146 EXCURSIONS IN MADEIRA 



about 5500 feet. I used a pocket sextant of Carey's, which reads 

 only to two minutes. I was disappointed in repeating my baro- 

 metrical measurement of Ariero, having rode a kicking mule 

 there, and the small end of the tube being broken in consequence. 

 I am sure, however, it must be quite as high as I made it before, 

 5446 feet. The Ice-house Peak must also be within 100 feet as 

 high. It subtends an angle of 10°. 41'. 45" from a room about 

 150 feet above the sea, in Mr. Keir's house at Funchal, from which 

 it bears N. 11°. W. Ariero bears about N. 12°. W., from the 

 ice-house peak, and the horizontal distance between the two is 

 only 4240 feet. 



My companion to Ariero, Mr. Dunn, having formed a walking 

 party with two other residents to Pico Euivo, I put a new tube 

 to my barometer, boiling the mercury both in the small glass 

 retort and in the tube, according to the lessons old Fortin gave 

 me, and finding it accord with its former elevations at the different 

 hours of the day in the same room, and under the same meteo- 

 rological circumstances, I confided it to the above-mentioned 

 gentleman, with the necessary instructions, and he made an 

 observation on Ruivo, which, with the accompanying one at 

 Funchal with a barometer recommended me by Baron de Hum- 

 boldt, gave 6118 for its height, or 46 feet less than mine. Using 

 the crystal horizon, spirit level, and proof telescope on the Pico 

 Ruivo, the thread of the latter cuts the heavens in every direction, 

 vdthout the intervention of any other peak, and the Torrinhas, 

 bearing east, which Von Buch made 5857 feet by barometrical 

 measurement, is only 3772 feet distant horizontally from Ruivo. 

 I have every reason therefore to feel some confidence in my 

 barometrical measurement of the latter, the heights ascribed to 

 which have varied strangely, and are as follows : 



