TRUE VOLCANOES. 385 



t 



universally accepted title of the Rocky Mountains. The two 

 chains form a lengthened valley, in which Albuquerque, 

 Santa Fe', and Taos lie, and through which the Rio Grande 

 del Norte flows. In lat. 38^ this valley is closed by a chain 

 running east and west for the space of 88 geographical miles, 

 while the Rocky Mountains extend undivided in a meridional 

 direction as far as lat. 41. In this intermediate space rise, 

 somewhat to the east, the Spanish Peaks Pike's Peak (5800 

 feet), which has been beautifully delineated by Fremont, 

 James's Peak (11,434 feet), and the three Park Mountains, 

 all of which inclose three deep valleys, the lateral walls of 

 which rise up, along with the eastern Long's Peak, or Big Horn, 

 to a height of 9060 and 11,191 feet.* On the eastern bound- 

 ary, between Middle and North Park, the mountain chain all 

 at once changes its direction, and runs from lat. 40^ to 44 

 for a distance of about 260 geographical miles from south- 

 cast to northwest. In this intermediate space lie the south 

 Pass (7490 feet), and the famous Wind River Mountains, so 

 singularly sharp pointed, together with Fremont's Peak (lat. 

 43 8'), which reaches the height of 13,567 feet, In the par- 

 allel of 44, in the neighborhood of the Three Tetons, where 

 the northwesterly direction ceases, the meridian direction of 

 the Rocky Mountains begins again, and continues about as 

 far as Lewis and Clarke's Pass, which lies in lat. 47 2', and 



* Fremont, Explor. Exped., p. 281-288. Pike's Peak, lat. 38 50', 

 delineated at p. 114 ; Long's Peak, 40 15' ; ascent of Fremont's Peak 

 (13,570 feet) p. 70. The Wind River Mountains take their name from 

 the source of a tributary to the Big Horn River, whose waters unite 

 with those of the Yellow Stone River, which falls into the Upper Mis- 

 souri (lat. 47 58', long. 103 6' 30"). See the delineations of the 

 Alpine range, rich in mica-slate and granite, p. 66 and 70. I have in 

 all cases retained the English names given by the North American 

 geographers, as their translation into a pure German nomenclature 

 has often proved a rich source of confusion. To help the comparison 

 of the direction and length of the meridian chain of the Ural, which, 

 according to the careful investigations of my friend and traveling com- 

 panion, Colonel Ernst Hofmann, takes a curve at the northern extrem- 

 ity toward the east, and which, from the Truchmenian Mountain Airuk- 

 Tagh (484) to the Sablja Mountains (65), is fully 1020 geographical 

 miles in length, with those of the Rocky Mountains, I would here re- 

 mind the reader that the latter chain runs between the parallels of 

 Pike's Peak and Lewis and Clarke's Pass, from 105 9' 30" into 112 

 9' 30" of longitude. The chain of the Ural, which, within the same 

 space of 17 degrees of latitude, deviates little from the meridian of 

 59 0'30", likewise changes its direction under the parallel of 65, and 

 attains under lat. 67 the meridian of 66 5' 30". Compare Ernst 

 Hofmann, Der nordtwhe Ural und das Kustengebirqc JPac-Choi, 1856, s. 

 191 and 297-305, with Humboldt, Asie Centrale (1843), t. i., p. 447. 

 VOL. V. R 



