ed, is overdrawn.
It makes the slope about 50 deg., while in truth it is nearer 30 deg.. The
apical angle is 122 deg. 30'.[84]

[Footnote 84: MM. Zurcher and Margalli make the slope 55 deg.! and Guzman,
69 deg. 30'!! The slope of Mauna Loa is 6 deg. 30'; of Etna, 9 deg.; of Teneriffe,
12 deg. 30'; of Vesuvius, 35 deg.. While cinder-cones may have an angle of 40 deg.,
lava-cones seldom exceed 10 deg..]

Cotopaxi is slumbering now; or, as Mr. Coan says of Hilo, it is "in a
state of solemn and thoughtful suspense." The only signs of life are the
deep rumbling thunders and a cloud of smoke lazily issuing from the
crater.[85] Sometimes at night the smoke looks like a pillar of fire,
and fine ashes and sand often fall around the base, to the great
annoyance of the farmers. On the south side is a huge rock of porphyry,
called the Inca's Head. Tradition has it that this was the original
summit of the volcano, torn off and hurled down by an eruption on the
very day Atahuallpa was murdered by Pizarro. The last great eruption
occurred in 1803, though so late as 1855 it tossed out stones, water,
and sand. Heaps of ruins, piled up during the lapse of ages, are
scattered for miles around the mountain, among them great boulders
twenty feet square. In one place (Quinchevar) the accumulation is 600
feet deep. Between Cotopaxi and Sincholagua are numerous conical hills
covering the paramo, reminding one of the mud volcanoes of Jorullo.

[Footnote 85: Even this has now (August, 1869) ceased, save an
occasional grumble, and the Tacungans are trembling with fear of another
eruption.]

Pumice and trachyte are the most common rocks around this mountain, and
these are augitic or porphyroid. Obsidian also occurs, though not on the
immediate flank, but farther down near Chillo. In plowing, thousands of
pieces as large as "flints" are turned up. The natives know nothing
about their origin or use; the large specimens were anciently polished
and used for mirror. But Cotopaxi is the great pumice-producing volcano.
The new road up the valley cuts through a lofty hill formed by the
successive eruptions; the section, presenting alternate layers of mud,
ashes, and pumice, is a written history of the volcano.[86] The cone
itself is evidently composed of similar beds super-imposed, and holding
fragments of porphyry and trachyte. What is Vesuvius, four thousand feet
high, to Cotopaxi, belching forth fire from a crater fifteen thousand
feet higher, and