given space at Quito than on the coast. This is an instance,
observes Prichard, of long-continued habit, and the result of external
agencies modifying the structure of the body, and with it the state of
the most important functions of life. We tried the experiment of burning
a candle one hour at Guayaquil, and another part of the same candle for
the same period at Quito. Temperature at Guayaquil, 80 deg.; at Quito, 62 deg..
The loss at Guayaquil was 140 grains; at Quito, 114, or 26 grains less
at the elevation of 9500 feet. Acoustics will also illustrate the
thinness of the air. M. Godin found (1745) that a nine-pounder could not
be heard at the distance of 121,537 feet; and that an eight-pounder at
Paris, at the distance of 102,664 feet, was louder than a nine-pounder
at Quito at the distance of 67,240 feet.

According to Dr. Archibald Smith, the power of muscular exertion in a
native of the coast is greatly increased by living at the height of
10,000 feet. But it is also asserted by observing travelers that dogs
and bulls lose their combativeness at 12,000 feet, and that hence there
can never be a good bull-fight or dog-fight on the Sierras. This is
literally true: the dogs seem to partake of the tameness of their
masters. Cats do not flourish at all in high altitudes; and probably the
lion, transplanted from the low jungle to the table-lands, would lose
much of his ferocity. Still, cock-fights seem to prosper; and the battle
of Pichincha was fought on an elevation of nearly 11,000 feet. Bolivar
and the Spaniards, also, fought like tigers on the high plain of
Junin.[36]

[Footnote 36: Gibbon states that the temperature of the blood of a young
bull in Cuzco was 100 deg.; air, 57 deg.. At the base of the Andes a similar
experiment resulted in 101 deg. for the blood, air 78 deg.. The lieutenant
jocosely adds: "The Spaniards have forced the hog so high up on the
Andes that he suffers every time he raises his bristles, and dies out of
place."--Puna has been attributed to the presence of arsenical vapor.]

The sickness felt by some travelers at great elevations--violent
headache and disposition to vomit--is called _veta_; and the difficulty
of breathing from the rarity of the air is termed _puna_. Gerard
complained of severe headache and depression of spirits at the height of
15,000 feet on the Himalayas; Dr. Barry, in ascending Mont Blanc (15,700
feet), speaks of great thirst, great dryness and constriction of skin,
loss