56 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



6576 English feet), of the St. Gothard (6440 French, or 6865 En- 

 glish feet), and of the Si. Bernard (7476 French, or 7969 English 

 feet), yet the ascent is so gradual, as to offer no obstacle to the use 

 of wheel carriages of all kinds in the communication between the 

 basins of the Missouri and the Oregon ; in other words, between the 

 states on the Atlantic sea board opposite Europe, and the new set-- 

 tlements on the Oregon and Columbia opposite China. The itinerary 

 distance from Boston to Astoria on the Pacific at the mouth of the 

 Columbia, is, according to the difference of longitude, 2200 geo- 

 graphical miles, or about one-sixth less than the distance of Lisbon 

 from the Ural near Katharinenburg. From the gentleness of the 

 ascent of the high plateau which leads from the Missouri to Cali- 

 fornia and to the basin of the Oregon (from the River and Fort 

 Laramie, on the northern branch of the Platte River, to Fort 

 Hall on the Lewis Fork of the Columbia, all the camping places of 

 which the height was measured were from upwards of five to seven 

 thousand, and at Old Park even 9760 French, or 10,403 English 

 feet) it has not been easy to determine the situation of the culmi- 

 nating point, or " divortia aquarum." It is south of the Wind River 

 mountains, nearly midway between the Mississippi and the coast of 

 the Pacific, at an elevation of 7027 French, or 7490 English feet; 

 therefore only 450 French, or 480 English feet lower than the Pass 

 of the Great St. Bernard. The immigrants call this point " the 

 South Pass." (Fremont's Report, pp. 3, 60, 70, 100, 129.) It is 

 situated in a pleasant district, in which the mica slate and gneiss 

 rock are found covered with many species of Artemisia, particularly 

 Artemisia tridentata (Nuttall), asters, and cactuses. Astronomical 

 determinations give the latitude 42 24', and the longitude 109 24' 

 W. from Greenwich. Adolph Erman has already called attention 

 to the circumstance that the direction of the great chain of the 

 Aldan mountains in the east of Asia, which divides the streams 

 flowing into the Lena from those which flow towards the Pacific, if 

 prolonged on the surface of the globe in the direction of a great cir- 

 cle, passes through several summits of the Rocky Mountains, be- 

 tween the parallels of 40 and 55. "Thus an American and an 

 Asiatic chain of mountains appear to belong to one great fissure, 

 following the direction of a great circle, or the shortest course from 



