No. 7.] AMERICAN GEOGRAPHY. 423 



has been surveyed by Professor Hay den. Here, ou the tributa- 

 ries of the rivers Colorado and S. Juan, we find those mysterious 

 monuments of ancient civilisation and a dying people, the cliflf- 

 houses on the Rio Mancos and Rio de Chelly, the Pueblos of 

 the Chaso Canon ; and here the wandering Apaches still practice 

 on their prisoners those revolting and indescribable cruelties 

 which make humanity shudder, and which seal their doom of 

 extermination. No less than eighteen summits in the Sierra 

 Blanca have been found to rise above 14,000 feet. Blanca Peak, 

 in South Colorado, attains 14,464 feet, and is the monarch of 

 mountains, if such there may be, in tlie great Republic. Lake 

 Tahoe, the largest of western lakes, familiar to readers of the 

 brilliant pages of Miss Bird, was surveyed by Lieutenant Ma- 

 comb in 1877, and the height of Pyramid Peak ascertained to 

 be 10,003 feet. A town of 20,000 inhabitants (Leadville, 

 Colorado) has sprung into being at an elevation of 11,000 feet, 

 which ranks it among the highest inhabited places on the globe. 



*' Very different in their character are the survey operations 

 of the Canadian Government in the north-west, where the 

 problem presented is to prepare a vast territory, wholly wanting 

 in conspicuous points, for being laid out in townships of uniform 

 area, and farms of uniform acreage. The law requires that the 

 eastern and western boundaries of every township be true astro- 

 nomical meridians ; and that the sphericity of the earth's figure 

 be duly allowed for, so that the northern boundary must be less in 

 measurement than the southern. All lines are required to be gone 

 over twice, with chains of unequal length, and the land surveyors 

 are checked by astronomical determinations. In carrying out 

 this operation, which will be seen to be of great nicety, five prin- 

 cipal meridians have been rigorously determined, and in part 

 traced— the 97th, 102nd, 106th, 110th, and 114th; and four- 

 teen base-lines, connecting them, have been measured and marked. 

 One of these, on the parallel of 52° 10' is 183 miles long. 

 Eleven astronomical stations have been fixed since 1876, and 

 from these sixty-six determinate points have been fixed in lati- 

 tude, forty-five in longitude, often under conditions of no little 

 difficulty from the severity of the climate. The claims of Messrs. 

 Alexander and Lindsay Russell, of Mr. Aldous, and Mr. King, 

 the observers, to rank as scientific travellers, will, I am sure, be 

 warmly recognized by this Section. 



" The sources of the Frazer river were first reached io Feb- 



