324 COAST VOLCANOES. 



and spurs that widen towards the east. Travellers who 

 may at some future time pass over the unknown land 

 between Cape Mendocino and the source of the Rio Colo- 

 rado, may perhaps inform us whether the connexion of the 

 maritime Alps of California or New Albion, with the 

 western branch of the Cordilleras of Mexico, resembles 

 that, which, notwithstanding the depression, or rather total 

 interruption observed on the west of the Rio Atrato, is ad- 

 mitted by geographers to exist between the mountains of 

 the isthmus of Panama and the western branch of the 

 Andes of New Grenada. The maritime Alps, in the penin- 

 sula of Old California, rise progressively towards the north 

 in the Sierra of Santa Lucia (lat.34-1- ), in the Sierra of San 

 Marcos (lat. 37 38), and in the Snowy Mountains near 

 Cape Mendocino (lat. 39 41) ; the last seem to attain at 

 least the height of 1500 toises. From Cape Mendocino, 

 the chain follows the coast of the Pacific, but at the 

 distance of from twenty to twenty-five leagues. Between 

 the lofty summits ot Mount Hood and Mount Saint Helen, 

 in lat. 45f, the chain is broken by the River Columbia. 

 In New Hanover, New Cornwall, and New Norfolk, these 

 rents of a rocky coast are repeated, these geologic pheno- 

 mena of the fjords that characterize western Patagonia and 

 Norway. At the point where the Cordillera turns towards 

 the west (lat. 58f long. 139 40') there are two volcanic 

 peaks, one of which (Mount Saint Elias) perhaps equals 

 Cotopaxi in height; the other (Fair-Weather Mountain) 

 equals the height of Mount Rosa. The elevation of the 

 former exceeds all the summits of the Cordilleras of Mexico 

 and the Rocky Mountains, north of the parallel 19^ ; it is 

 even the culminant point in the northern hemisphere, oi the 

 the whole known world north of 50 degrees of latitude. 

 North-west 01 the peaks of Saint Elias and Fair-~Weather 

 the chain of California widens considerably in the interior 

 of Russian America. Volcanoes multiply in number as 

 we advance westward, in the peninsula of Alaska and the 

 Fox Islands, where the volcano Ajagedan rises to the height 

 of 1175 toises above the level of the sea. Thus the chain 

 of the maritime Alps of California appears to be under- 

 mined by subterraneous fires at its two extremities ; on 

 the north in 60 of latitude, and on the south, in 28, in the 



