkably small specific gravity, and acting almost like a quicksand. The change was startling, after the rock-firm surface of Guajara; and tracing the line both ways, we found neither more nor less, than these symptoms of a danger of sinking in.
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- Information
- Teneriffe, an Astronomer's ExperimentOr, Specialities of a Residence Above the Clouds, pp. 195 - 207Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1858