1890.] NATURAL SCIENCES OF PHILADELPHIA. 2<).3 



measurement made by La Perouse in 1786, Avhichgave for the peak 

 less than 13,000 feet; and seemingly not much more reliable i^ the 

 datum (14,970 feet) which appears in Captain Denham's chart from 

 1853 to 1856, and is copied into the British Admiralty chart of 1872 

 (Humboldt's Cosmos, V, p. 419, Otte's Edition ; Dall, Kept. I". S. 

 Coast and Geodetic Survey for 1875, p. 159). This latter figure 

 (4562 metres) is adopted by Petermann in his general map of Xortli 

 America prepared for Stieler's Hand-Atlas (1878-81). Male- 

 spina in 1791 determined the height, by means of angles taken from 

 near the position of Port ]\rulgrave, to be 5441 metres or 17,851 feet, 

 and the equivalent of this figure has been copied into the Russian 

 Hydrographic charts (1847). Tebenkoff reduces this amount by 

 somewhat over 900 feet. 



No carefully conducted measurements of the mountain appear to 

 have been made between the date of the publication of Tebenkoff's 

 chart (1849) and 1874, when Mr. Dall, under the direction of the U. 

 S. Coast Survey, surveyed a considerable portion of the Alaskan 

 region.^ This investigator found four different values for the 

 height of the mountain as measured from four points respectively 

 69, 127, 132, and 167 miles distant: these are 19,464, 18,350, 19^ 

 956, and 18,033 feet. Mr. Dall dismisses all of these as having little 

 value, except the measurement of 19,464 feet, made from Port Mul- 

 grave. It is difficult to reconcile the vast range of these measure- 

 ments, whose extremes vary to an extent of upwards of 1900 feet, or 

 to one-tenth of the height of the entire mountain, except on the as- 

 sumption that the angles of measurement were too small to permit 

 of exactitude in the result. And, indeed, Mr. Dall himself rejects 



^ Mr. Dall, in his report above referred to (p. 159), quotes from Leopold von 

 Buch an additional measurement of the mountain, namely 16.758 feet. Grewingk 

 (Verhandl. Russ.-Kaiser. Mineralog. Gesellsch., 1848-9 [1850], p. 99). gives the 

 same figure, referring likewise to Buch (Canar. Inseln, p. 390) ; and a further 

 reference ap]:)ears in Davidson's " Coast Pilot of Alaska," 1869, p. 142, note (16, 

 754 feet, according to Grewingk). But this figure is manifestly Malespina's 

 measurement given in French feet, which resolved=l 7,860 feet; and Grewinjjk 

 himself quotes Malespina's measurement (5441 metres) on p. 404 of his report. 

 Humboldt (op. cit. V, p. 252) credits the measurement of 17,855 feet to Quadra and 

 Galeano, but as these observers were associated with Malespina, it is more than 

 probable that the data here given are those which have been generally attributed to 

 Malespina. Humboldt intimates that the measurement is perhaps one-fifteenth too 

 great, but whether this assertion rests on certain facts contained in Malespina's 

 manuscripts, which the great German traveller found among the Archives of 

 Mexico (p. 419), or r.ot, is not stated. 



