110 HUTOHY OF 



highest point of the Alps is not above sixteen hundred. The 

 one, in other words, is above three miles high ; the otber about 

 a mile and a half. The highest mountains in Asia are Mount 

 Taurus, Mount Immaus, Mount Caucasus, and the mountains 

 of Japan.* Of these, none equals the Andes in height; al- 

 though Mount Caucasus, which is the highest of them, makes 

 very near approaches. Father Verbiest tells of a mountain in 

 China, which he measured, and found a mile and a half high.' 

 In Africa, the mountains of the Moon, famous for giving source 

 to the Niger and the Kile, are rather more noted than known. 

 Of the Peak of Teneriffe, one of the Canary Islands that lie 

 off this coast, we have more certain information. In the year 

 1727, it was visited by a company of English merchants, who 

 travelled up to the top, where they observed its height, and the 

 volcano on its very summit.* They found it a heap of moun- 

 tains, the highest of which rises over the rest like a sugar-loaf, 

 and gives a name to the whole mass. It is computed to be a 

 mile and a half perpendicular from the surface of the sea. Kir. 

 cher gives us an estimate of the heights of most of the other great 

 mountains in the world j but as he has taken his calculations in 

 general from the ancients, or from modern travellers, who had 

 not the art of measuring them, they are quite incredible. The 

 art of taking the heights of places by the barometer, is a new 

 and an ingenious invention. As the air grows lighter as we 

 ascend, the fluid in the tube rises in due proportion ; thus 

 the instrument being properly marked, gives the height with 

 n tolerable degree of exactness ; at least enough to satisfy cu- 

 riosity. 



Few of our great mountains have been estimated in this man- 

 ner ; travellers having, perhaps, been deterred, by a supposed 

 impossibility of breathing at the top. However, it has been in- 

 variably found, that the air in the highest that our modern tra- 

 vellers have ascended, is not at all too fine for respiration. At 

 the top of the Peak of Teneriffe, there was found no other in- 

 convenience from the air, except its coldness ; at the top of the 



• The Himalaya Mountains between Hindostan and Thibet are ascert.iinert 

 ti) be the highest in the world. The Andes were till a late period considered 

 to be the highest, but the most elevated peak, yet measured, of the Himalaya 

 exceeds that of the Andes about 7000 feet. 



I Verbiest, a la Chine. 2 Thil. Trans, vol. v 



