32 VIEWS OP NATURE. 



James' Peak (38° 48' lat.) is said to have an elevation of 

 11,497 English feet. Of this only 8537 feet have been deter- 

 mined by trigonometrical measurement, the remainder being 

 deduced in the absence of barometrical observations, from 

 imcertain calculations of the declivity or fall of rivers. As 

 it is scarcely ever possible, even at the level of the sea, to 

 conduct a purely trigonometrical measurement, determinations 

 of impracticable heights are always in part barometrical. 

 Measurements of the fall of rivers, of their rapidity and of the 

 length of their course, are so deceptive, that the plain at the 

 foot of the Rocky Mountains, more especially near those sum- 

 mits mentioned in the text, was, before the important expe- 

 dition of Captain Fremont, estimated sometimes at 8000 and 

 sometimes at 3000 feet above the level of the sea.* From a 

 similar deficiency of barometrical measurements, the true 

 height of the Himalaya remained for a long time imcertain ; 

 now, however, science has made such advances in India, that 

 when Captain Gerard had ascended on the Tarhigang, near 

 the Sutledge, north of Shipke, to the height of 19,411 feet, 

 he still had, after having broken three barometers, four equally 

 correct ones remaining.! 



Fremont, in the expedition which he made between the 

 years 1842 and 1844, at the command of the United States 

 Government, discovered and measured barometrically the 

 highest peak of the whole chain of the Rocky Mountains to 

 the north-north-west of Spanish, James', Long's, and Laramie's 

 Peaks. This snow-covered summit, which belongs to the 

 group of the Wind River Mountains, bears the name of 

 Fremont's Peak on the great chart published under the di- 

 rection of Colonel Abert, chief of the topographical depart- 

 ment at "Washington. This point is situated in the parallel 

 of 43° 10' north lat., and 110° 7' west long., and therefore 

 nearly 5° 30' north of Spanish Peak. The elevation of Fre- 

 mont's Peak, which according to direct measurement is 13,568 

 feet, must therefore exceed by 2072 feet that given by Long to 

 James' Peak, which would appear from its position to be iden- 

 tical with Pike's Peak, as given in the map above referred to. 

 The Wind River Mountains constitute the dividing ridge 

 {divortia aquarum) between the two seas. " From the summit," 



* See Long's Expeditions, vol. ii., pp. 36, 362, 382. Ap. p. xxxvii. 

 f Critical Researches on Philology and Geography, 1824, p. 144. 



