NOTES, 



0) page 7. This expression is taken f .om a beautiful description of tropicU 

 Surest scenery by Bernardin de St.-Pierre, in Paul and Virginia. 



p. 9. The comparisons in the text are only approximate. The several 

 elevations above the level of the sea are more exactly as follows : The Schnee 

 or Riesenkoppe, in Silesia, 824 toises, according to Hallaschka. Rigi, 923 

 toises, taking the height of the lake of Lucerne at 223 toises from Eschmann, 

 (Results of the Trigonometrical Measurement in Switzerland, 1840, p. 230). 

 Athos, 1060 toises, according to Captain Gaultier. Pilatus, 1180 toises* 

 Etna, 1700.4 toises, or 10874 English feet, according to Captain Smyth; 

 1700.7 toises, or 10876 English feet, by barometrical measurement by Sir 

 John F. W. Herschel, which he communicated to me in manuscript in 1825 ; 

 1704 toises, or 10896 English feet, by angles of altitude taken by Cacciatora 

 at Palermo, and assuming the terrestrial refraction at 0*076. Schreckhora, 

 2093 toises. Jungfrau, 2145 toises, according to Tralles. Mont Blanc, 

 2467 toises, according to the results discussed by Roger in the Bibkotheque 

 Universelle, May 1828, pp. 24 53 ; 2460 toises, according to Carlini's 

 determination, taken from Mont Colombier ; 2463 toises, measured by the 

 Austrian engineers, from Trelod and the Glacier d'Ambin. [It should be 

 observed that the re^l height of the Swiss snow-capped mountains fluctuates, 

 according to EscLmai^u, as much as 3J toises, from the varying thickness ot 

 the snow covering]. Chimborazo, 3350 toises, according to my trigonome- 

 trical measurements, (Humboldt, Recueil d'Obs. astron. Tome i. p. 73). 

 Dhawalagiri, 4390 toises. All these elevations have been given in toises of 

 6 Parisian feet to a toise. As Blake's and Webb's determinations differ 



