204 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



ment of Porter, true in 1820, ceased to be so nine years afterwards. Professor Parrot 

 in 1829 effected the ascent of Ararat, and in 1834 the mountain was again scaled by 

 M. Autonomoff, in order to vindicate the reputation of the Prussian traveller, whose 

 veracity had been called in question by the Armenian ecclesiastics. In 1857, an English 

 party likewise gained the summit. Its height is given at 17,200 feet, which exceeds by 

 1528 feet the highest elevation of Europe ; but the table-land of Armenia, from which it 

 rises, is stated by Hitter to be 7000 feet above the level of the sea. There is a far 

 greater elevation attained by some of the Himalaya Mountains, which separate the valleys 

 of Cashmere from Thibet, and present the loftiest projections to be found upon the ter 

 restrial surface. In this range, Dhwalagiri, 28,000 feet, was formerly supposed to be the 

 highest point; but in 1848, this distinction was given to Kunchinjinga, 28,178 feet. A 

 still more elevated peak was found in 1857, which, having no particular local name, has 

 received that of Mount Everest, after a former surveyor-general. This is 29,000 feet 

 nearly five miles and a half above the sea-level ; and is, as far as our present knowledge 

 goes, the the culminating point of the world. 



In America, the loftiest projections of the surface are the volcanic cones of the Andes. 

 The highest of these, Aconcagua, on the north of Valparaiso, in Chili, rises 23,910 feet, 

 which is nearly a mile lower than Mount Everest. But it is a far greater altitude than is 

 attained by any volcano of the old world. The mean height of the Andes, apart from 

 projecting cones, is estimated at 8000 feet in Chili, and 15,000 in Peru. 



The estimated heights of the principal mountains are given in the annexed table. A 

 few of these have not been determined with accuracy. A remarkable instance of close 

 approximation in calculating the height of Etna, occurred between independent observers, 

 pursuing different methods, at distinct times, unknown to each other. The Sicilians, vain 

 of their mountain, attributed to it an elevation of 13,000 feet, which Admiral Smyth, when 

 surveying in the Mediterranean, reduced by more than 2000, an abridgment which raised 

 no little anger and contention. The result was subsequently verified by Sir John 

 Herschel : " The height," observes the latter, " of the higher of the two summits of 

 Etna, which I ineasiired barometrically in 1824, came out to be 10,872^ English feet 

 above the level of the Sea of Catania. Smyth's result, with which I was not acquainted 

 till long after the calculation of my own, gave 10,874. I have also, somewhere or 

 other, though I cannot lay my hands on it, a memorandum of a zenith distance, observed 

 by Cacciatore, of the summit of Etna, from Palermo ; the result of which, calculated by 

 a terrestrial refraction index, concluded by Cacciatore and myself, from observations by 

 him and myself, on Monte Cuccio, gave a total altitude of ^Etna agreeing within a very 

 few feet indeed of the same ; so that I have no doubt the above is very good, unless that 

 summit have since been blown up or blown down." It has been imagined that all the 

 mountain systems form one grand consecutive scheme of high lands stretching through 

 the extent of both continents, in the form of a vast irregular arch. Could a spectator 

 command a view of the globe, supposing him to stand in Australia facing the north, he 

 would see on his right hand a continuous system of high mountains extending along the 

 entire coast of America, linked with Asia by the Aleutian Isles. He would see also a 

 chain on his left hand running along the coast of Africa, passing through Arabia into 

 Persia, mingling there with the range that traverses Europe from the Atlantic, and 

 merging in the mountains of central Asia, which are continued north-easterly to Behring's 

 Straits, and form the spine of the old world. Thus, while these chains of mountains, 

 when viewed in detail, appear isolated and utterly unsystematic, yet when the globe is 

 contemplated upon a grand scale, they seem to constitute one immense range in the form 

 of an irregular curve, with outshoots from it, bounding the bed of the Pacific, on the 

 north, east, and west 



