AND PORTO SANTO. 147 



50681 

 5162 

 5438 

 6164 



Gourlay^ .... 8250 



Encyclopedia* 



Smith'' . . . 



Sabine'' . . . 



Bowdich . . 



I am told that Lieutenant Vidal, of the Leven surveying ship, 

 made it either 5964 or 5946 feet above the Consul's garden, which 

 would make it more than 6000 feet above the sea, and that Mr. 

 Johnstone, who published the map of Madeira, made it about 6000 

 also: Dr. Heberden merely says, that it is 3170 feet above the 

 plain which environs its base'*. The highest point of Madeira is 

 so rarely seen by vessels at sea, that those not touching at the 

 island could seldom avail themselves of the exact knowledge of its 

 height for the correction of their longitude; and a more serious 

 error to them, in frequently making but the east or west point of 

 the island, is the erroneous length which has been ascribed to it. 

 In the 7th, and I presume the last edition of Guthrie's geography, 



' Observations on the Natural History, Climate, and Diseases of Madeira, London, 

 1811, p. 6. The Doctor's knowledge of Natural History, which has not enabled him 

 to determine a single rock, mineral, bird, fish, or plant, in this then wholly unex- 

 amined island, is confined to such remarks as " mutton is not so much cultivated 

 here as it ought," p. 24, and the hke. The Doctor, however, has given a very patient 

 and useful meteorological register (continued for eiglileeu years), which his editor 

 ought not to have taken the liberty to crop short. Dr. Pitta {Account of the Island 

 of Madeira, London, 1812), who, for so amiable a man, dwells rather ill-naturedly I 

 think on Dr. Gourlay's, or rather Dr. Gourlay's printer's inadvertence, " I prescribed 

 for a raw hzard every morning," tells us p. 78, " of .shell fi^h, the lobster, crab 

 periwinkle, shrimp, and lamprey, abound here," but then to be sure he does not 

 promise Natural History in his title page. 



* I have omitted to note, but I am pretty sure it was the Encyc. Londinemis, from 

 which I extracted this height before I left Europe. 



'• Tour of the Continent, vol. 1, p. 200. Irish Transactions, vol. 8, p. 124. 



■^ An Account of a Barometrical Measurement of the Height of the Pico Ruivo, by 

 Captain Sabine. Journal of Science, ISc. 29. 



" Humboldt's Voyage, S,-c. I. 1, c. 1. Cook's First Voyage, t. 1, p. 272. 



U 2 



