348 



GEOGRAPHICAL EXPLORATIONS AND DISCOVERIES IN 1866. 



surface is more fully detailed than it could be 

 by a volume of description. 



Dr. Thomas Petersen, a Danish naturalist, 

 explored in 1865 the Austrian Alps, and ascer- 

 tained the highest of the principal peaks. His 

 measurements of some of the Orteler and Adatn- 

 ello groups were given in the volume of the 

 ANNUAL CYCLOPAEDIA for 1865 ; but his full re- 

 port, in regard to the entire Austrian Alps, 

 was not made public until some time in 1866. 

 He divides these mountains into seven groups, 

 which he names : the Orteler group ; the Ad- 

 amello group ; the Otzthaler group ; the Stu- 

 baier group ; the Zillerthaler group ; the group 

 of the Tauern heights ; and the Marmolada group. 

 The Orteler group has 22 summits above 10,000 

 feet in height; and of these the Orteler Peak is 

 12,356 Vienna feet=ll,586 American feet in 

 height, and Mount Zebru, or the King's Peak, 

 12,195 Vienna feet=ll,435 American feet. 

 The Adamello group has 13 summits above 

 10,000 Vienna feet in height; of which four 

 exceed 11,000 Vienna feet; viz., Mount Adam- 

 ello, Mount Falcon, Como Bianco, and Presa- 

 nella. The Vienna foot is. about .07 less than 

 the American foot. The Otzthaler group has 

 28 peaks, about 10,500 Vienna feet, half the 

 number ranging from 11,000 to 12,000 feet. 

 The Stubaier group has but eight summits ris- 

 ing about 10,000 feet, and only two above 11,- 

 000 feet. The Zillerthaler has ten peaks over 

 10,000 feet, and two of them above 11,000 feet. 

 The Tauern group has 26 lofty summits, all 

 above 10,000 feet, and one-half the number ex- 

 ceeding 11,000, while the Great Glockner rises 

 about 12,000, find the Little Glockner is but 46 

 feet lower. The Marmolada group has nine 

 summits above 10,000; and one, the Marmolada 

 di Penia, 11,056 feet in height. Here then in 

 this cluster of mountain groups, known as the 

 Austrian' Alps, wo have 116 summits rising 

 above 10,000 feet, and 38 of them above 11,000 

 feet, while three exceed 12,000 feet. F:ve of the 

 Swiss Alpine peaks are higher than any of these, 

 but nowhere else in Europe is there so great a 

 number of peaks of uniformly high elevation. 



Mention was made in the ANNUAL CYCLO- 

 PAEDIA for 1865 of the appearance of a new 

 volcanic island in the ^Egean Sea, the date of 

 which was not then very satisfactorily ascer- 

 tained. It now appears that the appearance of 

 this addition to the previously formed volca- 

 nic island group was within the year 1866. 

 The ancient Thera, now Santorino, is the 

 largest of a cluster of islands in the ^Egean 

 S4a, and it and the adjacent isles of Therasia 

 and Aspronisi are simple segments of the for- 

 mer lim the now broken edge of a vol- 

 canic crater of immense size, being six or seven 

 miles in diameter, and of great depth. Portions 

 of this crater have at different periods within 

 the last 2,000 years been subject to renewals of 

 volcanic activity. The oldest of these, which 

 resulted in the formation of a volcanic island, 

 named Palseo Kaimeni (or old burnt island) oc- 

 curred in the year 197 B. C. In 1573, a sec- 



ond and smaller island, called Mikro (or little) 

 Kaimeni appeared within this crater, and has 

 still the remains of an old crater in it. In 1650 

 another island appeared on the northeast coast 

 of Santorino, but it soon sank. In 1707 another 

 little island, called Neo (or new) Kaimeni, rose 

 to the west of Santorino, and between Palaso and 

 Mikro Kaimeni, and attained a height of about 

 250 feet; and a circumference of a mile. The 

 surface was more or less disturbed around this 

 spot for six years, finally terminating its vol- 

 canic action in 1712. In the century and a 

 half since that period, there has been little 

 marked volcanic action, save that in the com- 

 modious "harbor formed by the old crater of 

 Santorino, and called the Bay of Exhalations, 

 it has been a well-known fact that there were 

 mineral springs, which contained sulphuric 

 waters, and that the acid gases from these 

 were sufficiently active to cleanse in a few 

 days the foul copper bottoms of ships of all 

 their impurities. On January 26, 1866, vol- 

 canic action again commenced with consider- 

 able violence ; a portion of the island of Neo 

 Kaimeni, called Cape George I., where was a 

 small village, called Vulkano, bathing-houses 

 (for the mineral waters), and a chapel, began to 

 subside slowly, "finally being covered to the 

 depth of three feet or more. The passage be- 

 tween Palseo and Neo Kaimeni began to rise 

 till from a depth of 70 fathoms it was less than 

 12 fathoms, a new island called Aphrcessa 

 (from a Greek war vessel, which was in port 

 during a part of the eruption, and narrowly es- 

 caped destruction from the falling stones and 

 lava blocks) rose to the southwest of Nee 

 Kaimeni, and finally increased till it joined that 

 island, and at another point in the southeastern 

 portion of Neo Kaimeni, the volcanic action en- 

 larged and elevated the island. The volcanic dis- 

 charges, for a period of five months, were very 

 great and intense in their character, but in June 

 they seemed to be gradually subsiding, and late 

 in the season showed no signs of return. 



The measuring of an arc of latitude, which has 

 been for some years in progress in Europe, is 

 not yet completed, though there is little ex- 

 cept the verification of the surveys yet to be 

 accomplished. The 47th parallel, which was 

 the one first selected, has been abandoned, and 

 the 52d selected, and the portion to be meas- 

 ured extends from Valentia, on the west coast 

 of Ireland, to Orsk, on the river Ural, in East- 

 ern Russia. Saratov was reached at the close 

 of 1865, and Orsk about the close of 1866. 



V. ASIA. Asia Minor. Considerable addi- 

 tion has been made during the past year to our 

 minute knowledge of Palestine, by the labors 

 of careful explorers from England and France, 

 but the results of their surveys are not yet fully 

 before the public. The flora and fauna of the 

 valley of the Jordan (which, it will b'c remem- 

 bered, in its lower portion, is far below the level 

 of the Mediterranean), have been carefully ex- 

 amined, and found to be of a tropical character. 



Persia. Russian geographers have recentlv 



