HYPSOMETRIC ADDENDA. 221 



Teguayo, the second on the Bio Gila, and the third not far from the 

 Presidio de Llanos. Lieutenant Abert found on the banks of the 

 Gila the same immense number of fragments of pottery ornamented 

 with painting, and scattered over a considerable tract of ground, 

 which had astonished the missionaries Francisco Garces and Pedro 

 Fonte in that locality. These remains of the products of human 

 skill are supposed to indicate the existence of a former higher civi- 

 lization in these now solitary regions. Remains of buildings in the 

 singular style of architecture of the Aztecs, and of their houses of 

 seven stories, are also found far to the eastward of the Rio Grande del 

 Norte ; for example, in Taos. (Compare Abert's Examination of New 

 Mexico, in the Documents of Congress, No. 41, pp. 489 and 581- 

 605, with my Essai pol. t. ii. pp. 241-244.) The Sierra Nevada of 

 California is parallel to the coast of the Pacific ; but between the lati- 

 tudes of 34 and 41, between San Buenaventura and the Bay of 

 Trinidad, there runs, on the west of the Sierra Nevada, another 

 (smaller) coast chain, of which Monte del Diablo, 3448 French, 3674 

 English feet high, is the culminating point. In the narrow valley, 

 between this coast chain and the great Sierra Nevada, flow from 

 the south the Rio de San Joaquin, and from the north the Rio del 

 Sacramento, on the banks of which, in rich alluvial soil, are the rich 

 gold-washings now so much resorted to. 



I have already referred, p. 43, to a hypsometric levelling, and to 

 barometric measurements made from the junction of the Kanzas 

 River with the Missouri to the Pacific, or throughout the immense 

 extent of 28 degrees of longitude. Dr. Wislizenus has now success- 

 fully continued the levelling began by me from the city of Mexico, 

 in the Equinoctial Zone, to the north as far as Santa Fe del Nuevo 

 Mexico, in lat 35 38'. It will be seisn, perhaps, with surprise, that 

 the elevated plain which forms the broad crest of r the Mexican 

 Andes is far from sinking down, as had long been supposed, to an 

 inconsiderable height. I give here for the first time, according to 

 the measurements which we at present possess, the elevations of 

 several points, forming a line of levelling from the city of Mexico to 

 ganta Fe, which latter town is less than four German (sixteen 

 English) geographical miles from the Rio del Norte, 



