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Page:Transactions of the Geological Society, 1st series, vol. 2.djvu/314

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Mr. Bennet on the Island of Teneriffe.

ascended the preceding day, we reached about four o'clock the country house of our hospitable friend Mr. Barry.

The difficulties of this enterprise have been much exaggerated, the ascent on foot is not a labour of more than four hours at most, and the whole undertaking not to be compared in point of fatigue to what the traveller undergoes who visits the Alps. That the ascent must be hazardous in a storm of hail and snow there can be no doubt, but to cross Salisbury plain may sometimes be dangerous. Yet stripped of poetical terrors and divested of the eloquent description of some writers, there is perhaps no mountain in Europe, the ascent of which does not furnish more difficulties than the Peak of Teneriffe.