64 STEPPES AND DESERTS. 



(S. lat. 16 38') in the same mountain range at Sorata : eleva- 

 tion 3753 toises, or 22,518 Parisian, or 24,000 English feet. 



The Chimborazo (S. lat. 1 27') in the province of Quito : 

 elevation 3350 toises, or 20,100 Parisian, or 21,423 English 

 feet. 



The Sorata and Illimani were first measured by a distinguished 

 geologist, Mr. Pentland, in 1827, and also in 1838. Since the 

 publication, in June, 1848, of his great map of the basin of the 

 Lake of Titicaca, we know that the above-mentioned elevations of 

 these two mountains are respectively 3960 and 2851 English feet 

 too great. The map gives to the Sorata 21,286, and to the Illimani 

 21,149 English feet. A more exact calculation of the trigonome- 

 trical operations of 1838 has led Mr. Pentland to these new results. 

 There are, according to him, in the western Cordillera, four peaks of 

 from 21,700 to 22,350 English feet. The highest of these, the Peak 

 of Sahama, would thus be 926 English feet higher than the Chim- 

 borazo, and but 850 English feet lower than the Volcano of Acon- 

 gagua, measured by the Expedition of the Beagle (Fitz Roy's Nar- 

 rative, vol. ii. p. 481). 



( 6 ) p. 26. " The Desert near the basaltic mountains of ffarudsh." 

 Near the Egyptian Natron JLakes, (which in the time of Strabo 

 had not yet been divided into six reservoirs,) there is a range of hills 

 which rises steeply on the northern side, and runs from east to west 

 past Fezzan, where it finally appears to join the chain of the Atlas. 

 It divides in north-eastern Africa, as the Atlas does in north-western 

 Africa, the inhabited maritime Lybia of Herodotus from the land of 

 the Berbers, or Biledulgerid, abounding in wild animals. From the 

 limits of Middle Egypt the whole region south of the 30th degree of 

 north latitude is a sea of sand, in which are dispersed islands, or 

 Oases, containing springs of water and a flourishing vegetation. The 

 number of these Oases, of which the ancients only reckoned three, 

 and which Strabo compared to the spots on a panther's skin, has 

 been considerably augmented by the discoveries of modern travellers* 

 The third Oasis of the ancients, now called Siwah, was the Nomos 

 of Ammonia residence of priests, a resting place for caravans, and 

 the site of the temple of the horned Ammon and the supposed pe- 



