Book contents
- Frontmatter
- PREFACE
- Contents
- LIST OF PHOTO-STEREOGRAPHS
- PART I THE VOYAGE AND THE CLIMB
- PART II ON THE CRATER OF ELEVATION
- PART III ON THE CRATER OF ERUPTION
- CHAP. I SCALING THE CENTRAL CONE
- CHAP. II EARLY EXPERIENCES AT ALTA VISTA
- CHAP. III BRINGING UP THE TELESCOPE
- CHAP. IV BATTLE OF THE CLOUDS
- CHAP. V SUMMIT OF THE PEAK
- CHAP. VI AUTUMN IN EXCELSIS
- CHAP. VII THE REITERATED QUESTION
- CHAP. VIII THE ICE CAVERN
- CHAP. IX LAST OF THE MOUNTAIN
- PART IV LOWLANDS OF TENERIFFE
- INDEX
CHAP. II - EARLY EXPERIENCES AT ALTA VISTA
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
- PART III ON THE CRATER OF ERUPTION
- CHAP. I SCALING THE CENTRAL CONE
- CHAP. II EARLY EXPERIENCES AT ALTA VISTA
- CHAP. III BRINGING UP THE TELESCOPE
- CHAP. IV BATTLE OF THE CLOUDS
- CHAP. V SUMMIT OF THE PEAK
- CHAP. VI AUTUMN IN EXCELSIS
- CHAP. VII THE REITERATED QUESTION
- CHAP. VIII THE ICE CAVERN
- CHAP. IX LAST OF THE MOUNTAIN
- PART IV LOWLANDS OF TENERIFFE
- INDEX
Summary
On the 21st of August, we rose early, excited alike by the novelties of the neighbourhood, and by the occurrence of another term-day. Our interpreter and his men had done their work famously in the preceding week, having erected altogether something like sixty yards of wall, four feet thick and six feet high; and so arranged, as to form a telescope enclosure in the centre, with cells or small rooms round about. One of these, intended subsequently for optical experiments, was soon furnished with half a roof over its southern end; and there we established the meteorological instruments.
The barometer was at 20·5 inches; the thermometer at 6 a.m., was 49°; and at noon, its maximum, was 65°. The air was thus found very sensibly cooler here, than on Guajara; while the dryness was rather less, the depression of the dew point varying from 18° at night, to 41° in the middle of the day. The power of radiation, however, appeared to be increased, and the inclination therefore, in the temperature, to mount up to a maximum with noon, became its marked feature.
The earlier part of the solar course, or from the eastern horizon upwards, could be well commanded at Alta Vista; but at 3h. 45m. p.m., the sun was lost behind the western lava ridges of the Peak; while other descending streams, on the immediate N. and S. of our station, cut off the lower part of the sky in those directions also.
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- Information
- Teneriffe, an Astronomer's ExperimentOr, Specialities of a Residence Above the Clouds, pp. 241 - 257Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010First published in: 1858