238 ANNUAL RECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



a position as engineer, and where he seems to have pursued 

 astronomical investigations with some assiduity, and even to 

 have established a small observatory. The position of Min- 

 ister of Finance for Switzerland, which he received in 1806, 

 laid upon him the responsibility of keeping in repair the 

 bridges, roads, and water-ways of the republic, which result- 

 ed in the undertaking, in 1809, of a triangulation which ex- 

 tended from the base that he had measured for Kuster in 

 1797, in the valley of the Rhine, to the Lake of Constance. 

 Finally, to complete the tuition of the young men who should 

 carry on the great work thus begun, he established a bureau 

 for instruction in pure and applied mathematics, at which not 

 only young Switzers, but those from other parts of Europe 

 gathered, among whom may be mentioned Pestalozzi and 

 Steiner. In 1824 Feer died ; but the geographical work be- 

 gun by him is still carried on, although in great part com- 

 pleted and published years ago. 



HYPSOMETEY IX THE ROCKY MOUNTAINS. 



Mr. J. F. Gardner, geographer to Professor Hayden's sur- 

 vey, in giving a short sketch of the method adopted by him 

 to determine the altitude of the various points occupied by 

 the party in the Rocky Mountains, states that the experience 

 of the surveys of California and of the fortieth parallel show 

 that in the determination of the altitude of any point a mer- 

 curial barometer is liable to an error varying from 150 to 300 

 feet, even when the base barometer is at the foot of the peak, 

 and only 3000 feet below the summit. In connection with 

 Professor Whitney (chief of the California Survey), the fol- 

 lowing plan was adopted for correcting the errors, of baro- 

 metrical work. Four points were chosen at successive levels 

 of from 1 foot to 14,000 feet. These stations were carefully 

 connected by levelings with a spirit level, and were occupied 

 as permanent meteorological stations. The observations taken 

 by field parties are classified according to their heights, and 

 each class is referred to the base station which is nearest its 

 own elevation ; the lower station being Denver, the fourth 

 the summit of Mount Lincoln (14,000 feet), where are a num- 

 ber of silver mines worked by Captain Breese. The central 

 position of this peak admirably fits it for the base of refer- 

 ence. Besides the barometric determination of heights, two 



