The Kentucky Gazette

The Andes Gradually Sinking.

Travellers who wish to ascend the Andes should lose no time in carrying out their intention, otherwise they will perhaps find "no Andes to ascend." These unfortunate mountains seem to be sinking rapidly. A list of the altitudes of the most important points determined at distant intervals of time is given in a recent number of the Ausland, and tells a sad story of diminished proportions. Quito was found by La Condamine, in 1745. to be 9,596 feet above the sea; Humboldt, in 1803, could only make 9,570 feet of it; Boussingault, in 1831, was startled to find it was only 9,567 feet; Orton, in 1867, found it reduced to 9,520 feet, and Reiss and Stübel (doubtless to their horror) found, in 1870, that it had shrunk to the ridiculously small size of only 9,350 feet above the level of the sea. Quito, it seems, has sunk 246 feet in 125 years, and Pichincha 218 feet in the same period. Its crater has sunk 425 feet during the last twenty-six years, and Antisana 165 feet in sixty-four years. It is, however, a doubtful point whether this continued depression of the Andes is attributable to the sinking of the mountains or the rising of the world.