228 ANNUAL KECORD OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY. 



The eastern front is a precipice of 3000 feet in height, on the 

 dark front of which gleams a brilliant white cross of snow, 

 so large and perfect that at the distance of fifty miles it is 

 quite conspicuous. 



South of the Holy Cross the whole range is elevated 13,000 

 feet, towering like a buttressed wall above the Arkansas Val- 

 ley. At quite regular intervals rise the culminating peaks, 

 ten of these being from 14,000 to 14,400 feet high. 



West of the National Range rises the great groujD of Elk 

 Mountains, five of whose peaks are 14,000 feet high. These 

 are the White House, Capitol, Castle Peak, Maroon Mount- 

 ain, and one unnamed. So far as known, there are in the 

 district exj^lored the past season by the survey seventy-two 

 peaks, ranging from 14,000 to 14,200 feet in lieight. Mount 

 Lincoln stands near the centre of the mass, and from its sum- 

 mit may be counted more than two hundred peaks not less 

 than 13,000 feet high. 



ASCENT or MOUNT MEIGGS. 



According to the Panama Star and Herald^ i\\Q Fourth of 

 July was marked in Peru by the ascent, on the part of a 

 number of American gentlemen, of the highest peak of the 

 Peruvian Andes. For some time past a party of American 

 engineers has been engaged in cutting through the Summit 

 or Galera tunnel, on the Oroya Railway, at the station near 

 the town of Galera, wliich is perhaps the highest settlement 

 in the world, and under which the tunnel is being pierced. 

 This village is situated ninety-four miles from Lima, on the 

 west slope of the Andes, and is 15,581 feet above the level of 

 the sea. Quite a large party on this occasion made the as- 

 cent, and planted upon it the flags of the United States and 

 of Peru, the flag-stafis being of iron, which will probably re- 

 tain their places for a reasonable length of time. 



The altitude as determined by the boiling-point of water, 

 corrected by the barometer, was 17,'751 feet; by the ther- 

 mometer, it w^as a few feet less; but from actual levels and 

 triangulation it was fixed at 17,574, showing a remarkable 

 agreement between the indications of the portable thermo- 

 metrical aj^paratus and the more accurate indications of the 

 level. 



At two o'clock P.M. the thermometer indicated 36 above 



