page_title: Edward Whymper
section_title: South American exploration
hierarchical_section_title: Edward Whymper / South American exploration
caption_attribution_description: Deutsch: Gedenktafel an Edward Whymper (in Zermatt): " Edward Whymper, 1840-1911 " Am 14. Juli 1865 unternahm er zusammen mit einer Seilschaft von Gefährten und Bergführern die erfolgreiche Erstbesteigung es Matterhorns von diesem Hotel aus. " On July 14, 1865, he set forth from this hotel with his companions and guides and completed the first successful ascent of the Matterhorn.
context_page_description: Edward Whymper FRSE was an English mountaineer, explorer, illustrator, and author best known for the first ascent of the Matterhorn in 1865. Four members of his climbing party were killed during the descent. Whymper also made important first ascents on the Mont Blanc massif and in the Pennine Alps, Chimborazo in South America, and the Canadian Rockies. His exploration of Greenland contributed an important advance to Arctic exploration. Whymper wrote several books on mountaineering, including Scrambles Amongst the Alps.
context_section_description: Whymper next organised an expedition to Ecuador, designed primarily to collect data for the study of altitude sickness and the effect of reduced pressure on the human body. His chief guide was Jean-Antoine Carrel, who later died from exhaustion on the Matterhorn after bringing his employers into safety through a snowstorm.
  During 1880, Whymper made two ascents of Chimborazo (6,267m), claiming the first ascent, though Alexander von Humboldt had ascended the volcano in 1802. He spent a night on the summit of Cotopaxi and made first ascents of Sincholagua, Antisana, Cayambe, Sara Urco and Cotacachi.  In 1892, he published the results of his journey in a volume entitled Travels amongst the Great Andes of the Equator.
  His observations on altitude sickness led him to conclude that it was caused by a reduction in atmospheric pressure, which lessens the value of inhaled air, and by expansion of the air or gas within the body, causing pressure upon the internal organs. The effects produced by gas expansion may be temporary and dissipate when equilibrium has been restored between the internal and external pressure.  The publication of his work was recognised on the part of the Royal Geographical Society by the award of the Patron's medal.
  His experiences in South America having convinced him of certain serious errors in the readings of aneroid barometers at high altitudes, he published a work entitled How to Use the Aneroid Barometer and succeeded in introducing important improvements in their construction. He afterwards published two guide books to Zermatt and Chamonix.
  While in Ecuador, Whymper made a collection of amphibians and reptiles that he handed over to George Albert Boulenger at the British Museum. The collection received some praise from Boulenger, who said that "though containing no striking novelties", the collection was "interesting on account of the care bestowed by its collector in recording the exact locality from which every specimen was obtained". Boulenger described four new species from the materials, three of them named after Whymper: snake Coronella Whymperi (now a junior synonym of Saphenophis boursieri) and frogs Prostherapis Whymperi, Phryniscus elegans, and Hylodes Whymperi (now a junior synonym of Pristimantis curtipes).
caption: Commemorative plaque in Zermatt
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