Lowest Point in the United States 



825 



for the lowest point a depth of 276 feet 

 below sea-level. Bennetts Well, which is 

 near this point, is 266 feet below sea-level. 

 These figures may be altered by two or 

 three feet when the final computations 

 are made, but they are probably not more 

 than three feet in error. The Geological 

 Survev now has elevation marks on the 

 highest and lowest points on dry land in 

 the United States. 



It is a strange coincidence that these 

 two extremes are both in southern Cali- 

 fornia and only 75 miles apart. jNIount 

 Whitney is a foot or two over 14,500 

 feet above sea-level, while Death Valley, 

 as above stated, is 276 feet below. Be- 

 fore the Salton Sink, also in southern 

 California, was flooded by the Colorado 

 River, it contained the lowest point of 

 dry land in the United States, a spot 287 

 feet below sea-level. 



Previous estimates of the depth of 

 Death Valley based on barometer read- 

 ings gave for the lowest point figures 

 varying from 250 to 450 feet below sea- 

 level. The level line of the Geological 

 Survey is believed to be the first accurate 

 determination of elevations in that local- 

 ity that has ever been made. 



IMAGINATION AND GEOGRAPHY 



THE following editorial from the 

 Boston Herald of November 23 is 

 reprinted here, as it is believed those 

 members of the National Geographic So- 

 ciety who have not seen the article will 

 be interested to read this appreciation of 

 the work of the organization : 



The National Geographic Society of Wash- 

 ington, D. C, is doing a work, through the 

 monthly publication of its magazine, which no 

 intelligent man or woman can afford to remain 

 ignorant of. Geography by itself is ordinarily 

 thought a dry subject. Geography, on the con- 

 trary, based on geologj' or the vivid presenta- 

 tion of the great physical features of the earth 

 on which depend all civilizations, customs, 

 avocations, sciences, and literatures, easily be- 

 comes one of the most fascinating of studies, 

 or even of mere cursory skits of reading. 



Strange to add, in its bearing on such af- 

 fections of the heart as ardent love of country 

 and patriotic pride in its great foreordained 

 . destinies, here is an agency the force of which 

 cannot be overstated. Indeed, the modern in- 

 novation of hatching chickens by incubators in- 

 stead of hens is simply nowhere compared with 



the system of hatching patriots of the stamp- 

 of William Tell by geologicak geography, as 

 exemplified in the faith and works of the Na- 

 tional Geographic Society of Washington, D. C.. 



This is no wild paradox. In truth, have not 

 the gravest historians insisted that the reason 

 why there is no such thing as the existence of 

 patriotic sentiment in China is solely due to 

 the fact that the human heart is incapable of 

 loving 400,000,000 fellow-creatures one knows 

 nothing about. They are a pure numerical 

 abstraction to a man. Of their lives, lan- 

 guages, aspirations, joys, and sorrows he is 

 ignorant of every concrete item, unless that 

 tliey all wear the national pigtail ; and so. even 

 this dangling appendage is not potent enough 

 to bind the people together in the chords of 

 universal love. 



Just the same used to be asserted of the 

 United States of America. The States were 

 too big, too broadly dispersed, too divergent 

 in interests, for any one to be capable of lov- 

 ing their multitudinous populations as fellow- 

 countrymen. All this, however, at any rate in 

 the eyes of the National Geographic Society of 

 Washington, is now rapidly being done away 

 with. It is getting effected through a vivid 

 appeal to the visual imagination which is en- 

 abling us all to see, in the mind's eye, our 

 whole country at once and as a whole. The 

 stupendous national enterprises already com- 

 pleted, or about to be inaugurated, are fast an- 

 nihilating all lines of geographical division, 

 and enlisting the minds and hearts of the scat- 

 tered millions in vast undertakings in which 

 all share a common interest and common pride. 



Let any one, for example, read the National 

 Geographic Society's article on "The Deep- 

 water Route from Chicago to the Gulf." Here is- 

 a project simply continental in scale, especially 

 when taken in connection with the immense 

 water routes already existing by way of the- 

 Great Lakes, from the head of Superior ■ to 

 Chicago itself. What does the vast scheme 

 imply? A 14-foot channel all the way to the 

 Gulf of Mexico. And what is meant by the 

 Mississippi River? Not a single stream, bu* 

 the stream and all its thousands of miles Oi 

 immense tributaries, the Missouri, Ohio, Ten- 

 nessee, Illinois, Arkansas, Red, and countless- 

 other rivers. 



The mind is fairly staggered in the attempt 

 to take in the millions of square miles of the 

 richest lands in the world this would open up. 

 And, best of all, the interests of the North,, 

 South, East, and West would be indivisibly 

 subserved by it. No more talk of congestions 

 of freight, when every powerful towboat could 

 tow from thirty to forty railway train loads. 

 The local is merged in the universal. It is no- 

 more New Orleans' special route than Duliith's 

 special route. And it is in this way — by a vivid 

 appeal to visual imagination — that the Nationat 

 Geographic Society essays to enable us to- 

 focus the whole country on each one's indi- 

 vidual eyeball, and so to abolish China. 



