204 PHYSICAL GEOGRAPHY. 



ment of Porter, true in 1820, ceased to be so nine years afterwards. Professor Parrot in 

 1829 effected the ascent of Ararat, and in 1834 the mountain was again scaled by 

 M. Autonomoff, in order to vindicate the reputation of the Prussian traveller, whose 

 veracity had been called in question by the Armenian ecclesiastics, and the American 

 missionaries Smith and Dwight. Its height is given at 17,260 feet, which exceeds by 

 1528 feet the highest elevation of Europe; but the table land of Armenia, from which it 

 rises, is stated by Ritter to be 7000 feet above the level of the sea. There is a far 

 greater elvation attained by some of the Himalayah Mountains, which separate the valleys 

 of Cashmere from Thibet, and present the loftiest projections to be found upon the ter- 

 restrial surface. On the west, Javaher rises to the height of 25,746 feet, and on the east, 

 Dhwalagiri, to 27,737 feet above the sea. The highest summit on the new continent was 

 once supposed to be Chimbora9o, in the Andean chain, and likewise the greatest altitude 

 on the surface of the globe, but it is now deprived of the distinction. Though 21,440 feet 

 above the level of the ocean, and one of the grandest objects in the great American 

 range, it is lower by nearly the whole height of Vesuvius than the Nevada di Sorata, in 

 the eastern cordillera of Peru. Our own Ben-Nevis has recently been shorn of a similar 

 honour. Long regarded as the monarch of the British mountains, it is now known to be 

 surpassed in height by Ben-Mac-Dui, in the group of Cairngorm, on the borders of Inver- 

 ness-shire. The mean height of the Andes, apart from projecting cones, is estimated at 

 6000 feet in Patagonia, 8000 in Chili, and 15,000 in Peru. 



The estimated heights of the principal mountains are given in the table below, but a 

 few of these have not been determined with accuracy. A remarkable instance of close 

 approximation in calculating the height of Etna, occurred between independent observers, 

 pursuing different methods, at distinct times, unknown to each other. The Sicilians, vain 

 of their mountain, attributed to it an elevation of 13,000 feet, which Captain Smyth, when 

 surveying in the Mediterranean, reduced by more than 2000, an abridgment which 

 raised no little anger and contention. The result was subsequently verified by Sir John 

 Herschel : " The height," observes the latter, " of the higher of the two summits of 

 Etna, which I measured barometrically in 1824, came out to be 10,8721 English feet 

 above the level of the Sea of Catania. Captain Smyth's result, with which I was not 

 acquainted till long after the calculation of my own, gave 10,874. I have also, some- 

 where or other, though I cannot lay my hands on it, a memorandum of a zenith distance, 

 observed by Cacciatore, of the summit of Etna, from Palermo ; the result of which, calcu- 

 lated by a terrestrial refraction index, concluded by Cacciatore and myself, from observ- 

 ations by him and myself, on Monte Cuccio, gave a total altitude of JEtna agreeing 

 within a very few feet indeed of the same ; so that I have no doubt the above is very 

 good, unless that summit have since been blown up or blown down.'' It has been 

 imagined that most of these chains are mutually connected, and form one grand consecu- 

 tive scheme of high lands stretching through the extent of both continents, in the form of 

 a vast irregular arch. Could a spectator command a view of the globe, supposing him to 

 stand in New Holland facing the north, he would see on his right hand a continuous sys- 

 tem of high mountains extending along the entire coast of America, linked with Asia by 

 the Aleutian Isles. He would see also a chain on his left hand running along the coast of 

 Africa, passing through Arabia into Persia, mingling there with the range that traverses 

 Europe from the Atlantic, and merging in the mountains of central Asia, which are con- 

 tinued north-easterly to Behring's Straits, and form the spine of the old world. Thus, 

 while these chains of mountains, when viewed in detail, appear isolated and utterly unsys- 

 tematic, yet when the globe is contemplated upon a grand scale, they seem to constitute 

 one immense range in the form of an irregular curve, with outshoots from it, bounding the 

 bed of the Pacific, on the north, east, and west. 



