Untitled - The Alfred Russel Wallace Website

494
NOTES OF A BOTANIST
that the actual possessor was a gentleman of
Ambato, Senor Salvador Ortega,
application
to whom I made
for it, and he had the kindness to
have it brought immediately from Quito, where
it was deposited, and placed in my hands I am
;
therefore indebted to that gentleman's kindness
for the pleasure of being able to lay the accom-
panying copy of the map before the Geographical
Society.
The original map is formed of eight small sheets
of paper of rather unequal size (those of my copy
exactly correspond to them), pasted on to a piece of
coarse calico, the whole size being 3 feet loj inches
with a
by 2 feet 9 inches. It is very neatly painted
fine pencil in Indian ink the roads and roofs of
houses red but it has been so roughly used that it
is now much dilapidated, and the names, though
originally very distinctly written, are in many cases
them out I have
: in
scarcely decipherable making
availed myself of the aid of persons familiar with
The
the localities and with the Ouichua language.
attempt to combine a vertical with a horizontal
projection of the natural features of the country
has produced some distortion and dislocation, and
though the actual outline of the mountains is intended
to be represented,
the heights
are much
exaggerated, and consequently the declivities too
steep. Thus the apical angle of the cone of
Cotopaxi (as
I have determined it by actual
the slope (inclination
while on
measurement) is 121 and
;
,
of its surface to the horizon) 29^
Guzman's map the slope is 69^", so that the
inclination is only three-sevenths of what he has
represented it, and we may assume a correspond-