Note 276 — Chapter XLI

“The stone made use of for the house of Huayna Ccapac, mentioned by Cieza de Leon under the name of Mulahalo, is a rock of volcanic origin, a burnt and spongy porphyry with basaltic basis. It was probably ejected by the mouth of the volcano of Cotopaxi. As this monument appears to have been constructed in the beginning of the sixteenth century, the materials employed in it prove that it is a mistake to consider as the first eruption of Cotopaxi that which took place in 1533, when Sebastian de Belalcazar made the conquest of the kingdom of Quito.” Humboldt’s Researches, i, p. 6.