ANNOTATIONS AND ADDITIONS. 53 



true elevation of the Himalaya continued so long uncertain : but 

 now the resources which belong to the cultivation of science have 

 increased in India to such a degree, that Captain Gerard, when on 

 the Tarhigang, near the Sutlej, north of Shipke, at an elevation of 

 19,411 English feet, after breaking three barometers, had still four 

 equally correct ones remaining. (Critical Researches on Philology 

 and Geography, 1824, p. 144.) 



Fre*mont, in the expedition which he made in the years 1842-1844 

 by order of the Government of the United States, found the highest 

 summit of the whole chain of the Rocky Mountains to the north 

 north-west of Spanish, James's, Long's, and Laramie Peaks. This 

 snowy summit, of which he measured the elevation barometrically, 

 belongs to the group of the Wind River mountains. It bears on 

 the large map, edited by Colonel Abert, Chief of the Topographical 

 Office at Washington, the name of Fremont's Peak, and is situated 

 in 43 10' lat. and 110 13' W. long, from Greenwich, almost 5 

 north of Spanish Peak. Its height, by direct measurement, is 

 12,730 French, or 13,568 English feet. This would make Fremont's 

 Peak 324 toises (or 2072 English feet) higher than the elevation 

 assigned by Long to James's Peak, which, according to its position, 

 appears to be identical with Pike's Peak in the map above referred 

 to. The Wind River Mountains form the "divortia aquarum/' or 

 division between the waters flowing towards either ocean. Captain 

 Fremont (in his Official Report of the Exploring Expedition to the 

 Rocky Mountains in the year 1842, and to Oregon and North Cali- 

 fornia in the years 1843-44, p. 70), says, "We saw, on one side, 

 countless mountain lakes, and the sources of the Rio Colorado which 

 carries its waters through the Gulf of California to the Pacific; and, 

 on the other side, the deep valley of the Wind River, where are 

 situated the sources of the Yellowstone River, one of the principal 

 branches of the Missouri, which unites with the Mississippi at St. 

 Louis. To the north-west, rise, covered with perpetual snow, the 

 summits called the Trois Tetons, where the true source of the Mis- 

 souri itself is situated, not far from that of the head water of the 

 Oregon or Columbia, or the source of that branch of it called Snake 

 River or Lewis Fork." To the astonishment of the adventurous 

 travellers, they found the top of Fremont's Peak visited by bees : 



5* 



