223 



If, then, Mt. Shasta is the highest mountain of the Cascade 

 and Sierra Nevada range, it is almost certainly the highest point 

 within the hmits of the United States, as we have reason to be- 

 heve that there are no peaks in the chains to the East of this as 

 high as those which form the Western border of the Continent. 

 The volcanic cone of San Francisco, which is given by Humboldt 

 at 16,000 feet, on the authority of Marcou, is m reality only between 

 12,000 and 13,000 feet high. 



The question, which is the highest mountain in North America ? 

 may here be briefly touched on. It will be remembered by every 

 one, that in the school geographies and books of a popular kmd 

 relating to geograpliical science, Mt. St. Elias is always mentioned 

 as claiming supremacy over all the mountains of America. It is 

 curious to see how this really qviite erroneous statement, in regard 

 to a point of so much interest, has been handed down from genera- 

 tion to generation by the book-makers ; even in the latest editions 

 of the best Atlases, Cyclopaadias and Gazetteers, we find this 

 statement in regard to the height of Mt. St. Ehas repeated with- 

 out qualification. The height usually assigned to St. Ehas is 

 17,854 feet, and is derived from measurements made by Malespina, 

 in 1791, as discovered by Humboldt from ^lalespina's manuscripts 

 in the archives of Mexico. Were this height correct, it would be 

 almost beyond doubt that St. Ehas is the highest mountain in North 

 America, although even then less than one hundred feet lower than 

 Popocatapetl ; but the following circumstances will, I think, justify 

 us in believing that Malespina's measurements were, in all proba- 

 bihty, grossly hicorrect. In the first place, La Perouse measured 

 this mountain in 1786-8, and made it only 12,661 feet high: 

 again, on the English Hydrographical Charts, it is given at 14,970 

 feet. But, secondly, Vancouver, in his description of the mountain, 

 says expressly that the snow fine does not descend very far down 

 its sides, which w^ould be an absurdity, if it was really 17,000 feet 

 high in a latitude of sixty degrees. It is probable that the height 

 given by the British Charts, probably from Captain Denham's mea- 

 surement, is nearer the truth ; and, if so, then St. Ehas is nearly 

 3,000 feet lower than Popocatapetl, and also lower than several 

 other points in Mexico, and lower than Mt. Brown and jMt. Hooker. 

 in British Columbia, according to the usually adopted figures, viz : 

 16,000 and 16,750 feet. But, it may be said with truth, that these 

 figures given by Douglas are of little value, and that they are con- 

 siderably above the real heights. 



In regard to the height of the Mexican volcanoes, there is no 

 uncertainty. They have been carefully measured by Sonntag, 

 whose barometrical observations agree with the trigonometrical ones 

 of Humboldt, made more than fifty years before. According to 



